Last off the MC900...

[TTIT]

Finished this piece on xmas eve - last ever piece off the old girl and the best I've ever turned (IMHO). Hope there's no lurkers from the local club looking 'cos this will probably be my show entry this year. Roughed out the She-oak burl months ago and found it to be THE most abrasive wood I've ever turned once dry. Takes the edge off HSS as if it were lead! Even takes the cut off sandpaper in just a swipe or two. The She-oak is finished with so many coats of Danish I lost count - very absorbent - but the Norfolk Island Hibiscus (lagunaria patersonii) is only finished with Hut wax so as not to change the color. I like the Hibiscus so much I'm going to plant some out here - apparently grows very quick in any soil type - beautiful to turn and SOOOO white. 180W x 170H

Question - how do I stop the hibiscus from 'flaring' in photo's. I must have taken 50 pics trying to get one that would show the detail in the hibiscus without screwing up the color of the she-oak. Tried incandescant and natural lighting - same problem with both! Any ideas????

[Speanwoody]

lovely work lovely work, like the style and the woods

[Wayne Blanch]

Now that is one spectacular piece. Bloody Lovely:2tsup:
Wayne

[RufflyRustic]

Hi TTIT

Now that is an absolute stunner! I never imagined Hibiscus could look so good :D

I wonder if more indirect light might be the way to bring out the grain rather than the flaring. For example, the base of the pot in the first photo is shaded, but shows the grain.

Cheers
Wendy

[DJ’s Timber]

Absolutely stunning TTIT, you have outdone yourself here :2tsup:

[lubbing5cherubs]

gorgeous just beautiful. you should clean up with that
Toni:2tsup:

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

What's left to say? Greenie launched. :wink:

[lubbing5cherubs]

Hey Titt, Can you tell me the collar and the finale is that glued on first or do you make them seperate?
Toni

[dai sensei]

Absolutely stunning. The contrasting timbers really works well with that beautiful shape.:2tsup:

[Penpal]

You are magnificent,coo-eeee,something to shout about,the piece will speak for itself,looks just as good inside as out and a fitting finale to the lathe,even though these lathes get a bollicking from time to time if they are kept well they have proved their worth time and again,my first lathe I made and it did not have the features,really speaking the lathe depends on the users ability and seeing eye,you have demonstrated that. Please excuse the australianisms and accept my highest praise,well executed and presented. Peter:2tsup:

[Twinnie]

firstly wow what a peice secondly...




Question - how do I stop the hibiscus from 'flaring' in photo's. I must have taken 50 pics trying to get one that would show the detail in the hibiscus without screwing up the color of the she-oak. Tried incandescant and natural lighting - same problem with both! Any
ideas????

you take 2 photos the first exposing for the sheoak and the second exposing for the hibiscus both will look bad untill you use a program like photoshop ("the gimp" is a free one) to lay one photo ontop of the other and cherry pick the best bits from both. you have to use a tripod so the camrea doest move at all. feel free to send me the photos and i'll put them togeather for you.

Matt

[China]

very nice! as for the photo you could try using a light tent, my brother used this method when when taking some pics of my firearms came out very good

[TTIT]

Thanks everyone for the comments - very humbling.:B

Hey Titt, Can you tell me the collar and the finale is that glued on first or do you make them seperate?
ToniAll made separately Toni. The finial has a very short 5mm diameter tenon on the end to give it some glued strength. The lid is about 5mm thick in the middle to allow for the hole to fit the tenon in.


very nice! as for the photo you could try using a light tent, my brother used this method when when taking some pics of my firearms came out very goodI'll have to Google the tent???? :?

you take 2 photos the first exposing for the sheoak and the second exposing for the hibiscus both will look bad untill you use a program like photoshop ("the gimp" is a free one) to lay one photo ontop of the other and cherry pick the best bits from both. you have to use a tripod so the camrea doest move at all. feel free to send me the photos and i'll put them togeather for you.I'll see if I can get one with the Hibiscus right and PM ya.

[hughie]

Vern,
A fine piece. What catches my eye is the form and shape of it and balance of the foot and finial. The blend of colours is particularly good as well.

A greenie is the minmum :hooray:

[rsser]

Beaut work Vern.

As for pics, yes, a hassle.

See if your camera has a low contrast option. And as posted, go for low and diffuse light, eg through a net curtain or similar on a dull day.

Otherwise, you can play around with the flash; this will sometimes give you more exposure control.

[ss_11000]

it looks to good. excellent work once again vern. :2tsup:

[Gil Jones]

TTIT, an absolutely stunning piece!!
Beautiful combination of colors, woods, style, and talent;
Obviously the work of a pro.

[Tiger]

Terrific :2tsup: .

[woodcutta]

Great job Vern.

woodcutta

[Little Festo]

One way to control the flare is to use double polarisation. I used when I was set up to photograph oil paintings and also for my turning pieces.

Basically you polarise the light source with polarising sheet material and also put a polariser on the camera lens then simply by adjusting the polariser on the camera you can remove the hotspot. the onlt problem is that you 'loose' a lot of the light, approx 3 stops approx - 1.5 of the lightsource and 1.5 through the polariser on the camera. Definatly works. I have posted a old pic of a cypress pine box that I used this technique. I will be setting up the photo studio in the next month or so.

And what a great piece - very nice!!

Peter

[Big Shed]

Would have thought a simple light tent would do............

[rodent]

try bouncing the light off a wall or a sheet of paper .and try different back grounds neuteral grey is good. nice work.

[SawDustSniffer]

a light tent is ,see through white material tent with a clear perspex frame , it has a hole cut in it for the lens to poke through , the light source is on the out side of the tent , coat hangers and tracing paper work well
a light tent wont get rid of the reflections of a high gloss finish , it will just make the reflections plane with no detail

the polarizing filter over the light source and another one over the lens will totally get rid of the reflections ,but mucks with the contrast of the pic , if you do use this method take several pics moving the filter on the lens slightly each photo ,. it works best with gem stones / opal , i once tried to put a polarizing filter over a 12 volt down light , it burnt the coating off the filter ( there not cheap ) lcd screens ,watches , hand held games , laptops have them over the glass if your looking for salvagable polarizing sheet( 2 pairs of polarizing sun glasses turned 90 deg from each outher will be black )

a neutral grey card ( 18% black ) is best used to meter off , most cameras take there light reading when the shutter button is lightly pressed , if the gray card is filling this frame at the time the exposure will be perfect ,under the same light source ( green grass works well ) might need a hand from some one else
a camera will expose black as grey , white as grey , and gray as gray , how many times have you seen wedding photos , where the white dress is light grey and the suite is dark gray , when they stand together , its white and black ? ( light meters are dumb )worse if you have a polar bear on ice or a coal miner in a coal mine

oh nearly forgot , well done ttit , nice work , great finish , are the finials your signature ?

[rsser]

There's a physical limit to the range of light (contrast) that film or sensors can cope with so we're on about reducing that range.

Another option is to shoot the piece with less finish on it so it has less highlight.

[TTIT]

I did some googling on light tents and found a thousand different ways to put one together - now if I can just get myself away from the lathe long enough to make one, I could show you some of the stuff I've done on the Stubby :;
Thanks for the ideas and comments.


are the finials your signature ?
Not so much a signature as an obsession :B Love Cindy Drozda's work and hope to achieve finials as elegant as hers at some stage.

[hughie]

Vern,

I sent a pm to your private mail box with a couple of ideas on light boxes etc. :U

[Little Festo]

[quote=TTIT;443141]I did some googling on light tents and found a thousand different ways to put one together - now if I can just get myself away from the lathe long enough to make one, I could show you some of the stuff I've done on the Stubby I'm pretty sure this has been discussed on this forum before and pretty sure I put up a image/diagram. The double polarisation contrast problem can easily be solved by using multiple light sources and nowdays the high end digital cameras utilize raw files that offer a high degree of image adjustment. I have used the double polarisation technique with colour slide film where there is little room for error admittedly in a professional studio setup with electronic flash and lowell photo lights. Heat was always a problem with the photo lights, also colour temp varition, electronic flash always offered very good light - matched to daylight (each flash unit was colout temp corrected). But is a hotspot all that bad, it's a property of a highly polished piece and TTIT you can still appreciate your piece and recognise it as a very high quality turning. Peter

[CameronPotter]

What's left to say? Greenie launched. :wink:

What he said... :D

Good to see your turning is just getting better and better!

[mongrell]

just spotted this vern great work as usual and the finial or whtever you call them allways top youre work off very nicely 9 outa 10 mate

[rodent]

It cant get much better than that.