BerettaNut92
Member
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2002
- Messages
- 9,723
PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY
1. SETTING UP THE SHOOT AREA.
I use my bed to shoot photos. I shoot in the bedroom because I have a vaulted ceiling in the living room and lower ceilings are better, since I bounce the flash off the ceiling, it puts the 'light source' much closer. IF YOU HAVE ANY COLOR OTHER THAN WHITE ON YOUR CEILING, STOP READING because the rest of this isn't going to do you any good at all. My bed sits almost a yard off the ground because my mattress is on top of six 25-gallon Rubbermaid tubs with my SHTF stash for when blue-helmeted alien paratroopers invade Orange County. Actually they're storage bins because I have moved 9 times in the last 6 years, I'm not a big fan of real furniture...anyway....
For my backdrop, I usually lay clothing or a pack or bag on the bed, something that goes along with the theme and will take up the whole frame. What I mean by 'theme' is because I usually am taking pictures of guns and knives, I have my Royal Robbins pants and pants or Camelbak as a backdrop. Arranging your guns, knives and stuff is a matter of trial and error. You'll develop an eye for it, but it's something I can't really explain. It's like music, without experiencing doing it yourself, you can only explain so much what sounds good, what works and what doesn't, but you can't really definite it. It just is.
2. SETTING UP YOUR CAMERA
Now here's where the hotshoe flash and all that stuff about your camera's interface I keep harping about comes into play. I point the hotshoe flash straight towards the ceiling. What this does is make your ceiling a big flash umbrella. Kind of. It's not perfect, but this guide is for minimalists, not for well-equipped professionals. The flash will be pointing your direction and your eyebrows may feel a little warm, just don't look into the thing when it goes off, okay? If any of your indoor lighting is on, set your camera to 'tungsten', or else you may get a yellowish tinge to your photos. While many modern cameras are smart enough to shoot on full-auto most of the time, the most consistent boo-boo I have seen is the auto-white balance can't really figure out when to transition over to the 'tungsten' setting.
Your camera should...MUST have a focus lock indicator. Messing with auto-focus on anything but an SLR just plain sucks. If you can't lock focus, enable the macro mode, and see if that helps, as you may be too close for the camera to lock on. If it doesn't lock on, you'll get a shot that is soft or more likely, blurry. After you lock the focus, take a shot. Depending on the power of your flash, brightness and reflectivity (is that a real word?) of your subjects, your photo may be too light or too dark. Bump your exposure settings up and down a few thirds and see if that helps, or set the time exposure thingy (Tv on my camera) up or down.
3. DIGITAL EDITING
In Photoshop, it's easier to take something dark and make it lighter than it is to take something bright like a Leatherman or a stainless steel slide and try to salvage any detail out of it by cranking the brightness. If there's any bright and reflective parts in my photos, I like to set my exposure so those parts are about right, which will leave all my matte stuff a little dark. Highlight the light stuff, do an inverse select which will then select everything but your stainless slide or whatever. This way, you can crank up the brightness on your dark areas so it's more balanced. You'll be surprised how much detail you can get back, even if it appears too dark when you review it on your camera's display. If the light parts are washed out no matter what, try pointing the flash in different directions, or make sure the mirror-shiny frame on your 1911 isn't reflecting the light from the ceiling straight back into your camera, i.e. fiddle around by minutely adjusting the angle of your subjects, and try pointing your flash somewhere else like the corner of the room instead of straight up.
Finally, because I'm too lazy to read everything about Photoshop, I let the software figure it out by hitting 'auto-adjust'. Sometimes Photoshop over-compensates. For example, I may have a slightly orangish tinged photo that appears slightly washed out and dark. I hit auto-adjust and Photoshop makes it a trifle too blueish, cranks the contrast up way too high. What you do is duplicate the layer, then auto-adjust the top layer, then set the transparency to 50%. This puts you smack dab in the middle.
Hope this helps.
1. SETTING UP THE SHOOT AREA.
I use my bed to shoot photos. I shoot in the bedroom because I have a vaulted ceiling in the living room and lower ceilings are better, since I bounce the flash off the ceiling, it puts the 'light source' much closer. IF YOU HAVE ANY COLOR OTHER THAN WHITE ON YOUR CEILING, STOP READING because the rest of this isn't going to do you any good at all. My bed sits almost a yard off the ground because my mattress is on top of six 25-gallon Rubbermaid tubs with my SHTF stash for when blue-helmeted alien paratroopers invade Orange County. Actually they're storage bins because I have moved 9 times in the last 6 years, I'm not a big fan of real furniture...anyway....
For my backdrop, I usually lay clothing or a pack or bag on the bed, something that goes along with the theme and will take up the whole frame. What I mean by 'theme' is because I usually am taking pictures of guns and knives, I have my Royal Robbins pants and pants or Camelbak as a backdrop. Arranging your guns, knives and stuff is a matter of trial and error. You'll develop an eye for it, but it's something I can't really explain. It's like music, without experiencing doing it yourself, you can only explain so much what sounds good, what works and what doesn't, but you can't really definite it. It just is.
2. SETTING UP YOUR CAMERA
Now here's where the hotshoe flash and all that stuff about your camera's interface I keep harping about comes into play. I point the hotshoe flash straight towards the ceiling. What this does is make your ceiling a big flash umbrella. Kind of. It's not perfect, but this guide is for minimalists, not for well-equipped professionals. The flash will be pointing your direction and your eyebrows may feel a little warm, just don't look into the thing when it goes off, okay? If any of your indoor lighting is on, set your camera to 'tungsten', or else you may get a yellowish tinge to your photos. While many modern cameras are smart enough to shoot on full-auto most of the time, the most consistent boo-boo I have seen is the auto-white balance can't really figure out when to transition over to the 'tungsten' setting.
Your camera should...MUST have a focus lock indicator. Messing with auto-focus on anything but an SLR just plain sucks. If you can't lock focus, enable the macro mode, and see if that helps, as you may be too close for the camera to lock on. If it doesn't lock on, you'll get a shot that is soft or more likely, blurry. After you lock the focus, take a shot. Depending on the power of your flash, brightness and reflectivity (is that a real word?) of your subjects, your photo may be too light or too dark. Bump your exposure settings up and down a few thirds and see if that helps, or set the time exposure thingy (Tv on my camera) up or down.
3. DIGITAL EDITING
In Photoshop, it's easier to take something dark and make it lighter than it is to take something bright like a Leatherman or a stainless steel slide and try to salvage any detail out of it by cranking the brightness. If there's any bright and reflective parts in my photos, I like to set my exposure so those parts are about right, which will leave all my matte stuff a little dark. Highlight the light stuff, do an inverse select which will then select everything but your stainless slide or whatever. This way, you can crank up the brightness on your dark areas so it's more balanced. You'll be surprised how much detail you can get back, even if it appears too dark when you review it on your camera's display. If the light parts are washed out no matter what, try pointing the flash in different directions, or make sure the mirror-shiny frame on your 1911 isn't reflecting the light from the ceiling straight back into your camera, i.e. fiddle around by minutely adjusting the angle of your subjects, and try pointing your flash somewhere else like the corner of the room instead of straight up.
Finally, because I'm too lazy to read everything about Photoshop, I let the software figure it out by hitting 'auto-adjust'. Sometimes Photoshop over-compensates. For example, I may have a slightly orangish tinged photo that appears slightly washed out and dark. I hit auto-adjust and Photoshop makes it a trifle too blueish, cranks the contrast up way too high. What you do is duplicate the layer, then auto-adjust the top layer, then set the transparency to 50%. This puts you smack dab in the middle.
Hope this helps.