Lightbox pictures

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Brutus013

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I setup my lightbox with just some white paper today, and here is one of my knives from two slightly different angles:

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How do they look? Is the lighting nice and even? Who here uses a lightbox, and if you do, mind posting some pics?

Oh yeah, and if this is the wrong forum for this, I won't be surprised. I just couldn't find a thread about lightboxes.
 
I'm liking the way the light reflects in the second picture. The first one seems as if it could use a bit more lighting.

Also, is that a patina you got going on that knife?
 
I think your pics are awesome, and I like the knife, too.

Is the lighting expensive or hard to setup? I know that has a lot to do with how well the pics turn out.

Digicam?
 
Yeah, I patina'd the carbon blade. I was getting some rust off of it and accidently took off some of the heat treating black oxidation off of the top of the knife there, and it didn't look so good, so I used some lemon juice to patina it. The camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28. Here's a pic of the setup:

http://flickr.com/photos/29682929@N08/2968210384/

Fancy, eh?

Also, here's another shot in the lightbox, but with some black granite and a Kershaw Mini Cyclone:

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Hi Brutus,

Light is even, whitebalance looks good, the background is nice and 'seamless'. The knife is beautiful.

Just seem to be a tad dark on my monitor. You should be able to adjust that fairly easily though.

I use a home-built light box and three fluorescent bulbs to light it. I also do a custom white balance off of a white sheet.

Here's a couple samples using various adjustments in my tent:

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Wow, very nice. I love the one of the rifle, the curve of the bone/wood/whatever it is accents it, as does the color. I hadn't though of using a piece of wood in the lightbox, thanks for the idea. Also, how'd you get such a pure black background?
 
Thanks for the kind words...

The black background is just a large piece of black cloth thumb-tacked to the back of my box.
 
Ah, sounds good. I tried using black paper...it didn't turn out so well. It ends up being completely purple. I need to get some black cloth.
 
Hm, I'm sure they could be. The halogen light works very well because of how bright it is, I don't how know well a standard bulb would be. That halogen light, without the stand, was only about $10, so picking up one or two would be a good investment.
 
Brutus013 said:
Hm, I'm sure they could be. The halogen light works very well because of how bright it is, I don't how know well a standard bulb would be. That halogen light, without the stand, was only about $10, so picking up one or two would be a good investment.
Click to expand...

So both lights in your setup are halogen? What rating are they? I need to pick up a couple of those. Thanks!
 
Only one is halogen in that shot. If the shadows are pretty bad I'll put a halogen on each side to help cancel them out.
 
I found that it is better to not to use lightbox, but point light directly using may be white trash bag as a filter. Only benefit light box provides is white reflection in the blade itself, which you can accomplish with white screen.

If you have several light sources better put them around to elimenate shadows in the front.

Like here - hande is actually highligted instead of being in he shadow - usual for lightbox pictures.

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If you use screens - you also may play with reflection in the blade to expose it's shape.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Yeah, I usually use one light on the side, if not two, and one on top. As you can see in the first ones, there's no shadow on the handle. I might start using a hand held light with a screen on it to play with the shadows on the blade, help show the shape more, that's a good idea. The one on top shows the swedge and geometry of the blade pretty well though, I think (in the one with the granite).
 
I love taking pictures of my knives. Some of these were shot in a light tent, most aren't

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Actually, I think the top two were (top is a Clip Tip Jr., the bottom is a Mini Companion).

The 'Mini-Whisper' and 'Fox Fighter' I bought elsewhere in 2002.

All of them are gone except the Whisper.

I had many Grecos at one time. I'm down to only a few now.

You can get Grecos at knife shows when he's there and also here:

www.grecoknives.com

and on Ebay.
 
Here's another I just took, of a Sodbuster Jr. The blade is kind of hard to photograph because of the etching, it only shows at certain angles, but I'm satisfied. The paper is a bit dirty and the handle is a bit smudged, but that's no big deal.

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The picture is not meant to do anything except show the knife, so it's probably a bit boring. Just kind of messing with the lighting in the lightbox.
 
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