Photographing weapons - the details

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

Nice pictures Miguel

Thanks Jens

Originally Posted by David

Yes Miguel, good pictures for a $100 camera and indeed the macro function seems to work quite well. I don't think it is a problem with your images because the weave of you matt is pretty tight, but it reminded me to suggest that when choosing a background, try to find one that is solid in color with a fairly nuetral texture so that it doesn't distract from the object you are photographing.

Thanks David

And not to be outdone by Rick's fantastic macro shot, my cheap camera photographs a coin at less than 1 inch from the lens (see uncropped shot below).

[BTW Rick, that's truly a great shot. I didn't know that Fuji's digicams are also outstanding in the sensor department. Thanks.]

Yes, come to think of it, that mat does compete with the subject.

On a related matter, if I were to digitally remove later on that solid background via Photoshop or whatever, what solid background color would you think would be preferable to begin with (e.g., black, or white, or blue, or another color)? Or perhaps it won't matter as Photoshop will digitally remove any color for so long as it's a solid color?

Thanks in advance!

[Jens Nordlunde]

David,
Thank you very much for your reply, it sounds like a good idea.
I find the detail pictures shown here are very good. Maybe Miguel's picture of the coin should have been a wee bit lighter, but it is remarkable to see the details.
Here is the silver hilt I was writing about.

[Jens Nordlunde]

One thing which may help is to crap ALU foil and straightend it again. Then put the light on the foil, and it will spread a lot, as all the facets will help spread the light.

[migueldiaz]

We may have seen these before, but just to compile in this thread the other tutorials available --

Photographing swords, a simple tutorial, and

Understanding sword photography (Cejunior).

[Jens Nordlunde]

A way of getting good reflections is, I have been told but never tried it myself, is to take some Alu-foil and crap it, then stretch it a bit, and point the light towards the foil. Due to all the facet’s you now have, the light will spread and not be direct.

[Jens Nordlunde]

A friend just sent me some pictures taken in a museum, and they were rather good. What he did was to place the camera lines on the glass and then focus on the object.

[migueldiaz]

I was just chatting with a friend who's a professional photographer.

His tip to me in photographing a sword (and so that the flash will not create a bright glare on the blade) is as follows --

1. use a cable to remotely place the flash, i.e., on the right (or left) side of the sword;

2. then place an (upright) piece of white paper or cardboard on the opposite side;

3. experiment with the various combination of the lens opening and shutter speed;

4. frame the shot so that there's a liberal amount of empty space to the left and to the right of the sword (will come handy when editing the image digitally later); and

5. to err on the side of caution, it's better to have slightly darker photos than brighter ones (slightly darker photos lend themselves better to digital editing).

I'll certainly try the above setup one of these days.

Then another friend said that rather than buying an expensive macro lens (for photographing details), it's better to just buy a cheap point-and-shoot camera with good macro capabilities.