help with photo taking please....

[beachglass]

hi, i've been making some decent stuff lately and decided to try and snap some photos of my stuff. i based my picture setup on themoch's thread in the photo tutorials section (thanks for that by the way). i layed a cardboard box on its side with the opening facing me, i then cut slots in the top and sides and lined them with toilet paper (two ply quilted hehe)...i then put a piece of white poster board in a ramp shape up the back and put down black velvet to place the glass on.

i had one light that i placed over the top of the box and a bit to the side...inside the box it looks plenty bright and there is little glare. i tried a 100W regular bulb and a 13W compact floro and didnt notice much difference either way...

i borrowed a tripod and sweet digi cam from a friend (canon EOS, 7 megapixel i think) to take the pics. i took several pics of each object from different angles with manual/auto focus and with and without the flash.

for some reason they turned out very bad the objects still looke glarish and the colours dont really have any contrast to them....i was hoping somebody on here could lend some expertise and give me some suggestions on how to improve the pics...

the first two pics are of a nice daisy i made with dougie pink...as you can see it doesnt look pink at all but it is in person....first pic is without flash, second is with flash

the next two are just some pipes, again first one no flash, second pic with flash

any advice would really help and i will be sure to flood the board with pics of my crappy prodo if i can get some good pics :D thanks!

PS sorry for the long winded thread.....

[loydb]

While this thread isn't on a glass-related site, it's one of the best macrophotography threads I've ever found: http://forums.privateerpress.com/index.php?showtopic=5813

The great thing about digital is that you can experiment all you want and immediately see the results without having to pay for film develpment. Looking at your pics, you should start by making sure you have the correct white balance set. I don't know that particular camera, but most digicams have presets for incandescent, flourescent, flash, etc. that takes into account the color temperature the lights put out.

Avoid using a flash, it flattens out colors way too much. The first picture you took is a good starting point. There is no EXIF data in the JPG, so I can't see your settings. Do you remember your f-stop and shutter speed?

loyd

[beachglass]

thanks, loydb....i will read that site over. as far as fstop and all that i truthfully have no clue. i just figured if i used a sweet expensive camera it would do all that for me....it seems my problem is not so much with glass photos, but just photography in general hehe

[loydb]

The problem with the automatic settings is that they aren't really intended to photograph display glass -- they're intended to let people get a good picture of their kids opening presents, or playing in the yard, or whatever. Close-up jewelry photography is not an 'average' use...

loyd

[β]

changing your f-stop will change the depth of field for you focusing. ON that subject, practice getting the focus dead on.

what are you doing for white balance? surprisingly, that first pic is pretty good for a flash, not too many hotspots.
you might want a different back drop. But, you should shoot RAW and do your PP to fix the white balance. But you have to get your subjects in focus first.

Do you have any EXIF data. check out http://www.dpreview.com/forums/ there is TONS of info there, though not much about glass.

peace,
cory

[petto]

I have a sweet photo set up I got from E-Z cube. I am not affilted w/ this company, for real. Just love the product. This is a pic I took w/ my set up. I have a MInolta 3.0 megapix camera, the key is the light tent and the tripod. Great photos every time. This is the set up I have

http://store.tabletopstudio-store.com/20ezunkitwis.html

Works great and comes w/ everything you need right out of the box. The bulbs are daylight balenced so you get true colors every time. The light box also folds flat in about 20 secs and can fit under my couch. It sets up pretty quick, on the table works great.
Sorry to ramble, just my .02
dave
oregon city

[loydb]

Thanks for the link, I ordered one of their 12" minicubes.

[petto]

You'll love it. Show us some pics when you get it.

[Cosmo]

Here's a link to my photo setup. Cost me around $20 total I think.

http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37291

[Dale M.]

I think pictures are overall to dark.... Try some lighter backgrounds. Light tans or grays or off whites..... Get closet to smaller objects.... Turn off auto features on camera better to do as much as you can in manual mode ( in cluding turn off camera flash)....

Dale

[beachglass]

wow thanks , im learning alot here....betaB, sorry im not sure what you mean by shooting raw and doing PP. i think all the EXIF was erased when i shrank the pics but it should be on my originals at home.

jonas, those pics do look killer...nice fish hehe...that thing is a bit expensive for the current budget tho. i think i will move more towards something like cosmos (sweet link btw). dale, im going to try a round with a gray sheet tonight...all the links seem to say avoid black

thanks for all your help guys

[petto]

Grey is not so good, makes the back ground real pixally when you try to resize etc..
Try white, you can always photoshop it on a color background later. Or a gradient fade like the blue one I used above. Make sure there are no wrinkles, they cause shadows in your pic.

[β]

actually, don't worry about RAW(file type that captures pure image before in-camera processing). If you have photoshop, mess around with curves and setting middle gray. When you are processing your photo in a program, that is what i was referring to in PP.

[Dale M.]

Here are some links....

http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents/glassbead_photography.htm
http://www.sell-it-on-the-net.com/online_store/replacement_lamps.htm
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/19002.html
http://www.lampworkglass.com/dmp.html
http://www.mjlampwork.com/photographingbeads.html
http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS.HTM
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/lessons/vault/index.html
http://www.craftsreport.com/november99/photography.html
http://www.webphotoschool.com/wps/lessons/vault%5Bwps%5D/index.html
http://www.lapidaryart.com/projects_2.html
http://clouddome.com/
http://www.webphotoschool.com/Lesson_Library/index.html
http://www.nikon.co.jp/main/eng/feelnikon/kumon_dsc2/index.htm
http://www.nikon.co.jp/main/eng/feelnikon/kumon_dsc/index.htm


Not sure if all of them are good.... But it will help you understand the process.....

Dale

[skip]

some real good info there Dale...

I checked out a bunch of those links and saved a few in the favorites

[loydb]

Here's an un-resized image I took as a test pic with my macro lens.

edit: the sparkly bits are dichro, the polished stone is from grandpa.


edited again: please resize your pic, that was painful heh.

[Itzallmyne]

Yeowza! Now that's a picture larger than life! The opal looks killer! Sorry, it is megahuge on my screen for some reason. I really like the little fishy.

I'm far from a photo expert person, but when I take, or look at pictures of glass it drives me crazy when I see the light glare on the piece. So I tried putting the piece of glass, especially marbles, into a bowl of water, and then taking the picture, it works great for deflecting the glare and giving a nice clear, no light spots ,view of your piece.

I just have to figure out how to keep the marble from rollin around in the bowl.
LOL!

Marilyn

[susheke]

Way to hard to see for comments. Can you make it smaller? Say 600 at the widest?

[Cosmo]

Here's an un-resized image I took as a test pic with my macro lens.

edit: the sparkly bits are dichro, the polished stone is from grandpa.



Don't use macro. See how shallow the depth of field is? See how the back of the piece isn't in focus? That's a result of using macro. If you want a picture where the subject fills that much of the image, position your camera farther away and zoom in. You can still get a large depth of field, and get an image where the subject fills the frame.

Also, invest in some lights (doesn't have to be expensive ones) so you can stop using your flash.

[beachglass]

tons of info here guys thanks alot! my friend took her sweet camera back for a few days, so i have time to read over all this stuff and make some changes to my lighting setup....i will post some results in a couple days

btw dale nice piece there, the broken up dichro is a cool effect

thanks again all!

[loydb]

The depth-of-field was intentional, to create a dramatic look from front to back. I've got two photo studio lights (you can see them in the reflections if you look), but I wasn't getting the sparkly dichro look as much as I wanted until I hit it with the flash.

[WORLD FAMOUS]

Good info above! Just remember, it's all about trial and error. Be sure to keep track of what you have tried. It sucks running in circles, trying setups that have already been tried and getting the same disapointing results.

I've been neck-deep in glass photography info during the past year, and everyone I've talked to says something completely different. Macro, no macro, flash, no flash, no white backgrounds, no black backgrounds...sheesh! My head will explode if I start to think about all the different input I've received...lol. It's good though. Try what people suggest, but seriously keep notes - photography is also another great artform that takes a lot of patients, and most people don't understand it overnight. :o)

[β]

nate has a great point, take all the notes you can for each photo, period.

[loydb]

Well, the whole point of the pic was to show the level of detail capturable with a non-pro studio and a good camera. It doesn't have quite the same impact sized down.

For those who want to view the pics in all their un-resized glory:

http://www.austinfireflies.org/images/agony/addy/huge_top.jpg
http://www.austinfireflies.org/images/agony/addy/huge_opal.jpg

[UmaJulz]

Noice! The opal is spectacular!

See, now with that level of detail, we could probably lift prints!

[loydb]

Here's my photo rig:

http://www.austinfireflies.org/minis/photorig.jpg

[UmaJulz]

Loydb, what kind of lamps/bulbs are you using? I have tried the daylight fluorescents (coiled), color corrected floods, an number of other options, but am wondering about the "real" photographic bulbs that are hugely bright- what do you have hidden behind those reflectors?

[loydb]

Sylvania 250W ECA (color balanced) incandescents, 3200 Kelvin. They're about $3 each, and rated for 20 hours.

loyd

[Cosmo]

I've actually been having good results with the plain old GE Reveal incandescents. I just tried them one time to see what they looked like, and I've been using them ever since. It's all in the camera anyways...

[loydb]

Yeah, pretty much any non-flourescent bulb works well if you tweak your white balance properly (as long as you're getting suffecient light to avoid using a flash).

loyd

[Steve Sizelove]

When it comes to lighting, I've had luck with regular tungsten bulbs. The key is to manually set your camera's white balance, use a tri-pod and long exposure times to compensate for the low light, and shoot in RAW format. Photoshop or Lightroom will let you adjust the white balance (temperature) among other settings.

I could say a lot more, but pictures do a better job. Check out Mickelsen's article in the June/July issue of Glassline for good advice.

I found that photography is just like glass. I spend a lot of time trying to perfect things, often with the result short of the mark. It's more than worth the effort, though.

[Steve Sizelove]

I missed that last post.... I like to be redundant, I guess.

[loydb]

I missed that last post.... I like to be redundant, I guess.

Great minds, etc... :)

[beachglass]

ok well i have been working on my photos for a while now and they are definetely getting better but i am still having some issues. i got a new camera (canon a540) and i am figuring out the settings. usually i take a whole bunch of pics with different shutter and fstop settings, angles etc...

i cant seem to get the camera to focus properly for some things though...i take tons of pics but the glass is blurry and the background looks razor sharp :tongue2:

the first pic is a good one, the glass is very sharp and in focus. the second one is not too bad, but the glass is out of focus and blurred....just not very 'professional' looking...

i do pretty much the exact same things for each object yet ones like this swirl are all blurred across the board....again notice how the background is perfectly in focus??

so ya thanks for all your info everyone, as you can see it has helped me quite a lot...its just fine tuning now. the learning process is definetely longer than i thought!