Experiments: The Theme Shot

[Colin Jason]

Greetings all,

After fooling around for the past couple of days, and deciding that I wanted to take some really good shots of the knives in my collection, I've embarked on a bit of a journey. My goal is to try and take a few decent shots of each of my blades, all with different themes, and trying to vary the lighting. Of course a fair bit of Photoshop work is involved as well, but I want to give those of you out there an idea of just what can be accomplished with limited materials.

The camera I'm using (and have been using) for doing all of the photographs in this 'series' is an almost 2-year-old Sony Cybershot DSC-P31. It's a fairly simple, and now relatively inexpensive 2 Megapixel camera. The auto focus seems to work exceptionally well, and it doesn't shy away from close-up work. If people are interested, I'll do further into the details of how I do my shots, and maybe offer some tips for you. Let me know what you think of my experiments, and if you'd like to see more!

Here's the first shot in the series:

Robert Parrish 8" Survivor

click on the picture to view the larger version

 

[Richard]

It is always a good thing to see folks who know how to take photos of their knives, and are willing to share tips with others. So, definately keep it up...looking forward to seeing more.

 

[Colin Jason]

Thanks for your thoughts Richard. To that end, here's another shot of the Parrish:

Robert Parrish 8" Survivor

click on the photo for the larger version

 

[Colin Jason]

Ok, here's the final shot of the Parrish, done to give the best photo of the knife itself, allowing you to see all relevant detail:

This is also to illustrate the possibility of having a higher-resolution photo, that both fits within forum and webpage constraints, as well as not being overly large in download size.

 

[Colin Jason]

Here's a quick picture of my 'studio', as it were. This was exactly what was used to create the previous shot of the Parrish knife shown above:

So, as you can see, there really isn't a whole lot that is needed to produce decent photographs for online, and even print usage. Lighting, above all else, is the key to your success. Of course, themes and backdrops will also help if you want to 'sell' your blade to certain audience.

I'm soon going to embark on constructing a 'light tent', as a few photographers have used, to create a much more suitable environment to take your photos in. These inital shots illustrate just how you can achieve desirable results, with minimal investment. Again, if people are interested, I can detail my light tent construction, and post the project in another thread for others to use. Let me know!