How to Take a Great Photo of Your Knives?

[rifon2]

Where you place the card to reflect in the blade depends on the postion of the knife and the position of the camera. I typically shoot a blade at a slight angle to the camera so whatever is reflected in it will be just off to the side of the camera. I can stand a reflector card just out of the shot on the side or sometimes actually hold it over the blade just above camera range. I often use more than one card because I might be dealing with several different reflecting angles.

One thing to note. A mirror polished blade can sometimes look a little flat or even like a satin finsih with a white card reflected in it. Sometimes you want a little more reflection to show that the blade is shiny. Here is a shot where I held a white piece of cloth above the blade and the wrinkles in the cloth help show how polished the blade is.

In contrast, in the shot below I used a white card and even thought the blade was mirror polished, it really does not show how shiny it is.

Very, very interesting.
Thanks again for your tips and for sharing your obviously
extensive knowledge of knife photography!

 

[Mike Carter Custom Knives]

Mistersat
Yes you are correct, your recmmendation is the proffesional way to to it, they even have small tents you can buy on ebay to do this. I would have purchased one of these but I dont think it would give a better photo that the one below with the sky shade method. This photo was taken by putting the knife close to the end of the shade cover from my house and directly above reflected off the bolsters is the sky. That is why the brass bolsters on the handle are so bright, also etching is great this way. If I had anything at all filtering the light for example like a white cloth in a photogaphy tent then I would see that reflecting off brass even if lighting was sufficient. I would definitley buy one if I thought it would allow me to take a better photo as they are not that expensive.
You mentioned the flash I have tried with flash on an angle and although this gets rid of the flash hot spot on the knives it still makes all the other edges of my knives (LB7s) look harsh and glary.

You are correct. There are many ways to shoot a good photo. That is an excellent shot by the way with great detail. I have seen great shots with with inexpensive cameras and little or no addition equipment. Outdoor lighting can often be the best for photos but you have little control over it.

I shot this one outside (actually on a piece of buckskin on the hood of my car). I did use a white reflector to bounce some light in from another angle for fill light to soften the shadows and show the contour of the blade better.

Like you said, using the sky as a reflection can sometimes enhance the photo and be used for dramatic effect. Here, I used the sky and clouds for effect on the blade.

Regarding a flash; Any single source of light is going to produce shadows. There is no way around it. Bouncing a flash off of a wall, ceiling, or other reflective surface will soften the light and soften the shadows. I often use a flash, or sometimes multiple flashes, for fill light rather than primary light source.

 

[Mike Carter Custom Knives]

Mistersat
A picture is worth a 1000 words. That is beautiful photo above (2nd from bottom). Have you tried taking a photo of a whole collection it is a little different, I would love to see some more photos?? How do you make a light box??
Regards Tim

Thanks for the compiments everyone.

There is an excellent thread here on BladeForums by Jim Cooper called "'No Frills' $75.00 home studio tent/lightbox " with instructions on how to build it. See http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=328550

I built a similar portable light box to use for shooting on location. At home, since I have been shooting a lot of knives lately, I built a more elaborate version with lots of places to hang lights and a lot of versatility for draping light diffuser materials and reflectors. I used a piece of translucent plexiglass for the table so that I can even illuminate from below.

I don't intend to come off sounding like the end-all know-all guru about shooting knives. I have been a photographer for many years and just got into shooting knives about a year ago and it is much more challenging than I would have imagined. I learned a lot from those who have been doing it for a long time like Jim Cooper, Terrill Hoffman, Buddy Thomason and Eric from Point Seven Studios. There are many ways to accomplish good photos. This is just how I do it. I purposely try to shoot mine a little different from the way others do it to develop my own look and style.

 

[Mike Carter Custom Knives]

Since this is the Schrade forum, I thought I would post a couple of my Schrade photos. Thanks for looking.

 

[Timstools]

Ducks and Bucks66

How do you get the pics to come out so sharp? I've got some knives I'd like to show but the quality of the pics I just can't seem to get.

I took the photo of the deep etched train knife in other thread this morning http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=453505, the sky was completely overcast which is good because the sun causes glare and gaps in cloud cover can reflect off knife and make it look patchy. I took knife outside on pillow and put the camera on the macro function. You have to do this because when you hold a camera this close to the knife you move in and out imperceptably and the macro continually adjusts the focus automatically while you are moving so that when you take the shot it is not blurred but focused correctly (this is not the same thing as shake reduction).

Macro on my three cameras is activated by just pushing the round direction dial once downward usually a flower shape will appear on display.

The rest is easy take the knife ouside away from trees house or anything that will refect on its surface. Put the pillow and knife on a chair and stand or neal with knife and pillow on ground. Hold your arms out nearly straight if standing and use the digital display screen not the view finder so that you can see the whole knife filling the screen. You will need to be able look at both the knife and also the image of the knife in the screen almost simultaneuosly before taking the shot.

While doing this make sure your head is not reflecting in knife by moving back on a slight angle to the knife, then after that make sure camera is not also reflecting off it. If it is just move your hands back a little until it is just clear and lastly if you still have shadows on knife then move back even further so you are not directly over knife but NOT more than you have to. If you still cant get a clear shot with shadows or reflections or you feel the angle to the knife is too great then try turning the knife up the other way and try it again (you can reverse it on your computer latter).

Its sounds complicated but its not, just have to do a bit of juggling while you look over the top of your camera display.
Cheers Tim

 

[ducks_and_bucks66]

Tim
Thanks so much for bringing this thread up for me. Sometimes people are so helpful on this site that I don't even think to do a search on my own. I am truly amazed at how in-depth folks are with not only their knife collections but in ways to bring them to life in many different ways.

I think it might be time for me to invest in a decent camera. Right now I'm just using an HP5.1 mp photosmart camera. It would help not only in showing off the knives but for recording for insurance purposes. This brings up another question I'll ask in another thread (maybe I better do a search before I ask).

These are all great tips. Thanks so much.

Marc

 

[lrv]

I gotta say Ive learned so much in the forum about thaking photo's that I'll be redoing all mine for the web this spring. Thanks for sharing and showing.
One question, which photo editior software are you using to make the composite shots of the Walden and the 75th?
I have photoshop 7.0 pro
Thanks
Larry

 

[Timstools]

which photo editior software are you using to make the composite shots of the Walden and the 75th?

I used a few different ones because originally I found some were difficult to use so I used a few to get the result I wanted. As I become a little better at it I use almost exclusively "Microsoft Picture It! Photo Standard 9". This is a good one you can insert (insert is at top of page) pictures on top or beside one another and adjust there size easily or flip over and still keep etching on same side this enables you almost limitless options when making your own compilations for example I took a photo of my wall (large area) download the photo to computer and put a photo on it I used the wall color for a border (pretty rough but it worked). Also because of the angle problem (as mentioned above) it is sometimes a good idea to take photo of one knife at a time and then join all of them together on a photo backdrop (on wall color pic).
allow a little around photo edges to when taking photo and then straighten and crop with photo software, remmember also that if you get an enlargement for framing your size photo may not fit there size paper exactly so allow a margin around edges and cut a border to fit frame out of large piece of colored paper so that it fits over top of enlargement and around any irregularities in final print (or use thicker proffesional border paper). Alternatley ask them to show you print size on there screen first.
I still havent finish displaying all mine yet, still trying to work out the best way to do it. Once Ive finished I post a pic of all knives in frame complete.
If you have a few knives give yourself a whole day and experiment it really is alot of fun.
Kind Regards Tim

If you want to keep it super sharp with very little angle distortion then below would be the most knives I would recommend putting in one photo. Im thinking of doing 3 or 4 of these with different knives with knives close to actual size and putting them in a 4 picture bordered frame. Ive tried lots of different options and this one seems to be best, especially if you want the bolster serial numbers to stand out clearly (please excuse photo is adjusted to low resolution because of hosting). This is one with wall border.

Bottom pic is section removed from top pic to better show true detail with camera same as this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-Powershot...QQihZ016QQcategoryZ146254QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem