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randydance062449

Straight Razor Guy
Joined
Nov 25, 2005
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Nice pictures and great knife! I did some experiments and prefer now multiple light setup. To remove shadow on handle better directly point light to it under low angle. Also to avoid dark blade I put wight screen that it will be reflected in blade and light it with one of the lamps.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Thanks !:) I will give that a try today. It is snowing (again!) so I will have some time inside the house to play with the camera today. Just went to flickr.com and got their Pro account.

ARRGGHHHHH! I deleted the pic's!:eek:

I will have to upload some of them now!:o
 
The photos look pretty good. Vasilli takes some great pics so heed his advice. Looks like you have the light high and in back of the knife which is causing some shadows up front. You can simple use a small mirror to bounce light back in front or move your light directly over the top. If you have another light you can just difuse it and place it up front to neutralize shadows as well. I'm sure Coop will be by soon with some helpful hints and links. ;)
 
Thanks for the reply. Your right, the lights are in the back and high but they are diffused, perhaps to much. I do have a mirror on the kickplate in front. This afternoon I will move/add the lights and experiment with some different backrounds and compositions.

Just finished shoveling 6 inches of new snow so now I can start on the pics!:)
 
Well, now I have 5 sets of test photo's on this knife. I believe that one of the problems is that the bulbs I use are to strong.
The bulb that I am using is the GE indoor floodlight "reveal 120"
(120 watt)

Some of the better shots were taken with most of the lights turned off or away(tangent). One of the things that perplexes me is that the colors of the backround are not coming thru in a true color. The purple backround should have been black and the last set (test5) is actually an old Army duffel bag (badly faded).
(so why the brown tone?)

The one other thing I can do is change the camera setting from "vivid color" to "normal" and then switch between the daylight setting and the incandesent setting and see what happens.
 
Those sound like the right solutions to your problems. With that bright of a light you don't want to get too close. Moving it back is probably a good idea as well.

My lighting consists of two aluminium clamp lights w/ 75w bulbs. The bulbs are those GE Reveal kind. They look great to my eye but the camera tends to see the light as purplish when I set white balance to 'indoor'. The 'outdoor' setting on the other hand looks too orange. I can't recommend them to you. For diffusion, I'm using a standard white trash bag. I cut it in half and it seems to work great. For the walls of the tent I picked up 2 sheets of foamcore(poster board). I use an 8x11" mirror for fill or high lights on blades. The foamcore was the only thing I bought, the rest of the stuff was just hanging around the house. I'll give you a quick pic.



Here's an example of what even my crummy lightbox does to help enhance the light in photo's.



Do you have any programs like Photoshop to process your photos? That would help tremendously. You can make a really mediocre pic look great with a few quick adjustments.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks for sharing that info. I have already repackaged my Reveal bulbs so I can return them tomorrow. I will follow the advice in the original thread and get the Daylight 65 watt fluoresent bulbs. I have tried 3 different materials to use as diffusers including the garbage bag and two types of the plastic used as diffusers over the fluoresent light fixtures.

I changed the settings in my camera and now my backround color comes in true to color so I al least have that much figured out. I was going to take some more pic's but then my battery went dead!:o Oh well, its time for bed. More pics tomorrow!
 
When I use the Reveal light bulbs, I get a lot of red tint to my photos. I reset the white balance using the Reveal light and it made a world of difference. You end up with a photo without the red tint.
Greg
 
What watt rating are your Reveal bulbs? Mine are 120 watt. I think they are much to strong. I have changed the white balance but the colors are stiil to "red". It made washed out Army olive drab come out with a brownish tone. I will give the Reveal bulbs one more try this morning and go thru the various white balance options just to make sure.


mckgreg said:
When I use the Reveal light bulbs, I get a lot of red tint to my photos. I reset the white balance using the Reveal light and it made a world of difference. You end up with a photo without the red tint.
Greg
Click to expand...
 
Well here is the latest batch of test pics,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/randydance062449/
look at Dr Molenaar test6 batch.
At least now the colors are coming out true.
I believe that I need a little more light so I am going to buy the Daylight 65 watt fluoresent bulbs.

I used 2 incandesent light bulbs, a 100 watt and a 60 watt.
The diffuser was a gabage bag 2 layers thick (uncut). Next I will make the bag one layer thick and see what happens.

I made a light box from a cardboard box and layed the garbage bag over the top. I have a mirror in front. I did not do anything to the inside of the box. It is a dull plain old brown. Next I will buy some gloss white enamel spray paint and use that to make the interior reflective.
 
You're on the right track and the images are clean and presentable.

Stop fighting yourself with mixed color bulbs. Reveal bulbs are truly unsuitable for most applications. Lose them. After you get a trio of daylight fluorescents, toss everything else away. Ideal is 5000 kelvin (daylight) also suitable is 6500 kelvin (cloudy day). Most daylight spiral fluorescents are 5000k.

Do whatever it takes to get even and brighter reflections off of the blade. Think of the angle you are shooting at the blade. You want to have a clean well-lit diffuser in the line of fire. Position until you do. Some of your images have partially reflective blades. That's the distinction between an amateur and a pro. Work the lights until it's even all the way from tip to handle.

You may want to make your diffuser on an angle in the back. That's how all of us who have been doing it for a while have found to work best.

Show us more. Keep at it. This is exactly how I learned. Nice job!

Coop
 
randydance062449 said:
Here is the best pic so far.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/randydance062449/113784872/

I reduced the garbage bag diffuser to one layer and added one more light shining directly on the handle.
Click to expand...

The pictures are beautifull. You may try wight screen to be reflected in the blade to make it wight if you want.

Also the top lamp is reflected in the handle making wight spot on it. If you like to get rid of it you may move it a bit pointing in the same handle but from different angle, so it will not be reflected in shiny parts of the handle.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Thanks guys, I just picked up the Daylight 90 watt CE fluorescent spiral bulbs ( no 65 watts in stock). I also just spray painted the inside of my cardboard box with a glossy white enamel. After supper I will go back at it.

Thanks for all your helpful tips and your time. Its much appreciated.:)
 
Don't forget to re-balance your white setting with the new bulbs like I did.
Greg
 
Box is painted white inside, new bulbs are installed, using 3 90 watt with a single layer garbage bag difuser, mirror for a front kickplate, white balance has been adjusted properly.

This set is to test to see if any difference is made by using the ISO sensitivity adjustment. Started with auto then 50,100,200,400. Then I changed the knife position and repeated.

3rd group I changed the diffuser to a frosted lexan and changed the number of lights, 3 and then 2.

Dr. Molenaar test8

http://www.flickr.com/photos/randydance062449/

I do notice the problem with shadows now.
 
Nice work. My fave is DSCN0438. the blade is fully reflected, yet not overpowering. It also shows the slight bevel grind. Still need more light on the RH side of the display.

You're going to be good at this. :D

Coop
 
I would like to thank all of you for your great help!:)

I now have a larger light box and found some 75 watt bulbs.
I also bought some different materials to use for backround.

I still need to learn a lot but at least this last batch shows some promise. The backround is a piece of tile, has a nice contrasting texture. The pics were initally with 90 watt bulbs and the overhead incandescents on. They did add a noticeable red tone to the handle. Once I turned those off the color of the wood became more "true". I changed a number of other setting's, vivid color to normal color, sensitivity from 400 down to 200.
I also moved the light around a lot and put diffusers over the bulbs ( I used white plastic grocery bags. The single diffuser on the top of the light box was not enough so I added a double layer garbage bag and then a piece of frosted lexan.
The biggest improvement came when I learned to look at the display from the proper angle!:)

The latest batch is "Dr molenaar test10"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/randydance062449/


Thanks guys,
 
Looking good! :thumbup: You made alot of progress in just a few days. Nice crisp images with solid, accurate colors. I like the new tile background too.

The only thing that needs a little improvement is the light placement. The upper left hand side of the frame is a little 'hot' while the lower right hand side is a little 'cool'. I if you can get your light more centered over the object that would help out. Maybe put a second light, low from the opposing side. The other thing to look out for is reflections in the blade. There's a few shot where I can see you or the camera in the blade. I know I've done that more than once. D'Oh!

All in all, pics are looking great. Doc looks like he makes a real nice knife too. Thanks for sharing the pics.
 
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