Lookout! I bought a digital camera!

fulloflead

fulloflead

Joined
May 3, 2002
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My first knife pic post with it. A reptile and an Amphibian. ;)

(You'd be surprised how difficult it is to get a turtle to sit still for a picture. :D )

For YEARS I've been putting my knives for sale on my scanner at work and doing it that way. I just got a Canon PowerShot A75 and I love it. It shoots video too.

I've never really shared pictures of my knife/gun collection so this is going to be fun. I just need to make up some interesting backgrounds in my apartment.
 

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fulloflead said:
I've never really shared pictures of my knife/gun collection so this is going to be fun. I just need to make up some interesting backgrounds in my apartment.
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Congrats! I don't recall where I read it but a medium blue cloth makes for a really nice background when taking pics of knives. I have an old blue terry cloth towel that I use.
Daniel Koster used to have some great knife photography tips listed in his post's but I just went and checked and he doesn't anymore.
But I bet if you asked him he would gladly share them with you.:)
I used to have them bookmarked but lost everything when I had too wipe my hard drive a while back.
Dan roams all over the forums but is easily found in the Himalayan Imports Forum.
 
Yvsa said:
Congrats! I don't recall where I read it but a medium blue cloth makes for a really nice background when taking pics of knives. I have an old blue terry cloth towel that I use.
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That's pretty interesting, being into photography. Does that rule go for all knives or just knives with black handles? Like, if I took a pic of my purple griptillian, shouldn't I use a contrasting color, like yellow or green? Blue would clash.

~ashes
 
I just bought a nice little Canon A75, which I'm quite happy with. I also got a copy of Photoshop Elements 2.0, which I'm gamely working my way through....hehe.

I did a bit of a write-up in the "gear" section.
 
I found a good how-to on making a budget light box. The box plus a tripod should allow you to take some great shots of your knives.

I put one together last night. I'll be using it to take shots of my craft Monte Blanc sytle pens. ( I turned 26 of them for a craft show tomorrow at my son's school. I even made one for myself from fossil ivory.)

hope this helps:

http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box
 
Congrats on your purchase.

I'm a Canon guy and i think their digicams are the best.
 
Ashes said:
That's pretty interesting, being into photography. Does that rule go for all knives or just knives with black handles? Like, if I took a pic of my purple griptillian, shouldn't I use a contrasting color, like yellow or green? Blue would clash.

~ashes
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Good Point Ashes.:D
I think I read that in the Ethnographic Edged Weapons Forum so it wouldn't apply too modern knives.
I had never thought about a material or color that may clash with the blue as most of my knives have wood, stag, horn, or other natural material for handles.

Here's an as forged finished Chainpuri Khukuri that I bought from Himalayan Imports that's taken on the blue towel.
When I got it it was in the "as forged" state, with hammer marks, some rust, and black carbon deposits.
I cleaned it up, used some artistic license on the blade, left the hammer marks, and made the African Knobthorn handle and used hand made copper fittings and finally blued it too finish it up.
Then cut and tooled the leather and sewed the sheath. One of my favorites.:D
 
Moving to Gadgets & Gear.
 
Getting close-up shots is partly a camera trick, and partly camera smarts.

Every camera has a minimum focusing distance. Digital cameras have a shorter distance than their manual counterparts. So, usually, you can get pretty close.

So why is it so hard to take good close-ups, then?

Light and Camera Steadiness.

You need loads of indirect light - the more the better. Shining a light through a white cloth is a good start, but not enough. You need reflected light. Set up some lamps to bounce light off of a white surface behind and next to your "photo area". That's how the great ones get that "glow" in their pictures.

To take good knife pics - you must have a tripod, or photograph outdoors. (or have a fast lens...but we're talking point-n-shoot still). It is a necessity, not a luxury. If you want better pics, buy/borrow/make/whatever a tripod.

There are lots of other tricks, but those are the most basic that when properly understood, will get you to within 80% as good as the best.



Your pic looks like a good start. Good camera too.

Let me pick at it a bit, ok?

The clutter at the top distracts from the knife. Also, is the pic about the turtle or the knife? Make sure you understand your subject. Just like a term paper, a good photo needs a theme and a topic.

Yes, the orange is obnoxious...but I've shot hundreds of photos on a nasty yellow background - mostly because I had to use what I could and fast. No problem with that. I don't mind it.


Knives like to photographed either straight on, or at a funky angle. But not "almost straight on"....or "slightly skewed". Lots of people make this mistake. It's hard to understand the design of the knife when it's just barely off.


I built a cheap light box out of pvc piping and white spandex. Cheap and easy. Put whatever background you want - just don't use bright whites or dark colors. Find more neutral tones.


Color matching - this can be very tricky. The jury's still out on this one. Match or Contrast? I think it's more of a matter of taste (subjective) than science (objective).


Yvsa - I lost those links when BFC upgraded a while back and imposed the character limit on sig lines. :( I'm too lazy to look them up again.....sorry.


Do a search on "photo tutorial" and you'll find it.


Also, do a search on "santoku" to see some of my recent pics with my simple light box.
 
fulloflead said:
I just got a Canon PowerShot A75 and I love it. It shoots video too.
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Great choice for that price range. :) Congratulations! I've just been shopping online and made a different choice (also a Canon, but a tad more expensive).

If anyone wants to research digital cameras prior to buying one, here are a few sites:

http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com/all-cameras-digital-cameras-ratings.html (a good place to start, but the prices on the right don't always show the lowest available online; for example, the Canon A95 can be obtained for $278 rather than $399 as you can find out by digging farther into the review))

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/

http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/ratings.php

http://www.imaging-resource.com/DIGCAM01.HTM

http://www.dcresource.com/

http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html

This last site has links to various reviews:

http://www.dcviews.com/

Some of these sites have links where you can find the lowest prices with a click or two.

I guess the biggest thing I came away with is that more megapixels (and $) don't guarantee better performance. Start with the first site, narrow it down to a few cameras, then check out the other sites for more reviews. Some of the reviews include a lot of technical info, but they're still worth checking out even if you're a novice because you'll find useful tidbits. Also, prices range widely- it's best to check out the lowest prices for a camera that looks too expensive because you may be able te get it cheaper than you thought. However, sometimes the lowest prices are for refurbished cameras.

BTW, the first site ranks the Canon A75 first in its price range (under $250). :)

Bill D.
 
Cougar Allen said:
The most important link of all: Why your Camera Does Not Matter Read that first, then the camera reviews. :cool:
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Well, I just lost a half-hour of typing here because a windows update changed my settings without telling me. :grumpy: :mad: My point was that with *digital* cameras the automated functions can really get in the way of taking good photos, so it pays to look for a digital camera that faithfully reproduces images (exposure/focus/color/digital noise), is user-friendly, and has the features you want. Hence, the ratings. However, he's right that great equipment will not compensate for lack of skill.

Bill D.
 
Ashes said:
Blue would clash.

~ashes
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You've just destroyed my faith in my one fashion tip: "Blue goes with everything"!

The memsahib groans whenever I buy something else in blue!

maximus otter
 
Tsme said:
Well, I just lost a half-hour of typing here because a windows update changed my settings without telling me. :grumpy: :mad: My point was that with *digital* cameras the automated functions can really get in the way of taking good photos, so it pays to look for a digital camera that faithfully reproduces images (exposure/focus/color/digital noise), is user-friendly, and has the features you want. Hence, the ratings. However, he's right that great equipment will not compensate for lack of skill.

Bill D.
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Thanks for the effort anyway. :D

I took some photography in college (and even made my own darkroom at home once) and I still PREFER film and have a few different film cameras depending on what I'm doing. (If I were going on Safari or something, a digital camera definately wouldn't be my first choice.)

So, I'm better than that photo would indicate, for sure. I was just messing around.

I basically just bought a digital camera because I spend a LOT of time on the net and find myself wanting to send pictures more and more often. Scanning is a hassle.

One thing I've noticed already that bothers me is that the cropping in the view finder doesn't match the cropping on the LCD screen; neither of which matches the final result. But then, I haven't even read the manual or the sites you guys sent me YET. I just have been kinda hacking through it.

I'm going to print out all of this stuff. It'll make good before bedtime reading. ;)
 
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