Knife photography question???

[joeyza]

I have tried several times to take nice pics of my knives. I usually take them in my room where I have yellow lights mostly but the pics always turn out kinda grainy and with not such good true colors. Is this cause of the yellow lighting? Should I be using white lights for knife photography or photography of any kind when taking pics of specific objects?
thanks!

 

[tohellwithhades]

I have tried several times to take nice pics of my knives. I usually take them in my room where I have yellow lights mostly but the pics always turn out kinda grainy and with not such good true colors. Is this cause of the yellow lighting? Should I be using white lights for knife photography or photography of any kind when taking pics of specific objects?
thanks!

The light source is certainly a factor, but you should be able to change the White Balance setting in your camera to match your light source. Otherwise, window lighting can offer a nice, balanced look. Basically put the knives onto some type of background near the window and slowly move around to see how the light reflects off the knives at different angles and take the photo when you like what you see. Some people have nicer camera equipment and lighting (I've been limited to using my speedlight for artificial lighting).

 

[Jason Fry]

Two issues, light source and light volume. The color issue likely comes from shooting indoors with incandescent bulbs. The grainy comes from not enough light. It is some trial and error, for sure, but the advice so far is good. Shoot outdoors in indirect light if you can. Learn to use your camera settings also. You don't need an expensive camera to shoot good pictures. You may need a better setup to shoot GREAT pictures, but I bet with some practice and a few changes you can shoot better pics that you are shooting now.

 

[Ebbtide]

We have a photography subforum.
There are a couple of threads on down and dirty knife photography.
Take a look

 

[PhilL]

There's a Sticky at the top of the Gallery Forum, "No Frills $75 Studio" with about 100,000 views, lot's of good info.

If you don't have $75 you can read my tutorial, "No Frills Lighting"
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/306402-No-Frills-Lighting?highlight=Frills+Lighting.

The other sticky up there is, "How I Do Image Editing" because no matter how good you get any photo can use some help.