Photo Critique - Dan Fronefield Meteorite Folder

Senator

Senator

Joined
Oct 2, 1998
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I just started playing around with photography a few weeks ago. Here's a shot I did of my Dan Fronefield meteorite folder and want to hear any critique you guys can offer to help me improve.

Here are some details...

  • Canon Rebel Xsi
  • Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens at 55mm focal length
  • F/11 aperture at 1/15 sec on a tripod
  • Shot in RAW and converted to JPG
  • Cropped and resized, as well as minor sharpening, contrast, and light adjustments in CS4

The blade is a Tim Zowada-forged san-mai pattern with highly polished O1 core and meteorite/O1 damascus outer layers. The bolsters, handles, and inlays in the thumbstud and backspacer are made of differing kinds of meteorite. Fileworked titanium liners, with a fileworked O1 backspacer.


FronefieldMeteoriteFolder1.jpg
 
I am not a photographer, but it looks good to me, I can see most of the details... I suppose some different lighting or a slightly different angle could bring out the thumbstud detail better.


I score it a 9.3 out of 10 for a nice photo:thumbup:!
 
Really good Kelly. I took it into Photoshop and the white balance is just a tad off (Use the grey dropper in the Curves pallet touching the bolster to see.) Most would never care or notice.

My personal preference is for a little more backlighting. Yours appears about 12 o'clock high or closer, but is probably directly overhead. You may very well prefer it this way. So be it. :)

Good cropping and a pleasant background that doesn't subtract. Yes, I'll give it a 9 of 10 too. :thumbup:

Coop
 
Thanks for the comments, guys.

Coop - I agree about the backlighting. The shadow along the back on the handle is driving me crazy. I have two 16" lights, each with four daylight temperature flourescent bulbs and a light tent like Murrays. The lights for this pic were almost overhead at about the 9 and 3 o'clock positions. I played around a bit with the positions and wasn't really happy with any of them. I'll keep experimenting and will use your suggestions.

I got the camera for Christmas, so my DSLR experience is extrememly limited. I've read several books on digital photography and exposure this month, and have just over 1000 shots so far - almost all of them just to learn the controls and experiment with how the aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and everything else all work together.

And my Photoshop experience is limited to screwing around in it for a couple of hours, and it's made me feel stupid. :o And because I hate feeling stupid, I'll do what is necessary to at least be mildly proficient, no matter how long it takes.

Why do I have a feeling that this whole photography thing will become all-consuming (and very expensive?) :D

Suz - me, too. This was one of my first big (read $$$) knife purchases, and suprisingly it was on eBay some years back. There's a lot of not-so-obvious features on this knife that required a lot of skill. Could you imagine what one small slip on the grinder would cost with all that meteorite? :eek: One of these days I'll put together a collage of these features and post it.
 
Hello Senator. I took the liberty of adding just a few Photoshop tweaks to your image for illustration purposes. Very easy commands and only a few minutes involved in it. I picked them up from reading thru Coop's posts. Hope you don't mind. Still, good lighting is the base in which to start.
Greg

orig.jpg
 
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As far as the shadow goes, maybe try a lightbox to diffuse the light from various sources. Or some kind of material over your lighting to diffuse it.



mckgreg said:
Hello Senator. I took the liberty of adding just a few Photoshop tweaks to your image for illustration purposes. Very easy commands and only a few minutes involved in it. I picked them up from reading thru Coop's posts. Hope you don't mind. Still, good lighting is the base in which to start.
Greg
Click to expand...
Not bad at all. I wouldn't have sharpened it quite so much, myself, though. ;)
 
Yes, it's a bit over done. I used Unsharp Mask and High Pass Sharpening.
Greg
 
Kelly -- very good job. I'd agree with Coop basically but a bit more contrast could be added as well as some USM. I think the crop is just a bit on the tight side whereas a bit more room would still give large image but some breathing room. The adjusted image presented, I feel is a bit overexposed in the highlights and a bit too much sharpening. You are doing very well, and we all look forward to more images. With the box that I use, keep the light toward the back of the box and angle it rather than putting it directly overhead. Use the second light in front to fill.

BTW -- I have just seen that Booth now has the same type of box in a totally fold down version for supreme portability but unfortunately, they left off the front panel. Will have to chat with them about this either by email or at the next Camera show they attend in May 2009. In fact, I'm still awaiting delivery of mine but will be wanting to get a front panel. they should be able to add that with a velcro band.
 
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