About Light Setup for knife pictures.

[nozh2002]

I was suggested to have it in different thread. Here it is...

After making pictures for years at some point I finily got it - only way to have good picture is light it properly. No camera, no lenses, no dogital processing will make good picture - it may make it little better, but not good from the first place.

However once I got right light my pictures come to be much better right away, I found myself making pictures wich is as good looking as professional pictures (in terms of light of course) and sometimes better.

I realized that photogtrphy is painting with the light as it means literally in Roman language.

In theory which anybody can learn as I did from many many books written from hundred year ago. There are several lights

1. Basic light wich lighten up everything on the picture usually came from top on the same side of the camera. It suppose to be soft, diffusive light in general directed from same side as camera. This is what used for documents - passport etc.

2. Spotting lights - those are lights you are painting your picture with. This light shows you dimention of the object, color and nature of surface and most important it attracts attention of eye when somebody looking at your picture so this way you may accent different parts of you picture. It may be as many of them as you like, as it is nessesary to do you light painting and they should be brighter then Basic light otherwise basic will dominate.

3. Background light - spotlight may produce sharp shadows on the background. To eliminate them there is special light wich lights background only. Of course some shadows from one spotlight may be eliminated by another, but for background better have additional light source targeting it.

For spotlight it is important to be able change brightness and softness, which is easy to do with different filteres - wight trashbags actually worcks much better then professional filteres, of reflection screens which may be foam board.

There are two types of surface - nonreflective and reflective. Non reflective surface may be lighten directly by spotlight which will be dispersed in all direction and into the camera. Lightening reflective surface does not make any effects - light will bounce back. To make reflective source visible, something need to be reflected in it, but not light source - it will be like making pictures of light bulb or sun. It need to be screen and sometimes it may be diffusin filter or sky - as it happen in setups discribed here in different threads. But it may be screen not filter as well.
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Sun Light

Light may be sun. This is cheapest way to have good pictures. However it gives only basic light very bright strong with sharp shadows. It may be soften by diffusion filter made out of trashbag - so shadows will be softer. Other way to soften shadows - put wight screen which will bounce sunlight lightening shadows. Blade will in many cases reflect sky so it will be light, however I prefer to have whight screen - it is brighter then sky and also wight not blue. In general I think camera should be positioned on the same side as sun, otherwise front of the knife will be in shadow and this is bad because big part of the object of interest will be less visible. In door if you have sunlight from window this may cause blade being darc, because it will reflect sealing which are dark. To awoid it simple wight screen right behind knife will do the trick - blade will be wight and as a bonuse shadow will be softened. Also you may put knife on the window - then it will be sky reflecting in you blade but you will have front of the knife in shadow - however most of the knife pictures I saw here is like this.

Household desk lamps

Desk lamps is also cheap and awailable, but with them you need to use tripoid because light is relatively weak even with high power bulbs and require long exposure to have desiered depth field. Also color of this light different, WB (Wight Balance) should be set to indoor - which all digital cameras have now.

Flashes

This is best solution but expensive one. Canon have 580 flash with ability to be masterflash to syncronize other romoute flashes. So with 420 or 220 slave flashes being set up around you subject as you wish. I use filters carved from wight packing foam to reduce brightness when making pictures of knives because of close distance.
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Generic setup I use is
1 Grey packing foam to put knife on
2 Wight foam screen or piece of paper set up vertically in the back

This is generic setup wich works for sunlight as well as for desklamps and flashes. Wight screen reflect basic light making shadows softer and also reflects in the blade making it wight.

with flashes I point 580 which is attached on the camera directly to wight screen. and put two 420 at front left and front right. One wich is on the blade side I put on the same level as knife and another one which is on the handle side I lift up a bit.

Same can be done with desk lamps

I just prefer flashes because it is faster and more convinient to make pictures. With tripoir you kind of stack with point of shoot and it take more time with long exposures to make picture. However you do see what you get.
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So results of this:

Are this pictures

Thanks, Vassili.

 

[nozh2002]

Here some practical execises I did today with SunLight.

All done with good camera and you may see that it is only light which make picture good or bad.

First is simple setup - knife on the sunlight without any filteres and reflective screens:

You may see sharp shadows and sky reflection in the blade, which does not make it look right - hard to see anything.

Second - same setup, but with popular here positioning of camera on the dark side - opposite to the sun.

As you may see with same problem previouce picture has now we have dark area in front of the knife, and handle is hardly visible.

Now I use simple diffusive screen made from wight trashbag - (hint from SharpByCoop, and it is better then professional diffusive filters available in special stores). I especially make picture the way the screen is reflected in the blade.

You may now see what the difference betwee good and bad pictures. This one is pretty good. Blade is exxelent - all detailes visible, color is wight (same as trashbag), shadows are soft etc.

Now I move camera on the dark side, as it is popular here.

So now good part of the handle hardly visible, plus there is big dark shadow in front of the knife. I is better then previouce dark side picture but one made from light side IMHO better.

Now I like to deminstrate that it is not diffusive light but instead reflection in of diffusive filter in the blade makes picture better. Her I make photoes with same setup same diffusive filter, but make sky reflected in the blade instead.

You may see that with soft shadows picture does not look good because blade is hard to see.

And with camera on dark side:

It is look even worse - now part of the handle is hardly visible.

This is that miraculos diffusive filter made by myself from trashbag.

To be continued...

 

[nozh2002]

Now same sunlight with reflection screen in the back not diffusive filter.

This picture made with reflective screen reflected in the blade.

Shadows are not so dark - lightened by reflective screen a bit, hovewer it is noticable that picture was made on sunlight - overall contrast is high. But blade looks excellent, because wight screen is reflected in it.

Same again with sky reflected in the blade not screen:

Does not look good again.

And this is setup with wight foam board as reflective screen - available in any office supply store:

Best picture of this execise is one made with diffusion filter, when filter is reflected in the blade. Second I guess one with reflective screen. With black G10 handle first is prefferable, however sometimes with wooden handles direct sunlight is better to expose exellence of the wood.

Even with diffusive filter sometimes it is hard to make blade reflect it, so withgt foam board will help to fix blade in this case. In feneral diffusive filter suppose to diffuse light, and wight screen suppose to make right reflection.

 

[JParanee]

Thank you for taking the time . much apreciated