Woodworking product photography

[Arron]

It might be time, I thought, to show the photography rig I use for woodworking photography (or any other smallish item, I guess).

This is what I use. There is a pop-up light tent, which came with a bunch of opaque backgrounds in different colours - I only use the black one. There are 5 lights. The overhead light, and 4 desktop versions on tripods. Those blue things are just door snakes filled with sand - to stop me knocking the little tripods over. The lights are compact flourescents - colour balanced at 5500 kelvin for photography. In this configuration there are 3 at 115 watts, and 2 at 85 watts. I have an extra 175 watts of lights which I can set up in clip-ons (not shown) but unfortunately they don't open wide enough to fit onto the edge of that table.

Altogether, it might sound like quite a bit of light (690 watts of compact flurescent lights) but its not really enough to give me the sharpness and depth of field I would like.

For small objects, I can use the light tent. For larger objects (ie a chair) I can set up without the light tent and to be honest it really makes very little difference.

This stuff might look expensive but actually I bought it on-line from Asia and its very cheap. Its far from professional quality, but nothing has broken or let me down so I would classify it as OK for an occasional user. Probably the only part of the rig which is really second-rate is the backgrounds. They act like a magnet for pet hairs and every bit of dust in the neighbourhood, and because they are low quality they are a little too evident in the photos. They need deeper, non-reflective flocking - or something.

I use a Nikon D7000 which has two programmable modes. One I have set up for small stuff in the light tent, the other for larger items without the light tent. My intention here was to get the process so totally repeatable that, given standardised lighting setups, I could just put the camera into preset mode and just snap away, but it hasn't happened yet. It still seems to require endless frigging with settings on the camera, and then further work on photoshop to get the result I want. Why it cannot deliver me consistency in colour balance I cannot understand.

I'm still learning this stuff. I'm posting it here to start some discussion and to see what other people who have gone down this route are using.

cheers
Arron

376882

[Ironwood]

Hi Arron, have you done a custom white balance setting for this setup ? If so you should be able to set your cameras white balance to your custom setting when using your light tent, results should be consistent.

If you are using it in a room with different types of lights on as well, it will give you trouble. Best results will be if you can block, or eliminate all other sources of light.

[FenceFurniture]

Fluorescents are not the best light source either. They have bits missing from the spectrum (important bits for cameras). You may get better results from LED globes - even though the colour temp may be lower, AFAIK the are a more continuous spectrum. I find that the LED floodlights in my shed (3200°K IIRC) give a pretty good result when I set the camera to tungsten lighting. Not as good as good old sunlight, but not too bad.

[Arron]

All done many times, and still no consistency. But thank you for the response anyway Brad.

I always wait for night and eliminate all other artificial light, as you can see in the photo.

[Arron]

Fluorescents are not the best light source either. They have bits missing from the spectrum (important bits for cameras).

These are supposedly designed for photography - at least that's how they were sold to me. You could be on to something though, although it's hard to work out how to check.

[Ironwood]

Can you post a sample photo so we can see what results you are getting, need to know your camera settings as well.
Are your using a tripod and shutter timer or remote shutter release?

I just changed my lights in my setup over to led down lights , they provide pretty good lighting, but need good diffusion to get good results.

I will post some pics of my setup tomorrow night.

[Arron]

I should also have mentioned that I sometimes wonder if the camera is at fault. I'm using a Nikon D7000 - but sometimes when I get really fed up in this or other photographic tasks I revert to my old Nikon D80 which is a model of consistency in comparison.

I don't think I use this enough to justify going out and buying a new led setup.

[FenceFurniture]

Take a pic of something colourful (preferably a colour strip reference card) using direct sunlight, then do it under the artificial lighting with the program you have. If the lights are any good then the colours should be reasonably close to each other. It might also be handy to using some halogens or LEDs (after white balancing the camera to those sources) to see what you get. Even if you can't use all five light sources.

[FenceFurniture]

I don't think I use this enough to justify going out and buying a new led setup.No, I just mean replace the globes.

[Arron]

I just remembered I have some of those already - bought for another purpose and never used. They are just ordinary led bulbs, not photographic stuff. Does it make a difference ?

[Arron]

Take a pic of something colourful (preferably a colour strip reference card) using direct sunlight, then do it under the artificial lighting with the program you have. If the lights are any good then the colours should be reasonably close to each other. It might also be handy to using some halogens or LEDs (after white balancing the camera to those sources) to see what you get. Even if you can't use all five light sources.

I'll do that. It will have to wait a bit cos it takes a bit of time to set up and pack away, but next chance I get I will do it and see what is missing. Thanks for the guidance.

Cheers
Arron

[FenceFurniture]

I just remembered I have some of those already - bought for another purpose and never used. They are just ordinary led bulbs, not photographic stuff. Does it make a difference ?Should be ok, just balance to them and see what you get. The LEDs in my shed are just ordinary types.

[Arron]

Should be ok, just balance to them and see what you get. The LEDs in my shed are just ordinary types.

I shall give those a go then. They are just bulbs I bought at Aldi and never used because they are E27 and I needed bayonet.

Cheers
Arron

[FenceFurniture]

I'll see if I can explain it a bit better. Back in the day I used to make light boxes for transparency inspection. All the E6 labs in Sydney had them, along with various other people who used lightboxes. Initially I was using a fluoro tube called Tru-Lights which were 5500°k, but I still felt they were a little cold. Then Philips released their Daylight tubes which I think were 5000°K. In any case they were really good for checking trannies, and many times cheaper than Tru-Lights at......$55 per tube (mid 1980s).

However, whilst they looked really natural to the eye, if they were used to illuminate a photographic subject then the result was green crap. Even the FL-Day filters (purplish) didn't properly correct the colour, simply because there are bits missing from the spectrum.

Fluoros also pulse, so it's possible with the right shutter speed to get a black pic taken in between the pulses, although that's pretty unlikely given that the shutter speed has to be pretty slow (as you have found out).

Halogens are a continuous spectrum I believe. Not quite sure about the spectrum of LEDs, but they are certainly a lot closer to halogens/tungsten.

[Arron]

Can you post a sample photo so we can see what results you are getting, need to know your camera settings as well.
Reading the program settings - mode is manual, ISO is 400, F8, Speed 1/180 sec, AF-S, whitebalance = 5260k, I dial in a bit of bias towards red/yellow.
Naturlly I tweak these a bit as I go.



Are your using a tripod and shutter timer or remote shutter release?
Usually hand-held. Sometimes tripod with manual release. Whichever is required for adequate sharpness.

[FenceFurniture]

You could just put one of your E27 globes into a floodlight holder or similar and not worry about diffusing it - it's only a test of the temp, not to see how the shadows fall.

[Arron]

I should also mention that since doing the original post I have improved the setup a bit. I now use the camera tethered to an ipad, so I can instantly review the images on the ipad. This mightn't sound like much, but I have found it very useful because Ipad's have quite accurate displays (mine is the retina model), so its much more revealing then viewing the images on the tiny monitor on the back of the camera and beats the inefficiency carrying to the desktop and downloading.

This makes me a more efficient tweaker, though it doesn't deal with the inconsistency issue.

[Arron]

You could just put one of your E27 globes into a floodlight holder or similar and not worry about diffusing it - it's only a test of the temp, not to see how the shadows fall.

No, I'm good. The lighting setup is E27. Its the other task which I had for them which is bayonet, hence why they were never used.
Are you able to estimate how many LEDs I would need to make this task worthwhile. I think they are equivalent of 60 watt incandescent ?

[FenceFurniture]

Well the good thing about E27 LEDs from Aldi is that they are usually the brighter ones only. My Aldi floodlights are 18w I think (they are heavy though - particularly at the front, so they would be problematic in your set up). Have a look in a hardware for Philips LEDs - I bought some pretty bright bayonets, so they may have some strong E27s. Those floodlights are pretty damn bright.

[FenceFurniture]

Also, be aware that Aldi LEDs have two different colour temps, depending on the run of manufacture. Some are good at about 3000°K but too many are hideously yellow at 2700-2800°K. I think the floodlights might be 3200°K - they are really good.

[woodPixel]

The 5500s you have in that kit are fine. They are excellent lights. Front left/right (45 degrees), top and top back are all you need.

Get your Speed down to 1/80. Set the camera to (M)anual or macro (flower) and disable the flash. Buy an 18% grey card and use that to set your colour balance right in the shot.... You can use the inbuilt white balance to set it pre-shot, but I don't bother, just leave it somewhere in the shot where it can be cropped out and your camera will magically set the white balance properly. Grey cards are magic. A quick google will tell you more in a better way than I can here how they work.

You are right about the backgrounds they supply. They are not opaque. God help you if you own a white cat....

[Ironwood]

I should also mention that since doing the original post I have improved the setup a bit. I now use the camera tethered to an ipad, so I can instantly review the images on the ipad. This mightn't sound like much, but I have found it very useful because Ipad's have quite accurate displays (mine is the retina model), so its much more revealing then viewing the images on the tiny monitor on the back of the camera and beats the inefficiency carrying to the desktop and downloading.

This makes me a more efficient tweaker, though it doesn't deal with the inconsistency issue.
I am interested to know how you tether to the ipad, did you have to buy software ?

I cant work out why you are getting inconsistencies . If your lighting remains the same each time, and you use the same camera settings you should get consistent results.

Maybe put the coloured backgrounds away for now, and use a sheet of plain white paper to help get things sorted.
Keep using the lights you already have for now , no reason they shouldn't work for you. I only changed to leds because my tungsten lights were melting my diffusers.

[Ironwood]

I just went through all my photos, seems I must have deleted the photos of my lightbox. I will take some more on the weekend and post them here.