Campbellclanman
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2007
- Messages
- 15,868
Doug, if you want to do outdoorsie shots...the best lighting is the very early morning sun, and the setting sun, totally forget direct sunlight, or...if your are in direct light, get an umbrella of light colour to diffuse the direct sunlight..that way you can catch different lights ( on different angles) to show off swedges, false edges etc.
No flash. No late at night inside using lights...
Both Rick, and j2shoes are legends at photography of knives..so follow what they say, in saying that...Hal always gives us his beautifully clear shots - always in his style too
Practise and find YOUR style of surroundings etc, and pretty soon as soon as someone clicks onto a page, they will recognise its your work before they even see your avitar
To practise getting different lighting on your blade edges-as in showing off the swedges, false edges, shoulder lines etc...focus in...and then gently move side to side and around to catch the right lights on those edges...try this and you will see what I mean.
It takes time, and it takes practise, and you have a real nice knife there my friend
Please see this example.. I try to take my photos at the early time or late time I described earlier...these arent good photos by anymeans...BUT....they show what the knife has got...note how the light on the particular angle I found while looking through my lens....it highlights the swedge...and that is a highlight of the knife itself...
Or this one here..again not anything special, but I chose it over far more focused shots, because the lighting cuts into the swedges shoulder, and leaves the rest of the very old knife a raw, dark image...i thought it suited this lovely old girl just perfectly.....
And as an example of how a photo can go wrong, as the background detracts from the knife..it changes, its not flowing or even, yet the photo of the knife is good, the light and angle ( I feel ) is perfect to show off the blades edges, and the angle I experimented with let just enough of the setting sun to hit on the Bone scales...to give it a glow that only a rising Sun or setting Sun can give you...
No flash. No late at night inside using lights...
Both Rick, and j2shoes are legends at photography of knives..so follow what they say, in saying that...Hal always gives us his beautifully clear shots - always in his style too
Practise and find YOUR style of surroundings etc, and pretty soon as soon as someone clicks onto a page, they will recognise its your work before they even see your avitar
To practise getting different lighting on your blade edges-as in showing off the swedges, false edges, shoulder lines etc...focus in...and then gently move side to side and around to catch the right lights on those edges...try this and you will see what I mean.
It takes time, and it takes practise, and you have a real nice knife there my friend
Please see this example.. I try to take my photos at the early time or late time I described earlier...these arent good photos by anymeans...BUT....they show what the knife has got...note how the light on the particular angle I found while looking through my lens....it highlights the swedge...and that is a highlight of the knife itself...
Or this one here..again not anything special, but I chose it over far more focused shots, because the lighting cuts into the swedges shoulder, and leaves the rest of the very old knife a raw, dark image...i thought it suited this lovely old girl just perfectly.....
And as an example of how a photo can go wrong, as the background detracts from the knife..it changes, its not flowing or even, yet the photo of the knife is good, the light and angle ( I feel ) is perfect to show off the blades edges, and the angle I experimented with let just enough of the setting sun to hit on the Bone scales...to give it a glow that only a rising Sun or setting Sun can give you...
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I don't even OWN a camera but I would like to get somebody to photo some of my knives as I've got a few decent ones here and there.....
