Coops Photo setup and first pic Adams 6th

ddavelarsen said:
I think that's about the coolest setup I've seen yet. I hope you know how lucky/smart you are to have a dedicated photo space! I sure wish I could find a place to set up permanently.

Your son's knives are so cool I can hardly stand it. That's some of the cleanest work I've ever seen. Did you do the scrim?

You should know, or at least I gotta tell you, your knives are the only ones my wife thinks are as good as mine. :D She's so heavily biased almost no one else can "measure up" - except you. She's as boggled by your beautiful knives as I am.
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Thanks for all the kind words about my knives. Im sorry to hear about your wife, how long has she been blind? ;) I have a way to go yet to equal that skinner/axe that you made. When my wife and i were looking for a house about 9 years ago we stumbled across this one that had 4 bedrooms. The seller was in the middle of a divorce and was "motivated" to sell at the lowball price we offered. Unfortunatly my wife and I were only blessed with one child so we have 2 bedrooms left for other projects, (1 bedroom left if she is mad at me) Its nice having the room but i would trade all my knife stuff in a heartbeat for a little baby girl. I am truly blessed with what i have tho so i am not complaining.

Phil and Coop - you are absolutly right about the front lights. thay are in the way constantly. I did notice that in some cases it helps if i bounce the front lights off the side but as i said before, i dont know what the hell im talking about.

Maybe you guys could fill me in on what the secret camera settings are to get nice clear pictures. Mine dont have the pop that yours have. They look dull. what am i doing wrong? ............. I think i used an F-stop on this one.;)

Michael
 
Awsome knife, and a site better pic than I can take. Looks like I realy need to read over this thread!
 
Michael, your camera is fine. Post production always makes the big difference.

You seem to be shooting at about a 60-degree angle and including a lot of background. Try laying the knife down more and shooting at a 75-85-degree angle. Your hollow grind is still too dark for my tastes. You would benefit with more light in there.

Use more contrast and saturation, and less sharpening. I see a ragged edge on the upper grind on the blade which is a sign of oversharpening. Sharpen first, reduce, sharpen a *little*, then you are done. Don't try to do it all at once and especially not after you have reduced it.

You are doing great!

Coop
 
SharpByCoop said:
Michael, your camera is fine. Post production always makes the big difference.

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Coop
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I know post production is a very important part of the process but you know the old saying - garbage in, garbage out. Know matter how good i am in Photo Shop, if the picture is crappy to strart with, its going to be crappy after im done with post processing. I know there are many aspects to taking a good picture: composition, lighting, etc but i have to start somewhere. If i can get the camera settings close that would allow me to concentrate on all the other aspects that make a good pic.

Please excuse my ignorance on the subject of cameras and f-stops and shutter speeds but I would think there is a good overall setting for pics using a light tent. when i shoot in the auto mode my shutter speed is 125 and the iso is 200

Would i get better results if I set the camera to manual and used a slower shutter speed with an f-stop that would work with that shutter speed? Shoud I set the iso to 50 instead of 200? Is there a good starting point for the settings that i could tweek from? I think that would help alot in trying to understand exactly what is going on when in the camera when I take a picture. I have a Nikon 5700 5 megapixel camera but i would think that the basic settings would work independant of the make and model of the digital camera. Am I heading in the right direction with my questions or do I have a bad case of cranial rectal impaction again? (i hate when i do that!)

Thanks for all the imput.

Michael
 
From the first pics I ever saw from Coop I was impressed by the sharpness of his images. I like sharp pics, but in my thread "No Frills Lighting" I left the camera on AUTO and didn't even use a tripod. I don't think my pics are as sharp as Coop's.

Learn the focus range of your camera and stay within that range. Keep the resolution settings high when your taking pics of your knives. Use a tripod, and a cable release or set the camera for Self-timer. This should remove any camera movement from your pics. If your final results show part of the knife out of focus, back off a little and rehoot.

Remember we talked about seperation before? Contrast and seperation will add to the appearance of sharpness in your pics. I work at high resolution with my pics. When photo editing the very last thing you do is to sharpen the pic. In Photoshop it's Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. In the Preview window zoom in on a high contrast area, if you see clumping of pixels lower the amount slider. Then, I reduce the resolution to 72 pixels and Save For the Web. I may at this point even open the .JPEG image and use Unsharp Mask again, but again watch for any clumping of pixels.

This all becomes a lot easier the more you do it.
 
Awesome setup Michael. I just wanted to add that I sent you an email, whenever you have the time to reply would be great. Thanks bud.
 
Michael,

Phil speaks from MANY more years behind a lens than me, so take his sound advice.

Are there any 'standard' settings to get you going? NO. Plain and simple. Because that's the benefit of doing it manually--you need to adjust according to the situation. That said, you will get cleaner images at ISO 50 if available, but you will need more light. More light from a longer shutter speed (camera shake?), or a larger aperature (less depth of field).

Place the knife on the background and take a variety of images at every setting. even on auto. At some point you will see the benefit and trials of going too far. Then delete them all. Ain't it great?? :)

Basics: To shoot under 1/100th of a sec you need a VERY steady hand or a tripod. To capture detail in an entire view you need good depth of field (F-12 and up). Stop analyzing and start shooting. Come back with examples. ;)

Coop
 
This is the first knife I ever made. I made it for Adams 2nd birthday. I designed it and did all the work except that i had some help with the hollow grind by a great local knife maker named Dick Johnson.

hows the pic?

Michael
 
OK, it looks like you stopped oversharpening things. No one can complain about the clarity, except for the bottom post of the long blade. Still no light on the blade. And that's the purpose of the diffuser.

Even in the other images, only half of the blade and bolster have complete lighting. You need to orient yourself so the hollow grind is also reflecting off the diffuser. I usually shoot from the left side with the blade almost parallel to the box. Then I frame it in my viewfinder so my handle is in the upper right and tip in lower left--like you did. But, this way you will get some reflection on the blade.

The bottom photo of the mokume bolster is perfectly done. Good use of the reflector there.

And then again, you may just love this deep shadowed look, and I don't blame you. It's a subjective call.

Thanks for showing more!

Coop
 
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