There’s been a couple of people ask for ideas or guidelines on photographing their (extremely well) turned pieces of work. I offer the following (and please, no one take offence at me using their shots as examples, no offence is intended)


1 Simple non cluttered background is best, clutter takes away from the piece. Professionals use fabric, sometimes velvet, draped under and behind the work so there is no seam or creases. I drape fabric over a chair. Cliff in #64 has the idea. Reeves in #25 is ... well. (Sorry, as I said I’m not picking on anyone just using examples). With Brown Dog’s shots at #79 the white stand causes reflections to take the detail out of the timber. I tend to use darker fabric to lessen the likelihood of this occurring.


2 Depth of field. Simply this is what is in focus. It is difficult in taking photos of bowls etc to get it all in focus. It is probably best to focus on the closest edge. Most good shots will have the front rim very crisp with the rear rim slightly fuzzy. Twinnie at #75 demonstrates this well. Cliff, your shot in #61 appears to be focussed on the background. With an SLR use a small aperture and a longer shutter speed. With a point and shoot you’ll have to experiment, either portrait or macro, I’d guess.


3 Use a tripod, if you don’t have one rest the camera on a sock full of sand (or maybe shavings which for some reason seem to congregate around lathes)


4 Camera flash won’t work too well, diffused light from one side is better, at least in portrait photography. For example rsser’s photos at #55 has all the lighting from a window on the right, problem is we lose detail in the highlight in the bowl, hence diffused lighting, an overcast day perhaps.


5 If you can slightly underexpose the shots, this will help with detail.


6 I think shots should be side on with a few degrees above the plane, to get the idea of the outside curve, foot etc. Then at about a 45 degree angle. Cliff’s at #61 are good examples of this, as is canchippy’s, we see the shape and have a good gander at the inside.


7 use something to give scale, otherwise we have no idea how big the turning is. I use a 50c piece, Cliff has a scale on his paper.


8 Someone suggested one turned item per posting, I agree.


9 Above all else experiment


I hope this helps, and when I post some examples of my work later, nobody is allowed to say I didn’t follow what I said.


cheers



PS: I'm learning a lot from the comments made please keep it up

Beauty.

I did apologise for the crook focus.

I'm using an automatic digital & I'm trying not to use flash 'cos it flattens things but it does bugger up the dept of field a bit.

__________________
...if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...

www.canoesandlampshades.com

Useful tips - thanks.

However for artistic or sales work I wouldn't include a scale; would include dimensions in the notes. And I'm not averse to two pics in the one frame, one up one down, with side and 45 degree views.

btw, WoodCentral somewhere has a cheap and cheeful DIY lightbox described.

__________________
Cheers, Ern
Website
'For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived, and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.' J.F. Kennedy, 1962

After writing the above I found this link, always happens
also has pictures

http://www.enter.net/%7Eultradad/photos.html

Cliff
With yours (and sorry for picking on you) I imagine the focus point on the camera is higher then you expect, thus the focus on the backing paper behind or if you are using a view finder at the top left of the camera then the little lines lie when the object is fairly close. There is a name for this which I cannot now remember.

feel free to be super critical when I post my first bowl!! or tell me what timber it is

My camera sometimes offers a green rectangle around the spot it is focusing on & then sometimes it doesn't either....
It takes really good photos of mountains & storms.

__________________
...if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...

www.canoesandlampshades.com

I used a spray booth to take some photos of my seahorse I made. With a
black background of the booth and some black material to rest the seahorse on.
I adjusted the light balance on the camera to control the level of white light and also adjusted the aperture. Would mainly recommend playing around with the settings on the lights and also the camera to achieve your desired effect.
Hope this helps

I am only starting to get a grip on woodwork now I have to learn photography as well. The world is spinning too fast!

The term is parallax. Not a problem with an SLR, but you need to be careful with viewfinder cameras.

I use a sheet of prespex or laminex. it can be bent to give a seamless background (no creases), works well. I was going to design a simple setup for compact digital cameras, will one day. I found that a neutral gray is good as white or black can give exposure problems on the more simple compact digital cameras. Many compact digitals don't have a manual setting although the exposure can be controlled, to a degree, using the over and under exposure controls. Most people don't have digital SLR cameras with manual exposure settings.

Will be giving some digital camera workshops in Pomona, Sunshine Coast later on in the year, all forum members welcome.

Peter - Happy snapping.

For many years I used a black teat towel until I went to Spotlight with SWMBO and rummaging amongst the fabric remnants found some bits black, brown and blue velvet all for ~$10. Clean towels are another alternative.

Focusing on a rim is hard to do without a camera that can spot focus. Most cameras focus somewhere in the middle of the image but if your rim or edge is not in the middle it won't focus on it. Some cameras allow you to focus on an image by partially holding down the shot button - move the camera so the edge is in the middle - then hold the button in the partially held down state and allow the camera to focus, then and point the camera to the composition you desire - then push the button all the way.

Those mini ball tripods are excellent of this sort of thing and should be given away with every with every camera. An alternative is to brace your camera on the back of chair

A shade screen made from a white sheet makes an excellent diffuser. I drape mine on top of the washing line - works great to diffuse direct light.

One way to force a slight underexposure on some cameras is the same way as forcing the focus describe above. place a slightly brighter object in the picture like a piece of white paper. Focus and hold the shoot button halfway (at this point the camera electronics also determines the exposure) - remove paper and push all the way. If you are using a diffuser pull it away a little to cast more light onto the shot.

I generally shoot ~20 shots all over the place to arrive at one good one.

50c pieces work for us Aussies but OS people won't know what they are. A US$1 bill might be more international but definitely on the tacky side. Depending how arty I'm being I sometimes choose items that fit with the object being taken, pens, bottle tops and openers, cutlery etc.

Here here!

__________________
Check out my blog entries for forum links to most of my 2006 - 2011 projects.

Sometimes, a tripod is downright inconvenient, especially for WIP pics. The sock of sand or shavings can be somewhat messy. Consider also a sealed packet of rice or beans. This is particularly handy for touring museums and cathedrals where tripods may be forbidden - buy a packet at a grocer, and toss in a bin before returning home. Here's a contraption I made for close-up WIP's: http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ad.php?t=57662

Joe

__________________
Of course truth is stranger than fiction.
Fiction has to make sense. - Mark Twain

Don't know if this will help anyone, but....

I don't particularly like messing around with photos, especially the transferring from camera to PC etc. At the moment I use my phone camera (Nokia 6110) and bluetooth. I take a bunch of photos during the day and generally put the phone in my pocket to avoid dust. Then, as I traipse in and out the house, every time I get near the PC (within 10 metres) it begins to auto download the pics.

At the end of the day the photos are ready to go, maybe a quick re-size then I can send them off.

__________________
Workbench Project. Woodworkers Startup Links #1, 2 & 3.
The Renovate Forums

Another trick is a bit of string with a loop in it, hook the loop over your foot & hold it down, then take a couple of turns around a convenient place on the camera where it won't interfere with the operation, pull up on the string, aim & shoot.
If you can't hold it from wobbling from side to side like that, use 2 pieces, one around each foot.

__________________
...if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...

www.canoesandlampshades.com

I'd much rather pack my mini-tripod in my camera bag than packet of rice or beans. Mini tripods have several advantages. Besides being light, they can be attached to the bottom of the camera and braced on vertical surfaces like rough stone walls or columns commonly found in museums and churches. If I'm walking around with my camera around my neck I often leave the mini tripod attached.

__________________
Check out my blog entries for forum links to most of my 2006 - 2011 projects.

I have a studio lighting setup, some large studio electronic flashes so a tripod isn't essential, also allows me to shoot with small aperatures, F22 or higher. I find that my composition does improve when I use a tripod though, may be it's just me.

Re depth of field it's better to have the foreground in focus than out of focus, you can get away with the back of the piece being slightly out of focus, also depth of field follow the rule that if you focus on a point and stop down to a greater aperature to improve your depth of field the greatest increase in sharpness (depth) occurs in the backround not the foreground so it's a good idea to lock your focusing onto the front of the piece - for safety's sake so to speak. Hope this makes sense. There are other tricks you can do but they require a manual focusing method using a SLR camera. Much of my work was closeup and depth of field was critical.

Peter