My method of photo'ing a pen

[SDB777]

Bump for the new folks!!!



Scott (sharing is fun) B

 

[Kaspar]

This is an imperfect try, because it does not use the recommended EV values, but I always do three or four exposures at slightly different EV values. Next pen pic I take, I'll try this, as well as shoot it in my usual way, for comparison.

 

[Culprit]

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread thus far. I am learning a LOT and took my camera off full auto for the first time 2 days ago to play with the aperture and shutter speeds on my own.

Tonight I tried HDR for the first time using PhotoMatix.

I'm using a Canon SX130is. I downloaded a firmware hack to make this point and shoot do auto bracketing with one shutter press in conjunction with the 2 sec self timer and 3 shot continuous mode. If you have a Canon point and shoot, Google "Canon CHDK Richart Smrt." Watch Richard's video, then download the firmware hack and have fun. And it's not my fault if you brick your camera. All I can say is it worked for me. This hack also enables RAW and time lapse on Canon point and shoots, but it's already late enough for one day, so I'm going to bed and will try that another day.

My camera only goes up to f 8.0 so that's where I set it. Turned Image Stabilizing off. Bracketed the exposure at -2/3 0 +2/3. ISO at 800, as low as it will go.

This is leaps and bounds from where I was just 2 days ago. To continue improving, I am going to try bracketing at different values as my next step. I also need to get the white balance right so that the background appears white, as it truly is.

What would you guys recommend?


And by the way, this is my first Jr. Gent II and my first custom finial. It's spalted black walnut with mostly sapwood and a little heart.

Thanks again, everyone!

 

[SDB777]

Congrats to both of y'all!!

Seems that the 'AUTO' mode, doesn't quite cover everything. It has it's place, but not in photo'ing 'stock' items where time-n-space can be manipulated in any fashion so chosen by the user.


EV values I used in this topic are just 'suggestions', and are not to be considered as a set in stone type of thing. By all means, playing with any and all setting and use what works for you.



As far as white balance, that can also be manipulated in processing. If you know the background is 'white', then 'tweak' it until it becomes white.










Scott (let's see those results) B

 

[Culprit]

I continued practicing with HDR today, but I cheated a little - I'll explain in a new thread because it's somewhat of a departure from the intent of this thread.

f2.4, 1/40 sec, ISO 64.

 

[SDB777]

I continued practicing with HDR today, but I cheated a little - I'll explain in a new thread because it's somewhat of a departure from the intent of this thread.

f2.4, 1/40 sec, ISO 64.

I'll go look for the topic you start. Photo seems really well done, with excellent focus throughout....even at f/2.8(I have difficulty there, maybe due to the amount of room I have available to get set-up).



Scott (I might have to clean up here and go faster) B

 

[Culprit]

After the education I got reading this thread and others last week, I was wondering if the iPhone 5 camera would be suitable since the f stop is 2.4, but surprisingly it worked very well.

I guess because the sensor is so small (pixel size is just 1.4 micron), the geometry works out to get decent depth of field with a fixed f 2.4 aperture.

 

[SDB777]

The cell phone cameras are definitely making some nice photo's-and most have the HDR feature built in. Just need to make sure you go through the photo's stored into the phone memory every once in awhile...run out of room in there if you are like me!



Scott (Nokia got a 41Mp photo camera) B

 

[SDB777]

I tried a iPhone HDR photo just this afternoon.

It was just 'okay', didn't have the range of adjustments like the HDR programs go, and the basic photo was very bright. I will admit, this photo was taken outside during the noon sun(even as low as it is on the 3rd day of winter).


I think I'll try doing some experimenting with the HDR iPhone and maybe some processing in Adobe Photoshop plugin stuff later(or when it rains next).




Scott (Merry Merry everyone) B

 

[longbeard]

The HDR photo app is all i've used for my pics. I just need some help with my fugifilm camera, i've taken hundreds of pics with it, just can't seem to find the right combo of settings for the right picture

 

[SDB777]

The HDR photo app is all i've used for my pics. I just need some help with my fugifilm camera, i've taken hundreds of pics with it, just can't seem to find the right combo of settings for the right picture

Not really familiar with any of the Fugifilm cameras, all cameras pretty much operate on the same basic principles....

What kind of lighting do you have?
If your lighting set-up is the same for 'stock photos' every time, then experimenting is a little easier. We can start there....





Scott (you'll shoot your eye out) B

 

[longbeard]

Maybe latter this evening i can take a few pics. I know i dont have the right bulbs for starts. My tent is just pvc square with white cloth on top, bottom and the back. I also have grey cloth too. Seems as though i just cant find the right combination of settings on the camera, then i get frustrated and say the heck with it. But any help is appreciated, maybe we can do this via Pm.

Harry

 

[TwoCatsPens]

Been following this thread, thought that I'd throw a couple of mine up, let you know my mind-set when doing the pics, and get your feedback.

I'm lucky that photography is one of my hobbies, so I have a few tools at my disposal. I do all these in manual mode, with a single flash behind a white umbrella to make a big soft light source and a reflector on the other side to fill in shadows. Only editing I normally do is to crop and add in the vignette effect. Occasionally I'll touch up a shot, clean up some dust or anything else that got in, but I try and not manipulate them too much.

I usually shoot at F11, on a small sensor DSLR you start losing image quality much below that due to diffraction. Shots are handheld, 1/200th. (That's one of the advantages of having an off camera strobe, you get a TON of light so you can hand hold.

Normally I'll do a full-length shot looking down, that gives the overall look and feel for the pen. Then I'll do a few where I'm shooting at an angle with the focus set on the "key detail" like the centerband, or the wood grain, and allow the rest to go out of focus. The effect is to really draw the eye to the center of interest.

I don't worry too much about metal getting too blown out, the soft light keeps it from being too bad, and I think the effect gives a nice feel for the sheen.

That said, here are some, love to hear your feedback.

Learning every day....


Steve

 

[SDB777]

I'm seeing shadows still...that is one of the advantages to HDR. I do like the added vignette, I still much prefer the HDR effect.


Scott (love those blanks too) B

 

[edstreet]

Glare is not a hard thing to overcome if you know how glare is produced, what it is and how it works. It all boils down to angle management. That is angle of the camera film plane, angle of the object, angle of the light and angle of the light bouncing off the object.

Well how do you get glare out, looks like you have trees in your pen.

That my friend is the biggest downfall of shooting outside. I've attempted to take the light tent outside to use the great effect from the sun, but it seems that the best plans are always overshadowed by a greater power....wind.
You could use PhotoShop, but there is always a downside to that. Long hours of staring at pixels and masking isn't what I'd call a fun day, but it can be done.

The easiest way to fix the problem would be to get the light tent set-up, buy a bunch of Daylight halogens/tubes and make a holder to keep them in a fixed position. If you have the room to do this(a spare bedroom/den/whatever) would be great, but I just don't have the room available to leave the set-up in place.(Although the more I think of it....)


Scott (a trip to HomeDepot might be in my future) B

One way to augment the bright sun light is to shoot on a cloudy or over cast day. On a cloudy day mother nature is brighter then the most brightest bulbs. If i want to shoot and it is sunny out and i don`t want to wait till the sun moves around, i get a sheet and make a tent by throwing the sheet over the picnic table umbrella. I have a photo box set up, so i don`t have to do that now. Good luck.

 

[SDB777]

Glare doesn't typically become my 'enemy', it's mostly reflections in my awesome finishes(okay, I have opened my eyes, the dream of awesome finishes has passed and I'm feeling better)....but I do get reflections. Even if I think I have every hole filled with a 'material', I still find the camera lens in the photo!


Keep those photo's coming everyone! I love to see your works!!




Scott (glare from the wife...that's different) B

Glare is not a hard thing to overcome if you know how glare is produced, what it is and how it works. It all boils down to angle management. That is angle of the camera film plane, angle of the object, angle of the light and angle of the light bouncing off the object.

Well how do you get glare out, looks like you have trees in your pen.

That my friend is the biggest downfall of shooting outside. I've attempted to take the light tent outside to use the great effect from the sun, but it seems that the best plans are always overshadowed by a greater power....wind.
You could use PhotoShop, but there is always a downside to that. Long hours of staring at pixels and masking isn't what I'd call a fun day, but it can be done.

The easiest way to fix the problem would be to get the light tent set-up, buy a bunch of Daylight halogens/tubes and make a holder to keep them in a fixed position. If you have the room to do this(a spare bedroom/den/whatever) would be great, but I just don't have the room available to leave the set-up in place.(Although the more I think of it....)


Scott (a trip to HomeDepot might be in my future) B

One way to augment the bright sun light is to shoot on a cloudy or over cast day. On a cloudy day mother nature is brighter then the most brightest bulbs. If i want to shoot and it is sunny out and i don`t want to wait till the sun moves around, i get a sheet and make a tent by throwing the sheet over the picnic table umbrella. I have a photo box set up, so i don`t have to do that now. Good luck.

 

[farmer]

Reflection and glare

Glare doesn't typically become my 'enemy', it's mostly reflections in my awesome finishes(okay, I have opened my eyes, the dream of awesome finishes has passed and I'm feeling better)....but I do get reflections. Even if I think I have every hole filled with a 'material', I still find the camera lens in the photo!


Keep those photo's coming everyone! I love to see your works!!




Scott (glare from the wife...that's different) B

Glare is not a hard thing to overcome if you know how glare is produced, what it is and how it works. It all boils down to angle management. That is angle of the camera film plane, angle of the object, angle of the light and angle of the light bouncing off the object.

Well how do you get glare out, looks like you have trees in your pen.

That my friend is the biggest downfall of shooting outside. I've attempted to take the light tent outside to use the great effect from the sun, but it seems that the best plans are always overshadowed by a greater power....wind.
You could use PhotoShop, but there is always a downside to that. Long hours of staring at pixels and masking isn't what I'd call a fun day, but it can be done.

The easiest way to fix the problem would be to get the light tent set-up, buy a bunch of Daylight halogens/tubes and make a holder to keep them in a fixed position. If you have the room to do this(a spare bedroom/den/whatever) would be great, but I just don't have the room available to leave the set-up in place.(Although the more I think of it....)


Scott (a trip to HomeDepot might be in my future) B

One way to augment the bright sun light is to shoot on a cloudy or over cast day. On a cloudy day mother nature is brighter then the most brightest bulbs. If i want to shoot and it is sunny out and i don`t want to wait till the sun moves around, i get a sheet and make a tent by throwing the sheet over the picnic table umbrella. I have a photo box set up, so i don`t have to do that now. Good luck.

If you use cross polarization technic you don't have to worry as much about glare or white out.

Once you get rid of the polarized reflection or glare, then you can turn the strobes up.

You don't go to the lake on a sunny day with out your sunglasses.

I am using 2 1600watt strobes and don't have problem with glare.

Reflection is regulated how smooth the surface is and how the object is shaped and the angles of the camera to the subject to the light.


Farmer

 

[SDB777]

Seems like it has been quite some time since this one has made the climb back up for newer members to see.

I would recommend going to post #151 at the top of page 16(for some reason the photo's in PhotoBucket have a new address for the first post And I can't edit it to make them show up any longer).




Scott (photo's sell pens....simple) B

 

[hcpens]

What size /type of floods do you prefer?

 

[SDB777]

What size /type of floods do you prefer?

It doesn't really matter to me as long as I can get a lot of light from different directions, I can always 'fix' it in post processing. I have started shooting ARW(Sony can't spell RAW), with a White Balance set on Sunlight(only because I don't like the Auto setting).


Currently I am using 4 100w 'soft' flood lights inside those 'clamp lamps'. Two top, and the other two split on the two sides....




Scott (hope this helps) B

 

[JohnGreco]

Scott- What Sony are you using? I just picked up a NEX-6 and am pretty happy with the auto white balance. For lighting I'm using one 300 w/s strobe bounced off the ceiling in an otherwise pitch black room. 100 ISO, at around f10 I'm needing very little post production.

 

[SDB777]

Scott- What Sony are you using? I just picked up a NEX-6 and am pretty happy with the auto white balance. For lighting I'm using one 300 w/s strobe bounced off the ceiling in an otherwise pitch black room. 100 ISO, at around f10 I'm needing very little post production.

It's an older alpha350 14.2Mp.
Heard some nice things about the NEX line-up....



Scott (was thinking about going full-frame though) B

 

[JohnGreco]

I almost went full frame, but don't think I would've been able to afford anything else then haha! The lenses are bigger for the full framed NEX, too, and I do like how small the 6 feels compared to my old Canon DSLR. But then again, they are also faster. I'd say if you have the $$ go full frame

 

[hcpens]

Thanks for the info. Richard

 

[SDB777]

Thanks for the info. Richard

No problem, hope it helps!!


BTW, HDR was originally intended for landscape photography, and I've been trying to find time to enjoy taking some of those shots.

Here's an example of what the 'power' of HDR can create....






I know, it's not a 'pen', but I had a pen in my pocket when I took this photo!





Scott (thanks for peeking) B

 

[thrustmonkey]

OMG that is beautious!!!!!!!!!

 

[MikeL]

My try

I followed the guidence in this thread and I beleive it has improved my photos some. More adjustments could be made to my picutes but I sure do appreciate the willingness to share techniques. Thanks. And yes, that landscape picture is very cool!

The blank is stabilized buckey burl dyed black and gold from Exotics.

 

[BSea]

That's a nice picture Mike. Really good depth of field, and realistic colors. Good job.

 

[MikeL]

Thanks. I should also give some credit to sylvinite. This thread and some of his tutorials has helped me a lot.

That's a nice picture Mike. Really good depth of field, and realistic colors. Good job.

 

[SDB777]

Thanks. I should also give some credit to sylvinite. This thread and some of his tutorials has helped me a lot.

That's a nice picture Mike. Really good depth of field, and realistic colors. Good job.

Curious as to why you would give credit to 'sylvinite' in this thread? As far as I can tell from looking all through this topic....he hasn't contributed anything.






Scott (wow.....guess I should bow to him or something) B

 

[MikeL]

I guess you are being serious? If so, My mistake if I broke thread etiquette. I've learned much from many and was giving credit to what I have learned regarding pen photography. If this was inappropriate, I am perfectly fine to delete what I have said if I knew how to do that. If you know to delete its fine with me to hit delete. My bad.

 

[pendrijo]

That's very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

 

[SDB777]

Can't believe over 30,500 views on this topic. I would have never guessed it would have happened.


I've pretty much gone through all my editing programs, and replaced them with newer versions....but the PhotoMatix is still the same and still works great(go figure). I have been playing with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 imaging more lately, and the built-in HDR function seems to be producing some pretty good results(with very little, if any, effort on my part).



Also started playing with aerial video too, but that is probably left to another topic someday in the future.....





Scott (still photo'ing everything 3 times) B

 

[SDB777]

I'm betting at least four(ty) people got something new to snap photo's with this very day!?! Congrats to you!!!

Let's see some of those great pen HDR photo's!!!






Scott (always room for more) B

 

[SDB777]

I'm betting there is a number of newer members that haven't thought about doing this yet? If you'd like to just jump to the 'tutorial', it's a few pages back or you can just click this link to get you there: >>>>LINK <<<<



Feel free to ask questions....






Scott (32,000+ viewing) B

 

[Browncoat]

HDR for pen photography...interesting. There are some good shots in this thread, no doubt. And I'm of the opinion that if you find something that you like and it works for you, then full speed ahead. However, putting on my photographer hat, this is not the right genre for HDR. It's unnecessary and overkill. It's just overcompensating with software what should be much easier to achieve with good lighting and proper camera settings.

Hoping to avoid a long-winded tirade about HDR, I'll sum it up as best I can: HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. In a nutshell, as fancy as camera sensors are these days, they are still in the Stone Age compared to the human eye. We can see a much broader spectrum of light than what can be captured with a single camera exposure. And that's where HDR comes in...multiple exposures. By layering exposures (typically 3, 5, or 7), we increase the tonal range of light over what a single exposure can achieve.

HDR has many artistic interpretations. It's easy to "overcook" an HDR photo and go for extreme effects. With pen photography, we're looking for "photorealistic HDR", which is to accurately increase the tonal range and add depth to the photograph. In other words, make the wood grain stand out more and add a deep shine to the shiny parts. Here is one of my own artistic HDR photos:

This was five exposures, taken at high noon on a sunny day. There is some Photoshop work here, but mostly just HDR tweaks in PhotoMatix. Contrast the above with the middle exposure below, which is what I would've gotten from a "normal" photograph:

For HDR to be effective, you need a lot of tonal range. Very dark areas, very light areas, and a lot of middle ground. A wide tonal range is something you should not have with product photography using controlled lighting. Those very dark and very light areas should be totally absent from product photography, especially for something as small as an ink pen.

As I mentioned earlier, if using this technique is working for you, great! However, it's certainly not the be-all end-all. Once you're able to control lighting, you'll have a much more stable platform to work from that has repeatable and predictable results.

 

[SDB777]

Fair enough, but I don't 'burn' my HDR shots such as you have done with the tractor.


Scott (HDR still works better) B