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  1. #46
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    Jan 2007
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    Deception Bay, Brisbane, QLD.
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    Default

    The amount of lighting you have is probably ok. You said around 2 x 125W equivalent. That should be fine. Mine only has two lights. I don't think it is bright but the pics come out ok.

    Optics is a massive subject. To cut it short the problem is probably your sheet. It is probably absorbing too much of the light or spectrum that the light is emitting. If the sheet is not the right colour or transparency it isn't too much use at all. Just need to play around a bit.

    BJ
    Want to find a timber supplier in Brisbane. Check this link. http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ad.php?t=74808

    My website. Moksha Writing Instruments.
    http://users.tpg.com.au/bjtunnie//Moksha.html

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  3. #47
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    Canberra ACT
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    Thanks gentlemen for the input. I'm off to experiment.

    Fredo
    A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kickboxing

  4. #48
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Metung,Victoria
    Age
    62
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    33

    Default Photography hints

    Just read all your comments on photographing bowls. Some really great suggestions there. I agree that lighting is really the main thing to get right. For what it's worth, here are a few other suggestions.

    If you can, light your subject as if it were sitting in the centre of a triangle. the "KEY" light (which could be the sun, your flash, or another light source) should be the strongest and be at the front and slightly to one side. On the opposing side, should be a softer "FILL" light - angle it to hit the darker shadows. And the third light source is the "BACK" light which could be from underneath or above your subject to give it three dimensionality. Moving you light sources closer or further away from your subject will intensify their strength.

    So, how do you do this without a studio? Bouncing light is the best option. Flexifills are what is used in the industry (and cost anywhere upwards of $100 each), but a couple of good cheap alternatives are polystyrene board or the flexible fold up heat reflectors that you put into your car windows. You can pick these up quite cheaply from $2 shops or cheap auto supplies. Silver backing will give you good light and you can bend them to concentrate light on the subject as needed. They are also easy to gaffer tape onto chairs, posts etc to keep your hands free for photographing your subject.

    A simple "Cychlorama" is easy to construct out of a couple of pieces of ply joined at right angles. A large piece of black matt cardboard taped to the edges so it creates a curve will give you an horizonless background. Black will also absorb the light, rather than bouncing it back onto your subject. If you want this bounce then use white board, but it is harder to avoid highlights in unwanted areas with this.

    Hope these tips are of use.
    The best things come in small parcels.

  5. #49
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
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    Melbourne, Aus.
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    12,746

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    Good tips BH.

    (You really do have them don't you )
    Cheers, Ern

  6. #50
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Northern Sydney
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    Couple of questions. Firstly, what lense are you using, and at what focal length? The std lense with the 400d is pretty ordinary (same optics as the one on my 350d).

    I replaced the lense with a 24-70 pro series sigma lense (digital glass, but not the DC small sensor sized one). It was pricey - I think $800-900, but the photos 'stand out' much more than they did in the past.

    If you stick to the OEM lense keep the F-stop to about F8 (or numerically higher). Also stick to the centre of the lense and it should help. If you go much higher than F8 the background will be too sharp in focus, losing the distinction with the object, too much less than that and the OEM lense gets a bit soft and the pictures will seem flat...

    Just mu 2c worth. Hope it helps though.

    Cheers,
    Dave
    ...but together with the coffee civility flowed back into him
    Patrick O'Brian, Treason's Harbour

  7. #51
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
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    Texas
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    1,354

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    Quote Originally Posted by Fredo View Post
    Ern,
    I suspect my lights are not bright enough. It appears John Lucas (in your link) uses much more light than I have, I guess I will have to go back to the drawing board and experiment, mainly with the lighting.
    Fredo
    Fredo, I have a tent, (just don't use it enough). My Tent is lit with one 500 watt Halogen Shop Light, and white poster-board reflectors. I cover the tent with a white cotton sheet, doubled. The light is set high, to the right, and the reflector boards are propped up as necessary to take care of the shadows, but just out of camera view. Sometimes I have to move the light closer or farther away, depending on the subject.
    I had previously tried two desk lamps with 60 watt incandescent bulbs, and wasn't getting enough light.
    Play around with it... you'll get it.
    Al
    Some minds are like concrete thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.

  8. #52
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Geelong
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    42
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    Hi Fredo,
    I'm not sure if someone else mentioned it but one of the first things I do when I set up something for photography is to reduce the amount of ambient light as much as possible. It could just be the picture but it looks like you have the standard room lights on. You want to make sure that all the light on your subject is there because YOU (the capitals are for emphasis not shouting) want it to be there. I spent about 8 hours taking the photos I submitted for the Wood Review open box competition and went through well over 150 shots. I should probably add that I wasn't happy with the resulting photos anyway. I'd set up lights, take photos, check on the computer and then change the lights and do it all over again. It's also worth familiarising yourself with RAW files as these enable you to do the final tweaking.
    Cheers
    Josh

  9. #53
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    FWIW, and it's not much and I know I have to go to a light tent, I wait for a dull day and use side lighting on a background. With brighter nat light some guys use a voile cloth diffuser between light and subject.

    Also use an old superzoom digicam, with manual controls, on a tripod, and go for low ISO, long exposures and highish aperture numbers. Take bracketed exposure sequences of 3, with brackets of half a stop.

    My major problem is exposing for the contrast range. With a high finish (and for me that's no more than DO but say on Blackwood the highlights can be extreme) there's either wash out at the top end or major loss of detail at the bottom.

    There's cheapish light tents on ebay, and I figure that by the time I've kitted up with a setup as described in the Wood central article, I won't be much worse off price wise. But the wrinkle with our work is that you need a view top down at say 45 degrees, and tents with that facility are much bigger bucks.
    Cheers, Ern

  10. #54
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
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    Geelong
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    It's also interesting to note the use of too high (numerical value) aperture will also result in the loss of sharpness. The standard 10mp D-SLR (APS-C sized sensor) wil become diffraction limited at around f16 (yes, I know there are a lot of other contributing factors to this but it is a good general rule) basically this means the photos look less sharp. This happens at a lower aperture for point and shoot cameras as they have smaller sensor sizes, so stay at around f8 - f11 for a D-SLR.

  11. #55

    Default Photographing Your Work - A Tutorial

    Hi all,

    I saw a recent post here regarding a photo tent. Thought I would share this in case you haven't seen it.

    http://www.nealaddy.org/node/16

    Hope it helps!

    Neal

  12. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by Woodturnerjosh View Post
    It's also interesting to note the use of too high (numerical value) aperture will also result in the loss of sharpness. The standard 10mp D-SLR (APS-C sized sensor) wil become diffraction limited at around f16 (yes, I know there are a lot of other contributing factors to this but it is a good general rule) basically this means the photos look less sharp. This happens at a lower aperture for point and shoot cameras as they have smaller sensor sizes, so stay at around f8 - f11 for a D-SLR.
    Good point. F8-11 is a pretty useful range...

    cheers,
    Dave
    ...but together with the coffee civility flowed back into him
    Patrick O'Brian, Treason's Harbour

  13. #57
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Pomona, QLD
    Age
    73
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    546

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    For most of my work I use a 100mm macro, one I used back in the 35mm film days. I find that I can use this lens stopped down(F22-F32) with no appreciable loss of sharpness. Of course the old 35mm lenses had a greater corner to corner sharpness (Nikon) than the digital lenses due to area they were "exposing" for. Colour is quite snappy too, this was a pro series F2.8 lens so it was not a cheap piece of glass. Also I use electronic flash so the quality of light is good too.

    Peter

  14. #58
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    Mar 2006
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    Geelong
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    Hi Peter,
    While I'd love to get my hands on a few good primes to play around it's just not on the cards at moment (poor uni student) sounds like a nice lens though. On the subject of diffraction though the lens quality actually has very little to do with it and if you are only looking at your photos on the computer (72dpi) you would probably notice very little loss of sharpness. I would be lying if I said I had a great understanding of diffraction and Airy discs but here's a link to a great site with examples, and a diffraction calculator, if you're interested http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...hotography.htm
    I must say the photos of your work I've seen on WoW are much better than any I've taken! ) (the work is pretty special as well)
    Cheers
    Josh

  15. #59
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
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    Pomona, QLD
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    73
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    Thanks for your comments Josh. Photography was my first passion (the wife won't like that) nearly 40 years ago. The last 25 years working as a photographer with the NT Gov were really great. Great opportunities to learn, travel and meet some wonderful people. Woodturning came much later and I must admit very few things feel as satisifying as getting the gouge to cut clean and have fine long shavings coming off the wood - but you all know that.

    I just re read my previous post. My comment re the greater corner to corner sharpness was wrong, should have said the "35mm lenses" have a wider coverage, hence when using the same lenses on my Nikon digital only the "more central" sharper area of coverage is used due to the smaller size of the imaging chip. Like in the old days when I used 4" X 5" and 5 X 7 cameras. The really expensive lenses had a greater coverage so you could make use of the various tilt shifts etc, still have my old Linhof with a few Schnieder and Rhodenstock lenses. From memory the Componons and Rhodagons were the really good ones where you could use max tilts etc. Photography using them was certainly a lot slower than using 120, 35mm and digitals.

    Ahh, too much reminising - Peter

  16. #60
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
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    Geelong
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    42
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    Wow,
    Having studied photography for the first year of my art degree I quickly realised that while any idiot can take a good photo it takes a lot of skill and patience to take a great one! (not to mention the technical know how) One of the teachers actually still uses an 8 x 10 and can take the most incredible and sharp photos! Unfortunately he can only contact print because we don't have an enlarger big enough to take the negatives )
    I know this is completely off topic but I'd love to see some of your photos!
    Cheers
    Josh

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