Little kitchen knife

Will52100

Will52100

Joined
Dec 4, 2001
Messages
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This is the blade part of a kitchen knife I broke rite at the bolster. I reground and played with the blade portion till I came up with this. Since it came from a blade that I suspect the heat treat on it's one that I am keeping and will use in the kitchen to see how I like the design. The edge flexed like it was suposed to but a little tapping on the bolsters snaped the tange. It laid on the bench for several months before I got to experimenting.

4" blade of S30V, 1/8" black paper mycarta gaurd, stabilized spalted maple handle. The handle is one that I'm glad that I used on this knife. It apears to have been mostly rotted before stabilization and wanted to chip and flake durning grinding and finishing. Took a good bit of super glue and sanding to get it exceptable. This is also my first pics using my new homemade light box, any thoughts on how to improve the pics? Differant background, more light, or just a better camera?

Thanks,
 

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Are the photos not perfectly focused or is it just a lack of resolution ? The light box works well , no nasty refections ! A more interesting background might help , a pattern and better color but nothing that will interfere with the knife .Contrast the knife with green which helps with wood and doesn't interfere with the grey of the blade.
 
Handy looking knife --- sweet and clean design.

If you follow the link in my sig below, you'll find a bunch of links on knife photography that I've compiled into one thread.

Your photos look better than a lot of them shown on the web. If you post a picture of your lightbox setup it might guide discussion on it.

To me it looks like outside your diffusion lightbox you had only a single light (shadow below handle is still pretty dark) and no reflectors. You might want to add one or two more lights for more control of the lighting. Alternatively, you could use mirrors to bounce some light into the dark area.

Unless there's a particular feature on a blade that will be highlighted by the split, when a knife's blade has parts that are both lighted and shadowed, one part or the other "disappears" visually into the background to some extent. In the middle picture, the rear half of the blade is lighted (white) and the tip half is shadowed (gray).

(edit to add) I don't know if you use Photoshop or other post-production software, but there are some interesting things you can do with such programs. To highlight details of a particular knife, you can include multiple exposures of different parts of the knife in a single composite picture as Coop did in this thread.
 
Thanks guys, I used three lights with the twisty floresant daylight bulbs. I still need to cut a mirror for a front reflector. The knife is in focas, I think it must be the low resalution, the camera is a cheap Kodak that came with the computer. I'll play around with back grounds till I get something better, thanks for the tip on the green background. The third photo I tried ajusting a little with photo editor. I used the "no frills 75$ light box" design, the lights were the brightest I could find at lowes and home depo. I'll try to take some photo's of it tonight.
 
have you tried daylight flood lights? These put out quite a bit more light than regular daylight bulbs. Still require a bit of color-correction (slight yellow cast) but not as bad as incandescant or regular fluorescent bulbs.
 
I have some daylight floods, but haven't had time to play with them today, been working on building a press and getting a couple of blades ready for heat treat. It's pretty clear that I need more light, and to cut a mirror to get rid of the shadow at the front of the knife. Also looks like I need a better camera.

Any idea's on a camera? what mega pixals, ect? Not your dream camera, something I can afford!:p
 
If you want just a point-n-shoot, then just get any camera above 4-5 Megapixels. Should only cost $300-400.

Otherwise, if you know a little bit about photography, then you can't beat the Fujifilm Finepix S9000. Acts like a professional camera, without the price. That, or the Canon Rebel XT, will be my next camera.

Right now, I am using a Fujifilm Finepix S602z...similar to the S9000...just older.

IMHO, FWIW, YMMV, etc.
 
I really like the Sony DSC-P200. I don't have one, but i've used one on several occasions, and i will have one once i have money again. unless something better comes out that is :D it's 7.2 megapixels which is an EXTREMELY high res, it's pretty doggone small, and I think most places sell it for under $400.
Alex
 
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