How do you take your photos?

[odie]

If you'll click on the link at the bottom, you'll see my home brew photography of my bowls. I'm not happy at all with the photos I'm taking. I'm looking for some quick suggestions on how to clean up my act!

I'm using a Cannon S30 on a tripod, 2 sec delay, automatic exposure, no flash, ceiling and side lamps on a rug surface.

Thanks for any suggestions you may have......

otis of cologne

 

[Allen Alexopulos]

Hi Odie,

There is a web-viewable how-to-do-it guide to photographing turned art that is posted on the Chesapeake Woodturners website. You can link to it directly by clicking "Photographing your turned work". The presentation is pretty basic but might give you an idea or two as to how to improve your photography techniques.

-Allen

 

[John Martin Jr.]

Odie,

Checkout these sites that will also give you a few ideas.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html

http://www.studiolighting.net/homemade-light-box-for-product-photography/

http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box_light_tent

http://www.wikihow.com/Create-an-Inexpensive-Photography-Lightbox

 

[Griesbach]

Odie,
try this link. Lots of people use this Phrugal Photo setup.

http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/shop/articles_795.shtml

 

[Burt Alcantara]

Wal-Mart sells a table top photo studio for $50. I believe it comes with lights. You could make your own with inexpensive PVC parts.

Burt

 

[john lucas]

I teach people to use the light tent made from PVC, white material and quartz work lights. It's easy to store inexpensive and works great. I've taught a lot of classes and people have great success with it. I don't use it much at work anymore because I have a lot of expensive equipment that lets me work better and faster. I do use it occasionally for jewelry.
Jamie's Frugal system also works well. All the systems require some tweaking to get really good photos. If you set one up and have trouble or questions just post them here. Jamie and I both monitor this site and as you can tell there are a lot of other sharp people who can answer your questions.

 

[Ken Grunke]

I looked at several of the pictures of your turnings and couldn't quite pin it down right away but it looks like each picture has a little bit of blurriness in it. But some parts in each image looked sharp. My theory is, that you are focusing on the middle of the image, and lack enough depth of field to get sharpness at the edges of each turning.
If you increase your light, you can stop down the lens aperture to get a broader depth of focus from front to back. Again, just my theory. The brighter your light, the better quality image you can end up with, in general because of not only a smaller lens aperture, but a higher shutter speed. Even on a tripod, you can get a tiny bit of movement.

I'd say the best shot of all was the deep Koa bowl--what ever you did there, you did right but it looks a little bit of out-of-focus on the back rim of the piece.

I'd also recommend using a smooth white backdrop instead of the carpet, it will give your pics a clean, professional look. You can make a white backdrop darker towards the top by focusing the light source only on the foreground and the piece itself. I've done that with a large portion of the pieces in my Gallery if you want to take a look.

 

[odie]

Wow, hey there's a lot of information to absorb here!

I kinda thought the dark colored rug could be part of the problem. I was looking for a white rug, when I bought the others......but, no such luck!

I'm thinking maybe some additional light might not be a bad idea, too! I'll work on getting more light!

The "blurriness" is a problem. I'm using an automatic shutter setting, so exposure is whatever the automatic gizmos set it at.

Most of the bowls in my gallery are gone now......so, those cant be redone.....but, I'm really looking forward to getting better pictures in the future.

Thanks to all who responded.......there's enough information for me to chew on......and take some appropriate actions.

otis of cologne

 

[john lucas]

Odie keep my e-mail and write whenever you have a problem. I shoot art work professionally almost every day so I've learned a thing or two over the last 20 years of doing this. I'll be glad to help.
You don't necessarily need more light, you need more depth of field. To get that you must stop the lens down to a smaller aperture. When you do that you will get a longer shutter speed. You need a tripod to use longer shutter speeds. A tripod also makes it easier to focus exactly where you need to get the best focus. More light will make you shutter speeds shorter if you use the same aperture but adding more lights (not just a brighter light) will often add more problems.

 

[odie]

Odie keep my e-mail and write whenever you have a problem. I shoot art work professionally almost every day so I've learned a thing or two over the last 20 years of doing this. I'll be glad to help.
You don't necessarily need more light, you need more depth of field. To get that you must stop the lens down to a smaller aperture. When you do that you will get a longer shutter speed. You need a tripod to use longer shutter speeds. A tripod also makes it easier to focus exactly where you need to get the best focus. More light will make you shutter speeds shorter if you use the same aperture but adding more lights (not just a brighter light) will often add more problems.

Hey, thanks for the offer John.......

Question: When you say "depth of field", are you speaking of the distance the camera is to the subject matter? All my bowl photos are taken with the camera about 2-3ft away. The Camera has a close up setting, which I've used. Would it be better to increase that distance?

Sorry if my questions seem a little novice, but I really don't have much interest in cameras. All I want is to get some good clear shots of my bowls, but don't want to spend a lot of time and effort learning about the darn things!

Thanks

otis of cologne

 

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Odie,
I think you just exposed your problem. Depth of field is the range from the camera in which objects are "in focus". By positioning your camera so close, you are probably dramatically reducing the available depth of field. If you back off to about 5 feet or so, and then zoom in a little, you will increase your depth of field and be able to have both front and back in focus. I’m no expert on this subject; perhaps John will chime back in. Good luck.

 

[john lucas]

Depth of field is the area on each side of the focus point that is still considered to be in focus. That's why we recommend focusing 1/3 of the way through the bowl. Depth of field typically increases 1/3 in front and 2/3's behind when you stop down the lens. f8 has more depth of field that f4.
There are several factors that affect depth of field and people get these confused. Distance from the subject will affect depth of field. for example if you move further away you get more depth of field but that assumes that the subject s smaller in the frame. If you zoomed the lens in to make the subject the same size then you have the same depth of field as the previous photo. Is that confusing or what. An easy way to increase the depth of field is to back away so the subject is smaller and then crop it later on your computer. That assumes of course that you have enough megapixels to do that without losing resolution.

 

[Joe Greiner]

I can't put my hands on my reference (in a box somewhere), but Google is our friend. Google ["depth of focus" "circle of confusion"], with quotes to marry the keywords. (Yes it's really called that.) AFAIK, The minimum feasible size of the circle for photography will be the grain size for film emulsions, or the pixel size on the CCD of a digital camera. More than you ever wanted to know.

Joe

 

[odie]

Thank you for your responses, gentlemen.

It might be a few days before I get a round tuit, but I'm going to play around with that depth of field. I have on the list to get a clip-on light to add to the lighting. I do sort of like that green rug. If I can get the pics to work with it, the rug might stay!

Thanks for giving me some basis for proceeding with a plan!

otis of cologne