I’ve been cleaning out the garage and attempting to sell things online that I no longer want. That means a doing some quick product photography – which is a lot harder than it might seem. For fun, I threw in one of my favourite compasses. This is the US army issue lensatic compass, which has tritium markings that make the compass readable in the dark.

I put the compass in a low-cost white photo tent and illuminated it from the top and sides with three basic worklights with daylight bulbs. I added a circular polarizing filter to my lens to eliminate the glare on the glass, which was bad otherwise.

My first photos showed lots of dust in the nooks and crannies, so I had to scrub the compass with a toothbrush and then use compressed air to remove the dust.