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Thread: Photographing your masterpiece.
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30th January 2009, 12:59 PM #61
Hello Josh,
I,wanted to be a professional photographer since I was 17 - 18 in Brisbane. I used to shoot weddings and lots of personal too. In the early 80's I got some some more interesting work doing some contract type photography photography for the NT Gov. My big break came in 84 when I got the position of Snr Photog. for NT Dept of Education. It was really amazing, we had colour & B&W darkrooms, mamiya 6X7 then Rollei 6006 then 6008 cameras and lenses (the view cameras were mine, used then for the Gov. contract work, gave me a significant advantage on a few of the local pros). We had Nikon 35mm cameras but I hardly used them, mostly used the 6 X 6 cm format. Most of the work was for carriculum development and PR and other work too. There was sooooo much travel. I remember when I first started there was a 12 week period in which I was away, travelling throughout the territory for 9 weeks - week ends included. It was very full on. When I got back from the trips I would be in the darkroom printing and developing film. I travelled to Indonesia many times, with school sporting groups and getting images for the national Indonesian language Carriculum.
The job was becoming a grind, but was fun/good. I transferred to the NT Health Dept - Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) as the medical/Clinical Photographer, the Education Dept downscaled the Carriculum Dev section. This was in 1991. Work here was very different, didn't know if I could handle it. I had never seen a "dead person" before, I was worried a bit about photographing post mortems etc. 99.9% of the work was shot in 35mm.
It wasn't as bad as I thought and was surprised at how strong a stomach I had. My former boss at Education had now dobts as to my ability to "handle" the work. Hes said, "You have been photographong Polititions for years so photographing diseases shouldn't be a problem. I knew I was ok when five minutes after taking some horrific photos of a patient with Donivonosis (spelling??) I was able to quite happily have a coffee and muffin.
RDH is a teaching Hospital so there was also the task of helping Medical staff to prepare lectures. I had a pager and would get calls at any/all times during the day, night and morning as well. Again work was full on.
Photography was now well and truely WORK. Creativity was not of major concern, maybe for some of the PR but in the Clinical/Forensic area good tecniquie was the most important thing (maybe that's why I feel the most important thing for me in turning is the creative side, although my techniquie is not too bad). In my own time I would not have a camera at home, this started way back when I was with Education. I would get sick of people wanting me to do weddings etc in my spare time. I would get an invitation to go somewhere with the PS - please bring your camera.
So in 2001 when my wife went on a trip to Europe I bought myself a lathe. I discovered woodturning and that became my recreation. I found it so good because I could lose myself in it, I could have a physical object that I have made. I was also lucky in thet I found a very good woodturning instructor.
I left RDH approx 3 years ago and hardly did any photography at all, just a few photos of the newly discovered garden at the new place and of my turning pieces.
I'm just starting to enjoy photography again. I'm giving some local workshops and there is a new local photographic group starting up, several of my last lot of students. We are having an exhibition coming up in a few months - Local Heratige - Pomona QLD area. I will email you sme of these images.
Hope this post isn't too boring or self indulgent or has too many spelling mistakes.
Happy photography and woodturning - Peter
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18th May 2009, 10:55 PM #62
Homemade light tent
Big Shed recently posted his new light tent.
I made a comment that I had plans in my head to make my own.
So here is the wip
Firstly I started with some 1/2" plastic irrigation fittings. I used 8 rightangle pieces for the corners and 6 "T" pieces for the stays/spacers/whatever.
Attachment 105573
Then some 8mm dowel. I noticed that the dowel fitted snugly into the irrigation connectors. Bit of a fluke this as I'd expected to do a little sanding. I decided on the irrigation connectors and dowel because I thought If I ever want to make a bigger tent I can simply get more dowel and make a bigger frame.
Attachment 105574Attachment 105575Attachment 105576
I then cut up an old sheet, sewed it up to fit over the frame. Don't look too closely as my sewing is not the best! I put press studs on the front flap to keep it together.
Attachment 105577Attachment 105578Attachment 105579
I had a couple of reading lamps which were on a pole which my youngest son managed to wreck. I made simple stands for them. They move up and down the stands and they also tilt. I'm using a couple of those new fangled florescent globes in them at the moment but need to up the wattage I think.
Attachment 105580Attachment 105581
I've set it up on the tablesaw to take a couple of photos (had to borrow my son's camera for the last two shots)
The finished tent is 310 mm high x 330 mm deep x 420 mm wide/long
It seems to work. The shadows aren't as harsh and the lighting seems more even. I haven't set the camera's light balance but will accomplish that with a white card I picked up recently from the camera shop. Here's the first photo.
Attachment 105584
Now all I have to do is play around with the positioning and get some backgrounds. I'm using a single sheet of A4 white paper at the moment, which is ok for pens but a bit small for bowls etcregards
Nick
veni, vidi, tornavi
Without wood it's just ...
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18th May 2009, 11:15 PM #63Hewer of wood
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Good result Nick. Thanks for the post.
Cheers, Ern
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19th May 2009, 12:13 AM #64SENIOR MEMBER
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I saw instructions in a photo magazine about 20 years ago. Conduit is good.
For colour film, you have to watch your colour balance with lighting. Fluorescent lights work very poorly, unless you like green. Common tungsten lights work, but ideally you use special tungsten film. For lighting, you could try those work lights, one can get a stand with a pair of 500W laps very cheaply in big green sheds. I'd be very cautious about putting one in your light tent though, they're flaming good heaters.
Colour balance is less a problem with digital cameras, but I don't recall I've tried fluorescent lights, and the results might vary depending on whether you have daylight, warm, or some other grade. The problem with fluorescent lamps is that there's a great big gap in the spectrum they produce. Whatever algorithm a digital camera might use to "fill in the blanks," there's a good chance the assumptions underlying it don't apply when photographing one's masterpiece.
Daylight filtered through the sheet might be best, maybe with a bit of 500W (or a mirror) to the side to give some shadow.
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20th May 2009, 12:34 PM #65Hewer of wood
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There are a couple of programs out there that make the job easier.
Photomatix allows you to combine say 3 exposures into one in order to get max dynamic range. So you don't need to live with blown out highlights or loss of detail in the darker parts of the pic.
PhotoAcute allows you to combine a number of pics taken with the focus moving from front to rear and combine them into one shot showing their combined depth of field.Cheers, Ern
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20th May 2009, 02:15 PM #66
Thanks for the post Nick, I have often thought about making something along those lines myself. Great idea to use the irrigation fittings.
Reality is no background music.
Cheers John
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4th May 2010, 05:30 PM #67
Posting pictures
I haven't read the entire content of this thread but can someone explain how to post pictures? I posted some image - [img] [/img] links in another thread to add to my post but the forum converted these to links only.
Any help appreciated.
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4th May 2010, 05:34 PM #68
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4th May 2010, 07:21 PM #69
Thanks Big Shed
Thanks, I knew it was in this place somewhere. I'm just not accustomed to such a huge forum
Cheers
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7th November 2010, 04:55 PM #70Hewer of wood
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Query: I've tried all I can with the dig SLR to get the colours coming up right with no luck. Pics are also a bit contrasty despite setting it to the lowest poss.
Colour prob: a little on the yellow side. I'm using daylight compact fluoros designed for photography and a light tent.
I try to set white balance manually by following the instructions: put down a white sheet where the subject is to sit and fire off a shot. I EV compensate by two stops. The image has a slight blue/grey cast but the camera thinks it's OK.
None of the preset white balance options improve the result.
Have tried the std zoom and a quality prime. Have tried a range of EV compensation. Exposures are quite long due to the small aperture but well under 30 secs.
Any advice gratefully received.
ADDED: just realised that I've been leaving the front of the tent open. Not that there's ambient Tungsten light. Will zip up and see if that helps.Cheers, Ern
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7th November 2010, 05:48 PM #71
Have you tried setting exposure etc with a grey card?
regards
Nick
veni, vidi, tornavi
Without wood it's just ...
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7th November 2010, 06:13 PM #72Hewer of wood
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Yeah. Thanks Nick. Exposure ain't the prob. It's colour balance and to a lesser extent contrast.
Cheers, Ern
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7th November 2010, 10:02 PM #73
Are you using Photoshop? If so have you tried shooting in a RAW format and making adjustments in Camera RAW?
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8th November 2010, 05:24 AM #74Hewer of wood
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Yes, postprocessing is a possibility but it would save a lot of time if the source could be got right.
Cheers, Ern
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9th November 2010, 12:01 AM #75.
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When Yellows and blues are not right that sounds like the CCD filter is not working properly in conjunction with the CCD. There's not much that can be done about that.
What sort of camera is it and how much compression are you applying?
Can you post something like a small 256 x 256 pixel crop of the original shot at the same resolution it was taken that highlights the problem?
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