About photographing knives

R

ranger88

Joined
Feb 15, 2006
Messages
276
I,ve been wanting to photograph my knives, but the digital camera I'm using blures whin I try to get up close and personal with the details, and it's not to good far away either. Can anybody sugest a digital camera that will do the job up close?

I hope the moning van doesn't come.
 
Does your camera have a macro mode? This setting is often symbolized by a flower and is intended for closeup shots.
 
Thanks DaTrueDave!!!

I have been trying to figure that out on my Digi Cam for about 2 months. I just found the little flower. :)

Kick butt!
 
Joe Dirt said:
Thanks DaTrueDave!!!

I have been trying to figure that out on my Digi Cam for about 2 months. I just found the little flower. :)

Kick butt!
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Heh... Glad I could help!
 
Check out these pics I just took now that I found that setting.

Click on the pictures for a LARGER version.


This is a picture of a piece of pizza.


This is a picture of the Axis lock on my Mini-Griptilian.
 
I think the best bang for the buck out there is the Sony DSC-P200. It keeps dropping in price, but I've yet to see anything in it's price range compete with it for image clarity and close-up ease of us. It's one of the few cameras I've seen that can fire the Flash while at it's minimum focusing distance (about 2.5 inches) and result in an accurate exposure. For those who just want to point and shoot and get tremendous detail this is a great camera. It should be easy to find under $300 these days. If not $280 or less by now.

You can get a lot more out of it by learning the manual controls, rather than using straight automatic. If you go into manual mode you can fully stop down the apeture (f5.2 I believe with the lens set to wide angle for the best close-up ability), macro mode on, ISO at 100, 7.2 Megapixel, Fine quality, set the autofocus to spot, set your shutter to 1/60th of a second or faster, and point and shoot away.
 
The Camera I took the above shots with is a Nikon Coolpix 4100. 4.1MP Camera. I think I paid about $200.
 
WadeF said:
I think the best bang for the buck out there is the Sony DSC-P200.
Click to expand...
While it might not be as obvious with the entry level cameras, you're almost always going to get a better camera if you buy from a camera company and not an electronics company.

Personally, for a point and shoot, I highly recommend Nikon and Olympus.

www.dpreview.com is a good place to compare features and prices and has an EXCELLENT buying guide.
 
You don't really need a fancy camera, just one that is not fixed focus and has macro capability. The setup for the picture is most important, I use a simple Kodak and if I just point and shoot I get bad pictures, if I do a good setup: strong diffused light, good background, tripod, and use the self timer to avoid camera shake I can get great pictures. A scanner also does a fine job.

Luis

Scanned: Hand held: My camera:

Click pictures to enlarge
 
Would this little flower be in the menu or somewere else?I have a Cannon digital elph SD110.Its at least 1.5 yrs.old
 
DaTrueDave said:
While it might not be as obvious with the entry level cameras, you're almost always going to get a better camera if you buy from a camera company and not an electronics company.

Personally, for a point and shoot, I highly recommend Nikon and Olympus.

www.dpreview.com is a good place to compare features and prices and has an EXCELLENT buying guide.
Click to expand...

Excuse me? I worked in a professional camera store for over a decade. We carried Nikon, Canon, Leica, Mamiya, Bronica, Pentax, Hasselblad, Rollei, to name a few. We also had a video department and carried Sony, Panasonic, etc. Sony has always had the best consumer video cameras in my opinion. They have been working with image sensors for a long time, and digital cameras are not far off from a video camera in most regards. Sony has a lot of experience in this department. I wasn't to impressed with Sony's early offerings, like with their Mavica series, but lately they have leaped ahead. While they aren't big in the SLR market, for a point in shoot I haven't seen anything beat out the Sony DSC-P200 in a similar price range. In fact I felt it beat out many other non SLR, point and shoot type cameras, even ones costing two to three times as much.

Sony is using Zeiss optics. While we may specualte if Zeiss is really making the optics, or if Sony is just paying for the use of the name, I have found the optics to be very sharp.

Digital cameras are more electronic than mechanical, so I see no reason to think Sony isn't capable of making a high quality digital camera. It's companies like Canon, Nikon, and Leica that are more used to building mechanical cameras and have less experience with electronics. Sony and Canon have also worked together over the years.
 
It doesn't matter what digital camera you have as long as it has the macro setting. Also invest in a small tripod. Try not to shoot at wide angle, but zoom in a bit to offset distortion. Finally, use available light and over expose slightly if you've got a white background. (I can't believe how many knives just turn into silhouettes because the photographer is too lazy to adjust his or her settings.)
 
As Don Luis mentioned above, diffuse lighting is very important. Diffuse lighting is studio photography is what allows car and motorcycle photographers to show off all the nice shiney chrome work in their subject.

In that respect, knives are no different, only smaller.

It's not necessary, either, to buy the expensive light tents that pros use. Reflectors can be fabricated from white foam core, typically available from most art supply stores.
It's cheap, it's lightweight, and easily replaceable.

Yes, it may require some trial and error, but if you use a digital camera, you'll see your results instantly, and you won't spend a fortune on film and processing.
 
WadeF said:
Excuse me? I worked in a professional camera store for over a decade. We carried Nikon, Canon, Leica, Mamiya, Bronica, Pentax, Hasselblad, Rollei, to name a few. We also had a video department and carried Sony, Panasonic, etc. Sony has always had the best consumer video cameras in my opinion.
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You're excused. You're certainly free to have your opinion. I posted a link to DPReview to let the facts speak for themselves and to provide a source for more opinions than just yours and mine.
 
Calingo is right, a lightbox makes a world of difference. Here's a pic of "lightbox" that I cobbled together from stuff around the house. It's basically just 2 foamcore sheets with a large garbage bag cut in half over the top. The 2 aluminum clamp lights have 75 watt bulbs and can be placed anywhere over the top. The mirror is used for bounce up front. I just placed it in back for the pic. I have one extra clamp light to stuck up front if the mirror isn't enough.

So here's my "studio" and an example pic.

Joel Chamblin LDC-1 #9


Hope this helps. :)
 
Take pics with the macro mode on. Use lots of light and turn of the flash. If you have an interesting backround, it makes the pics more pleasing. I like to take pics of my things with other intersting objects for dramatic affect.
 
That lightbox/mini studio is really cool idea. I'm going to try that sometime. I assume u dont use flash when using the lightbox?
 
No flash! Flash bad! Arrrgh! :D

The flash would nullify the whole point of the lightbox which is to diffuse/soften the light. A flash would put a lot of harsh, glaring light right on whatever you were photographing.

I found tissue paper, like the kind you get in shirt boxes, works well to diffuse light. It's what I was using before someone suggested the trash bag. Got it right out of an old shirt box. Heh. :)

If you have to use the flash, try putting something in front of it to diffuse it like, you guessed it, tissue paper!
 
ThreadMoving.jpg
 
DaTrueDave said:
You're excused. You're certainly free to have your opinion. I posted a link to DPReview to let the facts speak for themselves and to provide a source for more opinions than just yours and mine.
Click to expand...

I would also recommend checking out http://www.steves-digicams.com

If you check the various sites I would think you'd find the Sony DSC-P200 doing very well in the reviews. I have some issue with it in full auto mode, but if you know how to work with the manual settings you'd be amazed at what the little thing can do.
 
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