My "Pistol Wallpaper Page"

[Martini13]

Thanks Ken. The P99 40S&W is now on my desktop

 

[lunde]

Walther P5 Compact photos will be live by morning...

 

[P95Carry]

Hey Lunde ... your on a roll!

 

[David S]

no all black p99?

 

[lunde]

I own two all-black P99s, so I might be able to get some photos of them up soon.

 

[David S]

awesome
take one looking at the gun from the back........

 

[lunde]

I took the all-black P99 photos about thirty minutes ago. It is of my .40 Auto one. One of the shots is sort of from the rear-bottom. The photos will go live in the morning, so you'll see. They turned out pretty well.

 

[David S]

keep up the good work

 

[Kevlarman]

Yeah, I don't like flash when taking pics either.

Can you tell us how you set it up? What kind of background did you use? Any external lights, shades, etc?

 

[lunde]

The background is a denim button shirt (a "Walther" one that I bought from Walther America is used as the background for most of the shots). It is laid flat on one of my daughter's play tables. The back of the shirt has the most plain surface area, so that is what is used. The lighting is the fluourescent lighting in my kitchen.

Someone once asked me to describe the techniques that I use, and I wrote it all down in an email. Here it is:

The first thing to remember is to never (ever) use a flash. It destroys the photo. I prefer natural light, but when that's not available, such as at night, I prefer fluorescent. My camera has four light settings: direct sunlight, indirect sunlight (cloudy), incandescent, and fluorescent. I need to set this correctly, according to the light source, otherwise the photo may turn out with a strange color (either too reddish or too blueish). Other aspects are important, and depend on your camera's features:

1) Careful focus. I always manually focus my camera when taking such photos. When adjusting the focus, my camera automatically zooms in to maximum. This lets you more easily confirm correct focus.

2) Use a tripod and a remote release. My camera came with a wireless remote release.

3) Use a small aperture (that is a high "f" number). This allows less light through the lens, but it increases the depth of field. The greater the depth of field, the greater the range of distances that can be in focus at the same time. This doesn't help when taking side views, but when one end of the weapon is significantly closer to the camera than the other end, it allows the entire weapon to be in focus. Also, because less light is coming through the lens, you need to increase the exposure time, often to more than a second. Steadiness is thus critical. See #2 above.

4) Post-process in an image-manipulation application. I use Photoshop, and use a combination of "Auto Levels," "Auto Contrast," and "Auto Color" to enhance the photos, and improve the color. Sometimes I use all three, but sometimes only one or two of these settings. It depends on the photo. If the color is really bad, I typically "Desaturate," which essentially takes away all color, resulting in grayscale. I feel that desaturating is better than poor color.

5) For posting to the web, I resize the image to be ten inches wide (720 pixels). They end up being about 100K, which is reasonable. My photos are all set to 720x540 pixels. They begin at 2048x1536 from the camera. Photoshop lets me resize. I resize after I post-process them (see #4). I also keep full-size (2048x1536) versions for use as computer desktops.

My camera is an Olympus C-3030 Zoom. My wife bought it for me two years ago.

I hope this helps...

 

[lunde]

I just updated the page again, with a couple changed photos (increasing the depth of field, or adjusting the focus), and some new ones (HK P7M13). I also added a section at the end that provides digital photography tips as they apply to firearm photos.

Enjoy!

 

[P95Carry]

You're doin good Lunde ........ as an addition tho to your tips re dig photography ... may i add the following which might be of use to some if interested.

Digital Image Info

I added this to my site some time back, to help people who were maybe new to digital image matters .... if it helps anyone I'm well pleased.

 

[denfoote]

That was excellent, Dr Lund!!

 

[lunde]

A few more Sig photos were added, and some of the photos were retaken, such as the desaturated (greyscale) Sig photos. They were originally desaturated because the color sucked. I retook them last night, and got better color, so they are now in color. Enjoy!

 

[JimC]

P95Carry,

Many thanks for the link to your site. There's a lot of useful info there. It will definitely come in handy for the photos on my web site.
Sometimes taking them drives me nuts!

 

[P95Carry]

Glad of some help Jim C ........ as far as takin em goes ..... practice!!

 

[lunde]

P95Carry,

I, too, learned a lot from that page. Thank you for sharing it.

 

[P95Carry]

I too, learned a lot from that page. Thank you for sharing it.QUOTE] You are most welcome Sir.

It is a pleasure to be able to share info ... it's all part of the immense power we enjoy on the web ... info exchange.