photographing guns

Another thing to consider: While you can take very good photos with a good point-and-shoot; if your camera has a viewfinder, use it for ALL of your freehand shots. If it doesn't, like just about all of them nowadays because apparently using a camera correctly is just too hard, use a tripod. Even the best image stabilzation isn't always enough.
And for the love of John Moses Browning if your shooting indoors make sure all of your man-made lighting is incandescent. Nothing ruins photos like flourescent lighting.
Anyone else agree that digicam makers should have made the screen usable ONLY for reviewing photos?

bac1023,

That is a SWEET Strayer-Voigt! How does it shoot?

Macro can make for some interesting pictures as well. Here are a few I did recently with very basic lighting.

jwPhotographer,

Those are some excellent photos. I think a Colt 1911 in Royal Blue ought to be your next subject, if you're taking requests

Jason

No flash

Tungsten light only macro setting.

Lovely macros there. None of my cams have a live LCD view capability.

I prefer strobes to continuous lighting.

I've become very sloppy with my photos and don't often bother to correct the red or blue tints that come from shooting in poor light. I also don't use a tripod, which is a must for anyone who wants breathtakingly sharp photos.

White balance also is critical. Use your manual settings on your digital camera to set the white balance and use a white sheet of paper. Simply put, the best tips I can offer:
If you can afford Photoshop Elements, there's a color balance setting that lets you place the cursor over a white or gray area and it will color correct. That's very hand when you want good color.

Don't shoot in the full sunlight. Film/digital sensors cannot distinguish between a wide range of exposure like the human eye can. Either the white will be overexposed or the black will be underexposed. If shooting at a blued gun, use one full f/stop overexposure and tweak from there. (Many photos of blued guns are horribly underexposed.) Don't hesitate to shoot in the shade, where the light is naturally diffused. For quick and dirty white balance choose the "flash" setting (but don't actually use the flash). It should add a touch of warmth to the photo to offset the blue of the shadow.

Last but not least, install and use the software that came with the camera. Most of that software will let you correct for the optical distortion of the lens. Otherwise, you'll get parts that aren't straight from pincushion or barrel distortion. Getting rid of the distortion is critical if you're using a wide angle lens close up.




This picture is pretty good in all respects of lighting and
background. Good depth of field and utilization of space.




This picture, on the other hand, is too bluish. It could have easily
been fixed in Photoshop afterwards or at the time of the taking if the
white balance had been set properly. Note, too, the slight distortion
in the barrel. That's called "barrel distortion," though it doesn't have
anything to do with the gun's barrel!

I am no professional. I built my own light box with black and white 3 ring binders. I used a $100 digital camera and a book as a tripod and two work lights for good lighting.

My handgun sold quickly:

Nice work NWilliams, I like the black gun on the dark background, while keeping good contrast.

The following advice is excellent, and all the factors mentioned are important to consider and a great starting point.

In my photo shooting, however...

Use a tripod (I never do because I use artificial lighting. I prefer to hand hold in order to frame the shot the way I want.)
Adjust your white balance (Again, this depends on the quality of your light source.)
Shoot at an f/8 or f/11 for decent depth of field
Always shoot at least .5 of an f/stop overexposure Interesting. If anything, I always underexpose a bit. I'd rather deal with shadows and dark areas in Photoshop instead of the more difficult highlights to correct. Again, light source [and camera!] dependent.)
Bracket your most critical shots (Good advice. I prefer to look at the shot on my LCD and adjust. Sometimes it isn't a bracketing issue.)
Focus on the mid-point of the gun to maximize depth of field

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here are a couple variations of a pic that my GF took of her friend w/ her StarBM for a student film shoot a couple of years back. Shes a pro photographer now, so I need to get her shoot a few of my favorites sometime.




And yes, I had triple checked it to ensure it was empty before they started using it.

Digital cameras have such deep DOF that it's hard to get it wrong anyway.

Click to expand...

Yup...tough to get selective focus these days with digital cameras. However, I use a digital SLR. Makes it easier to get the depth of focus that I prefer.

I use a low end Canon A560. It's a decent camera with a nice macro and good manual controls. I find shooting matte finish guns easy, polished guns are another thing. I have found that for me it better if I use low light and long exposure on the highly polished nickle and blue guns.



These were just taken outside on a cloudy day and the 625 turned out just fine.

The bright blue pre-14 pictures were taken at the same time under the same light and did not come out so well.

Albatross, I think that if you ran your photos through NoiseNinja, you'd be golden.

I'm a member of another forum (pbnation.com) and they had a sub forum that i really liked. It was all about photography. Most of the stuff in it had nothing to do with paintball, but just helping people with pictures, giving them pointers and other things. I always check out the "show me your ______ gun" threads just because there are so many ways to photograph guns and so many cool pictures out there.

Does anyone know where to submit the idea to get a photography sub forum here on THR? I think it would be a cool addition.

I'm no expert photographer, but its something I've always wanted to get into. (but I decided to buy my Beretta instead of a nice camera)

Some fantastic photos here. Frandy's pictures have always been some of my favorites.

I've attempted to build a lightbox once, failed miserably at that. From then on, I took all my gun pictures outside.











Amateurish compared to most here, but like shooting I'm still learning..

Open shade or a heavily overcast day will give good light for photographs. Shadows are softened, contrast is moderated and details record well. Here's a picture of my 1927 Argentine .45ACP that was taken on an overcast day.

My professional photography focus has always been people and events, not things. You guys are challenging me like crazy! I'd love to see a photography forum on here. I never thought I see Noise Ninja mentioned on a gun forum.

No lightbox used here, I just shoot in the corner or against a white wall...