[RM]

I have seen many good photos of handguns on various forums. In fact, I been so impressed at times, that I downloaded pictures to be viewed again later. So what are the secrets to taking good pictures? Does it require a digital camera? Special lenses? What about lighting? Please share your secrets as I would like to take some good pictures myself some day.

[Marko Kloos]

I'm no Oleg Volk, but I've gotten good results primarily with natural lighting (no flash), and by taking lots of pictures.

Good lighting seems to be the key...outdoor pictures under natural light seems to come out best, while indoor pictures with flash tend to look the worst.

[agtman]

Yep, decent lighting, setting it up, ... and luck.

Mine was a cheap 35mm. I was surprised the pics were half way decent. But Oleg's are in a whole 'nother league.

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/2133760.jpg

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/2133787.jpg


More are here:

http//:www.pistolsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t=16441

[Justin]

Check out http://www.swatmagazine.com/primer.htm

They have info there for taking good pics of guns written by none other than Oleg Volk.:)

[Oleg Volk]

Ask Skunkabilly (http://www.skunkabilly.com) -- he does a great job using natural light. I'll post some details on Friday.

[laynlow]

I have invested countless dollars into my setup.

It consists of:
1. A TV dinner tray.
2. Backdrop of your choice.
3. One of those aluminum lamps with a Reveal light bulb.

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pubimage.asp?id_=1198701

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pubimage.asp?id_=932103

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pubimage.asp?id_=926106

My photos certainly are not the best, but they aren't bad either. One of these days I will get a digital camera with manual focus and my world will be so much better. I have also been meaning to build a light box.

[P95Carry]

These days I am a lazy sob ... digi-cam and if necessary its flash .... never very good for results.

In my freelance days tho ... using 35mm and 2 1/4 square etc ...... often used a ''light tent''.

If you can be bothered, this will help a lot when used with available light (otherwise ..... use two to three ''brolly'' electronic flash units).

Set up a small table ...... and by whatever means works .. drape a white sheet over the subject area ....... this collects light from sky/sun and gives a diffuse source ...... so, no real hard blocked up shadows ...... and highlights also controlled.

If you do this with a digi-cam then the pic's can be ''tweaked'' also, if needed, to change the gamma.

Lighting the subject is IMO more of an art than the taking of the pic! I'll try and do one ''properly'' one of these days and post result.

[Standing Wolf]

Using a digital camera is a lot like loading your own ammunition: you'll shot both more and better.

Read the Photoshop manual from cover to cover.

[Jim K]

OK, guys, I have a question/problem. I am not a photo newbie, having used various 35mm's for years. I bought a digital camera (Nikon 3100) and can get as far as Photoshop. I can edit, etc., but don't know how to get the result into a posting on this forum. Can anyone give me some KISS (keep it simple for Stupid) info on this. My software is Windows 95 with the Windows 98 upgrade, so maybe I am missing something.

Jim

[Oleg Volk]

Watch the light -- figure out which parts you want to reflect and which you don't. Soft, diffused light is generally more useful: a window and a reflector (folded pice of thick paper) on the other side, or a lamp and a piece of paper for a diffuser. I'll post some pics.

Read the Photoshop manual from cover to cover.


Or just the chapters on Levels, Curves, Color Balance and Unsharp masking.

[arinvolvo]

I have good luck with my digicam, and my bathroom lighting...all of that flourescent light in there turns out some nice pics.

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?postid=207012

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=202878

[Hakan]

Knowing that my pictures are not the best ones eighter, I do my best to capture the true natural colors of the wood grips I make rather than the looks of the pistol.

I actually use a older version of a Sony DV HandyCam which takes up the images on a 8mm video tape not on a memory brick.Viewing the object on the LCD screen lets me set up the best exposure for the picture......I can actually see how the results will be.I don't use any artificial lights or direct sunlight...instead,I use a piece of wrinkled aluminium foil to reftect the day light onto the object.

Here is a typical result with this camera and settings.

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=229502

[Tamara]

Unless you have a good off-camera unit with a diffuser, flash is not your friend. It will create nothing but glare and hot spots and icky shadows in weird places. Unless you spend your life walking around with a xenon bulb over your left eye, pictures taken with onboard flash just look wrong. (About the only time I use on-camera flash is for fill flash outdoors)

This was done with available light coming through the living room windows:

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=229696

[Mal H]

Jim Keenan - To answer your question, check out this thread: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1329 . It has a good explanation on most aspects of the image problem.

[larryw]

Ken Lunde has always impressed me with his photographic skills.

Check out the tips at the bottom of his wallpaper page (http://www.praxagora.com/lunde/firearms.html).

[cratz2]

laynlow, I love that middle Glock pic of yours... very cool!

I can sum up my entire knowledge into about two sentences. Stage under shade in good natural light, sometimes with a fill flash in natural light and get a non-reflective angle. Then take about 20 pics from slightly different distances and angles and use the best one. Photoshop can enhance a decent picture but can't fix a bad one. Alternatives to Photoshop are available for free and some are quite effective, or so I'm told.

I started taking pictures of my guns for insurance purposes and I have a Kodak DX3600 that I paid about $125 for as a last years model. And I'm not very imaginative when it comes to composition and backgrounds. Usually use a towel or short.

Some of the photos I think turned out very nicely:

http://photos.imageevent.com/cratz2/guns//9mmSpringfield3.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/cratz2/guns//BlueColt1.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/cratz2/guns//DCP_0908.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/cratz2/guns//DCP_0936.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/cratz2/guns//DCP_0783.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/cratz2/guns//SigPro1.jpg

[laynlow]

Thanks cratz2! :D

Looks like I went over my bandwidth limit today. :cuss:

[Mal H]

Man! I pity anyone with a slow dialup connection who tries to view this thread. It's already around 1.5 meg in images alone.

[Frenchy]

I have a cheap $112 Polaroid PDC640 that doesn't have sharp detail or a zoom of any kind.
A Cinder Block, a piece of material, a patch for added interest and natural light, tends to bring out the best in this camera.

http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auction/Apr/20034169837668397767531.jpg

[raz-0]

Ok, here are my entries.

We start off with a nikon coolpix 3100, a $20 floor lamp with auxiliary reading lamp, an end table lamp, a bed, and some
bedding. I'll combine the flash and the intial ambient picture into one to save space. Flash on left, incandescent on right.

http://www.bloodimage.com/be_bad_combo.jpg

now we clean up the gun, choose a less worn knife, adjust composition, choose a more appropriate layer of the bedding
for a backdrop, and figure out what some of thos darn settings in the camera are for, and add a sheet of 50% gray paper.

http://www.bloodimage.com/be_gerber_600.jpg

now we adjust composition, screw up a couple things (namely a defect in my backdrop not visible with the naked eye or in
other pictures), and sacrifice to the photoshop gods to fix it and make the reflections softer as well as hiding some of the
limitations of the autofocus and the minimal override available.

http://www.bloodimage.com/be_edi_boot_600.jpg

Life would also have been a LOT simpler and less time consuming with a cheap tripod. a LOT. Really the only things that are features of the camera that are necessary to achieve this are the ability to set a custom/manual white balance (as opposed to simply auto, or presets), and the ability to adjust the exposure. The former is a bit more rare, but the latter is pretty common.

The basic trick is that you need to use ambient light rather than a flash (not 100% true, but for the target audience, it's true). In order for colors to look right with ambient light, you need to set the white balance. If you are stuck with auto white balance, you are screwed, you get the greenish purple stuff at the top. Shoot outdoors, and use a reflector for fill light (cookie sheet works nicely). If you have presets, choose incandescent or flourescent as appropriate. With warm tinted flourescent bulbs, you're likely better of using the incandescent setting since they have been given a yellow cast. Ideally, though, you can set your whitebalance manually. at least on my camera this is done by focusing on something that is 50% gray and hitting the right button to set the white balance. Ideally, you should pack a piece of 50% gray paper in your camera bag. When fiddling around, I got pretty close using the pseudo-silvery plastic of a febreze auto bottle.

next up is adjusting your exposure. BAsically the rule of thumb for dealing with the stupidness of the auto exposure metering is that a picture that has a lot of dark colored stuf in it (like all that tactical black) should have the exposure reduced (-), and very brightly lit scenes, or very shiny things (like all that classic chrome on your revolver) should have the exposure increased (+). This is because the auto-exposure will likely set the exposre inappropriately. For an ambient lit scene with a dark gun, you will likely get the highlights blown out (really way too white with little detail visible) and the dark areas way too dark (also with little detail visible). However, the degree to which you need to reduce it is dependant on your cameras auto exposure, and the scene. You should take a several pictures of any setup that you like at multiple exposures.

As for lighting tips, you should stick to the basics. An intense light off to one side and a little in front of the subject, with a fill light of lesser intensity off to the other side, usually even with the subject, or just slightly to the front of the object. Move em around till it makes you happy and pleases your eye. I probably could have used a brighter fill light.

If you want to get extra fancy, you can use a rim light which is a light behind and above the subject to make it pop out form the background. But without having the gun propped up, being shiny, and on something that lets you hide a lamp behind your backdrop yet still poke over the top, it's going to be more trouble than it is worth.

Digital cameras tend to exagerate reds so be careful with them, black goes well with earth tones (like any muted green), and stainless goes well with wooden surfaces or things colored similarly. Not mandatory, but if you have no eye for color composition, it might come in hand as a guideline.

Oh yeah, and a silicone cloth to clean your prints off and make it all even colored is good. Then make sure to blow the lint off and get it out of the picture.

Full size image of the baby ealge with the edi genesis (126k) (http://www.bloodimage.com/be_edi_boot_full.jpg)

Full size image of the baby eagle with gerber parabellum (243k) (http://www.bloodimage.com/be_gerber_full.jpg)


Oh yeah, and one of the most useful sites for digital camera info before you go shopping (http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html)

[P95Carry]

Raz-O ..... you bring out some good points ..... which should prove helpful to many. Let me add just one thing tho .......

The LIGHT TENT ..............

I always prefer good ambient light (daylight) every time and would suggest that for pics of anything fairly limited in size this technique will always prove useful.

Make up some sorta frame ....... stiff wire is adequate .... and then drape a white sheet over that ... placing photo subjects under and inside this ''tent'' ...... the resulting diffuse light will pretty much avoid burning out highlights and blocking up shadows ........ the only thing that has to be guarded against is the camera being ''fooled'' if on auto exposure ........ I'd guess most would need some experimentation there.

I might add ... that it is ages since I took the trouble to take my pics ''properly'' ... I have gotten too lazy to set everything up these days. I resort to the ''quick fix'' way too often.


Oh and, one other device when flash can be OK ..... for handguns .... place gun inside shoe box on suitable material ... and direct flash (preferably two) ... such that light is reflected off shoe box walls (assuming thay are white .. if not cover with paper) ...... this helps soften lighting quite a bit.

[Monkeyleg]

Lots of good points here.

If your local camera store has some translucent acetate material, buy some and make a simple 4'x4' frame out of 1" x 2" wood strips. Stretch the acetate over your frame, and you've got a diffuser that you can use outside.

Just place your gun/knife/whatever under your diffuser, and let the sun provide the light.

Here's an example of a knife photo taken outdoors with such a diffuser: http://www.shootersshop.com/ChrisReeve.html

[DF357]

Hi Guys. A newbie here. Just found this great site.

Just lay the piece on the scanner. This was set for black and white. Try laying a cloth on it for a background.

Like I said - not perfect but pretty good sometimes.

http://www.90thdivisionassoc.org/cs45-1.jpg

http://www.90thdivisionassoc.org/cs45-3.jpg

[P95Carry]

DF357 .. big welcome to THR ..... :)

You are indeed correct . it is surprising what can be done with a scanner ... your results are very acceptable.

One small warning tho .. I use my scanner for quite critical images and it is way too easy to create a mark on the glass .... however careful....... done it!!

[762x51]

Just got a new digital camera the other day....Dr. Lunde's tips really helped me. Still have some reading, and experimenting to do. Anyone have any tips for optimizing for online posting? I shrunk these in photoshop to 800x600 and medium quality.

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=296678

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=296516

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=296521

[agony]

I still use an old Nikon F4 or F3 with 35mm film....remember that film stuff? ;)
Two umbrellas with flash. Then I transfer the developed film to CD.
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=296569

[agony]

Or use a single umbrella for a more dramatic effect:
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=296574

[P95Carry]

762x51 Anyone have any tips for optimizing for online posting? I shrunk these in photoshop to 800x600 and medium quality. Great pics but my input on this size matter would be .......

I still use dial up ... partly necessity. IMO a suitable max file size for a pic should be no more than 50K ..... your first one is 104k I think. This pic at 800x600 is also IMO excessive ... I use a 21" monitor and so have my browser quite big (not maximaized tho) ..... and even with that, a pic of 800 wide pushes out of the browser to right ... necessitating scrolling horizontally .... to me that's a pain in the a$$!!

I use Micrografx Picture Publisher . always have, but use Photo Shop too occasionally. I'd suggest that (for me) linear interpolation works best and if you downsize your image to no bigger than 600 (500 is often enough) pixels wide .. and then compress with JPG compression at about 15:1 ratio .. you should finish up with a very acceptable pic, that FITS the browser too!! A 500 wide could well finish up no bigger than 35-40k filesize .... it'll download quick and not go out of the frame.

Even if I had broadband .. I'd still be bothered by these excessively wide pics ..... they are annoying to me, however good the quality ...... and this is not an image board ... they are only needed to amplify text or even when standing up by themselves ........ just be large enough to see clearly.

BTW .... very often people could usefully crop instead of having to reduce ..... and still keep the main subject easily ....... just loosing some (pretty frills).

Worst thing is ... a page full of huge pics .... I want to see them all but when some are 100-200k each ... it gets real tedious!

OK .... moan over!!

[762x51]

Thanks for the tips. My computers are all running at 1280x1024 resolution and are on broadband so I forget sometimes that others don't see things the way I do. :)

I'll try your suggestions and see how they come out. :cool:

[P95Carry]

762x51

meant to have added ..... I run 1152 x 864 res on my 21" mon ..... and can see if you have 1280x1024 working for you then indeed .... might be hard to see the effects with the big pics.

I would suggest (for anyone) .... using something as a guide .. see what your browser looks like when approx 800 x 600 on your screen ...... I tend to do this, keeping browser to around that size ... and, always work cascaded most of time too as against full screen.

I know these days probably many run 1024 but it is a safe assumtion that many are also stuck on 800 x 600 ... with my web work I use this as a base line, so as to avoid them having to keep scrolling too much horizontally. Doing this means that 600 pix width is about a max.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One other point too .. with attachments ... the bigger they are, the more bandwidth they eat up ..... which affects the board's useage figures over time.

[mec]

my web pictures are all 640x480 and generall under 100kb. the digital lets you preview your results and make corrections on the spot.
There are a lot of close up gun picture situations that will fool a camera meter so, with a 35 millimeter its advisable to bracket widely. ( shoot to the meter, then take some with the apeture more open and then stopped down) -or meter a grey card and do the same.
This, for instance is a meter fooling set up and a half. With the camera on automatic, the picture would be a muddy grey:
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=297768

[tetchaje1]

Natural light is always the best. Use a tripod, and a remote shutter switch, if possible to help with camera shake. These are with a simple, non-zooming, point and shoot, 3.4Mp digital camera. :)

Smith and Wesson Performance Center 15-9
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-4/101221/HGLBKQDK[BNWKWJORCWY-Smith_PC_15-9.jpg

Colt Delta Elite Gold Cup
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-4/101224/SNXSHQNIBLRJRPMGLJIP-Delta.jpg

Steyr M40
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-1/88102/RQCYNJLRDIIZTCDKHMOS-M40_Small4.JPG

CZ75B with Firepoint Sight (since sold...)
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-2/87745/KRXNIXJWFSTOECEUCODA-CZ75_small1.jpg

[Skunkabilly]

http://www.skunkabilly.com/images/e2_cf.jpg

And not a handgun but...
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=250455

I never really liked natural light, it dictated where and when I could shoot, and living with other guys, I can't really turn my place into a studio.

[raz-0]

optimizing jpegs for size:

really, if you are squshing an image down to 800x600, you can throw away a lot more information than you think. The 2 jpegs I posted were saves at approximately 45% quality, and I probably could have squeezed it down a bit more, but I was being picky. Also cutting down the size from the 1280x960 or MUCH larger that even consumer grade digital cameras spit out, saves a lot. My pictures started as some insane resolution I couldn't even display reasonably on my monitor at 1600x1200. So I cropped them for composition, and scaled them. They came out of the camera at over a megabyte each, and by cutting them down, and compressing them more, I reduced them to less than 25% of their size, and they still look nice.

Then I made web-friendlier versions that are 800x600 or less and under 65k. (tried for about 25 second or less download times for a 56k dialup connection)

If you have photoshop 6 or later (don't know if 5 has it), try file->save for web. It'll bring up a preview widow, you can choose 4-up, and adjust each of the 4 preview panes for what looks good, or you can optimize for a given file size as a menu option (little trinagle in a circle device to the right of the adjustment sliders). It also gives you an estimated download time for each quality setting at a given connection speed.

If you are going to go past 75k or so, it is usually polite to make it a url rather than an inline image.


image hosting:
It is better for the high road (and most forums in general) if you host your pictures yourself someplace not on their servers. Most ISPs give you 5-10mb of personal web space and some means of putting your pictures and other junk on it.

If you want to serioulsy put up a gallery, or bigger stuff (like uncompressed versions of your pictures, or avi/mpeg/mov files), you need to get yourself some web hosting.

I've been recommended the two following as good hosts with lots of storage and transfer for a cheap price.

http://www.ipowerweb.com/products/index.html

http://www.lunarpages.com/hosting.html

The main difference is that the first one gives you 30GB of transfer a month and anonymous ftp, the second gives you only 20gb/month, but allows sub-domains and domain parking.

[gudel]

i have some.. just using window light, no umbrellas or light boxes.
Camera is Canon S45

http://members.cox.net/mynetstat/800/alone.jpg

http://members.cox.net/mynetstat/800/dark.jpg

http://members.cox.net/mynetstat/800/variety.jpg