Just a test.. New camera..& Light Box..

ditrina

ditrina

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27-2 Nickel..first time working with a Nickel Gun and the Light box..
( Workin' on it Doc;))

NICKEL27-25INCHGUNSHOWSTARS024.jpg


NICKEL27-25INCHGUNSHOWSTARS022.jpg
 
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boykinlp said:
Lets see a picture of the light box, please. Also, what kind of camera set up do you now have? Your pictures look great to me!!
Click to expand...

Rags had forwarded me this all I did was follow the directions ( I changed the dimensions a bit)
Light Box..

Light Box / Light Tent Photo Gallery by Bill Huber at pbase.com

My Camera is a Nikon D90 that I'm still learning with..

Two clamp on painter lamps with 100 watt equiv. new fangled cork screw;) DAYLIGHT bulbs..

LIGHTBOXTEST006.jpg
 
You're getting great results! Your pics aren't just the result of the equipment you're using, you're adding hard work and a dash of talent...
 
Nice! Congratulations. It is hard getting nickle plated guns to render well in photographs. A light box, sturdy tripod and decent camera surely helps!!!
 
Hey, is that a 5-incher with a patridge front sight blade? First one of those I've ever seen. Nice gun and nice pic!

Bob
 
Much better than my scrub pics in front of my bathroom mirror. I find the mirror helps with better lighting, but a light box clearly works just a little better...
 
Months later and I finally made a light box. And my pics look worse than the ones I used to take with the bulbs reflecting off the bathroom mirror:


This is with three of the 60w (really 14w) CFL bright white bulbs.

2011-11-20_11-13-05_476.jpg


2011-11-20_11-13-39_570.jpg



And this is with the one on top turned off but the sides both turned on:

2011-11-20_11-35-48_818.jpg


The daylight CFL's on the display and a funny blue hue to the light they gave off while these were pure white to my eyes. Do I need to step up to the daylight version? Is the 60w not enough???
 
Try putting your camera's white balance setting to incandescent (really!). ASA to 100. That's what I do. It may work. All lights on...tripod if needed with timer.
 
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I can hardly see a difference. Guess it's time to go light bulb shopping again.

2011-11-20_12-22-54_203.jpg
 
Just a few suggestions for you. I'm not familiar with "smartphone" photography (looks like you're using a Droid) but if you can manually set the white balance, that will improve the color - try something around 2800 to 3000 to start. Once you get what you want, keep the WB the same on all future pics as long as you don't change the type of lights you are using. If you leave the WB on AUTO, the camera will be "thrown off" by the red (or whatever) background color and all all colors in the shot and there will be a color cast to it - if you know how to use a photo program like photoshop or something, you can remove this cast. Also, your shutter speed is too low to get a sharp picture by hand-holding (EXIF says 1/20, 1/40 or 1/60 sec) - if you shoot at those speeds, you need a tripod.

If you can prop the gun up off the background, the shadows behind it won't be as obvious. Also, keep the camera and gun in the same plane so that the entire gun is in focus - unless you don't want that. In that same vein, your pics are all at the widest aperture (I assume) of 2.8 which gives the least amount of "depth of focus" - using a tripod will allow smaller apertures (8, 11, etc) and greater depth of focus.

Hope that helps a little & good luck!
 
I reworked the one shot a little in PS Elements - I figure the grips would look something like this, so that's what I based the colors on:

maxbob54.jpg
 
Sal, good job, nice gun. Doc sent me some advice on taking photos a while back, but I haven't got it together yet. Anyway, as always, thanks for sharing!
DLB
 
No denying it, Photoshop can do some amazing stuff. That is an awesome rendition or whatever you call it of my pic. That is one of the guns I got from my father's collection. Those are real ivory grips that he bought before I was even born. It has "Reno" in tiny print at the bottom of one side, so I suppose that is where they came from. But I wanted this to be my first pic and I'm turning out miserable at it. Here is a pic of my setup:

2011-11-20_17-42-35_265.jpg


No I'm off for higher wattage. In Tim Taylor's voice...

More Power!!!!
 
Great work on the light boxes guys. I need to build one soon so I can start taking better pictures. I generally find the pics they produce very "clean" though. I prefer to involve interesting background material and shadows when I can.

grips06.jpg
 
loutent said:
Just a few suggestions for you. I'm not familiar with "smartphone" photography (looks like you're using a Droid) but if you can manually set the white balance, that will improve the color - try something around 2800 to 3000 to start. Once you get what you want, keep the WB the same on all future pics as long as you don't change the type of lights you are using. If you leave the WB on AUTO, the camera will be "thrown off" by the red (or whatever) background color and all all colors in the shot and there will be a color cast to it - if you know how to use a photo program like photoshop or something, you can remove this cast. Also, your shutter speed is too low to get a sharp picture by hand-holding (EXIF says 1/20, 1/40 or 1/60 sec) - if you shoot at those speeds, you need a tripod.

If you can prop the gun up off the background, the shadows behind it won't be as obvious. Also, keep the camera and gun in the same plane so that the entire gun is in focus - unless you don't want that. In that same vein, your pics are all at the widest aperture (I assume) of 2.8 which gives the least amount of "depth of focus" - using a tripod will allow smaller apertures (8, 11, etc) and greater depth of focus.

Hope that helps a little & good luck!
Click to expand...

I was going to suggest white balance as well. You could try using a bulb which is not frosted too. You have a few hot spots so try angling your light source or repositioning your pistol.
 
I will try moving the bulbs around tomorrow. 4Am is coming way too soon right now.
 
For light-box photography I use a Canon 40D and either a 35mm/1.4 or 50mm/1.8 lens. I shoot RAW and convert to JPG, using a WhiBal for getting my white balance. I should add that I use a tripod, lock my mirror up and focus using my LCD back screen. I use a shutter release that's connected by wire to the camera body to minimize shake. Here's a couple of my light-box shots.

Rich

IMG_3527_SW36_07-01-11.jpg


IMG_3506_SW332_07-01-11.jpg


IMG_4453_SW63_07-07-11.jpg


IMG_4459_RugerSingle-Six22lr_07-07-11.jpg
 
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