Photographing your work - Questions

[Roger Chandler]

I finally bit the bullet this evening and ordered a photo-gradient background for taking pics of my turnings. I figured that since I have already invested in all this equipment to turn and have a Monster Hollowing rig on order, that I might as well be able to take decent pics of my turnings.

My question is about side and top lighting. Would a compact florescent spiral bulb be okay to use [daylight, or soft light?] Would I need a top light if I had both sides illuminated with a 60W bulb on each side?

Some of your pics are wonderful, and I need some tutoring in this matter...........thank you very much in advance..........I am truly grateful for the help fellow turners give on this forum.......a great group of people providing a great resource..........

[James Combs]

I use 4 lights, 60 watt color corrected incandescent (Lowe's) I have one on each side, one on the top and one in front as spot. You can check some of my posts to see how things photograph with them. I am not saying they are great but it is something to compare others to.

The item in the photobooth is a poor example though. However you can certainly see the difference in color between the booth lights and the overhead fluros.

[Roger Chandler]

Thanks, JD. I am looking forward to several replies with good info. Is your background color gray, blue......?

[James Combs]

Thanks, JD. I am looking forward to several replies with good info. Is your background color gray, blue......?

It is the graduated gray one that everyone seems to like, I forget the number of it. Hard to tell from my photo but it is graduated.

[Roger Chandler]

It is the graduated gray one that everyone seems to like, I forget the number of it. Hard to tell from my photo but it is graduated.

Thanks again, JD...........the one I ordered was gray also, but I think they had a lighter graduated and a darker graduated...........I think I ordered the darker one, because I like some of the pics I have seen with a black background, and I was concerned about a "washing out" effect with the lighter version. I hope I ordered the correct one!

[Bill Huber]

Roger, go take a look at this light tent I made a few years ago. You can make one any size you like and of you shoot your images in a RAW format you can use just about any lights.
The key is the white balance and a good tripod.

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

[Eric DeSilva]

Bill's right--doesn't matter whether you shoot flash, incandescent, CFL, sodium, or sun. As long as you shoot raw and don't mix light sources, you can always adjust the white balance in a decent photo editor.

Along those lines, shooting a decent digital photo is only the start. Unlike film, where there was someone generally adjusting things in a lab so your pictures looked nice, a lot of people skip post processing. That is a bad idea. I use Photoshop CS5, but you can also get free software like GIMP. At a minimum, I will: (i) adjust white balance; (ii) set white/black points; (iii) adjust contrast/brightness; (iv) crop (not only to size, but final resolution); and (v) sharpen. Often, I'll also add a slight vignette.

[Roger Chandler]

Bill and Eric,

Thank you both for the information.............I really appreciate your input here. It is good to know that the CFL will work. I will check out the photoshop software as well.

[Jim Koepke]

I think the most important tool for photography is a tripod.
My photos are not the greatest. I just use camera adjustments and at most crop them before posting.
Of course, most of the stuff in my posts is not of high artistic quality. Maybe if it was then I would want to tweak the images to perfection.

Just my 2¢ Two Cents.jpg

jtk

[Bill Huber]

I do not know what camera you are using but there is another program that will handle your needs other then Photoshop. I use Lightroom, it handles just about all my needs for editing. Photoshop will do a lot more but Lightroom handles the WB (white balance), cropping and the rest of the general photo editing work and you can do it very fast.

I can adjust WB, sharpness, tint, exposure, brightness and so on, on 100 images in less the 5 min., if all were take at the same time and same camera settings.

[Terry Wawro]

If you don't want to build a light tent, you can buy one on EBAY. Do a search for "light tent" and you will see a lot of options.

Here is one for $30 and that includes shipping.
eBay item # 180603671483

[Dan Hintz]

Yeah, purchased my light tent off of eBay... 24" cube, multiple backdrop colors, an it came with several lights. I think I paid about $40 shipped.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Roger - I use two of the CFLs that are Daylight or very close to it in color. I think daylight is supposed to be 5200*K and the lamps I have are around 5600 to 5900 - I don't remember which. One thing to take into consideration is that the higher you go away from natural daylight in color (higher temp rating) the more it becomes blue - the lower the temp is from daylight, the more yellow it becomes.

Bill gave you good advice in that it is the White Balance that you need to be concerned with. IF your camera allows you to adjust the white balance - then the lighting should not make any difference. However, if you have a point and shoot camera without an option to adjust the white balance - then you need to be aware of the colors that different lights give off.

As far as placement of the lights - I have one light low and on the left and one light that is above the subject on the right. Usually have to play games to get the shadows where I want but that is easy enough to do.

Another thing to consider is the graphics program you use. Very important for resizing but even more important if you have to adjust color and contrast.

[Roger Chandler]

Roger - I use two of the CFLs that are Daylight or very close to it in color. I think daylight is supposed to be 5200*K and the lamps I have are around 5600 to 5900 - I don't remember which. One thing to take into consideration is that the higher you go away from natural daylight in color (higher temp rating) the more it becomes blue - the lower the temp is from daylight, the more yellow it becomes.

Bill gave you good advice in that it is the White Balance that you need to be concerned with. IF your camera allows you to adjust the white balance - then the lighting should not make any difference. However, if you have a point and shoot camera without an option to adjust the white balance - then you need to be aware of the colors that different lights give off.

As far as placement of the lights - I have one light low and on the left and one light that is above the subject on the right. Usually have to play games to get the shadows where I want but that is easy enough to do.

Another thing to consider is the graphics program you use. Very important for resizing but even more important if you have to adjust color and contrast.

Thank You Sir! Steve I appreciate all the input I have gotten on this inquiry. Helpful folks on this forum sure do save us a lot of time and money by not having to reinvent the wheel every time we want to expand our turning world a little. Thanks also for placing this back here on the turners forum. Hopefully it will help other turners as well

[John Keeton]

Roger, let me add what I learned from Joe Aliperti, who I think takes some absolutely phenomenal pics of his beautiful pens he does. He uses shop lighting - no extra lights, and does a time exposure with a really tight f stop. My camera is limited, but I can set the f stop to 13.6, which gives me a significantly improved depth of field. My shutter speed readings on my camera are not in seconds, so I can't tell you the open time, but I have played with it enough to use just my shop flourescents, and account for the ambient light from my windows. On a bright day, I use a little faster shutter speed. I have found a significant improvement in the quality of my pics, including the white balance on them.