Photographing weapons - the details

[Jens Nordlunde]

David, please comment on the quality of the picture - I mean the pixels and the RAW format. I think this may confuse some.

[David]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

David, please comment on the quality of the picture - I mean the pixels and the RAW format. I think this may confuse some.

Well, this might just confuse matters more.
The pixel count of your camera is an important factor, but it must be remembered that it is relative to the size of your sensor. Therefore you might find that a 6mp SLR camera with a larger sensor might well out perform a 10mp point-and-shoot with a much small sensor because they have to make the pixels so much small to fit them into the smaller sensor, thereby diminishing their resolving power. Most consumer and prosumer digital SLRs are clocking in at around 10-12mp which will provide far more resolving power then is needed in most situations.
As a photojournalist i rarely use raw file shooting because it just isn't practical. Ideally it is the "best" way to shoot because it preserves all you data in an uncompressed form, but it also requires far more post-production work and file conversions to upload unto the internet. I think it is a great thing in some contexts, but for our purposes it might be easier to stick to shooting in jpegs.

[Jens Nordlunde]

David, thank you very much for your explanation.
I hope this will be followed up with questions.
Jens

[aerosick]

6. Below are some examples of a hilt i shot recently.

David,

1. Where do you store your photos?

2. How did you Post the 4 photos side by side so they are small enough that the viewer does not have to Scroll?

I use Photo Bucket and my photos take up most of the screen.

Billy

[David]

Originally Posted by aerosick

David,

1. Where do you store your photos?

2. How did you Post the 4 photos side by side so they are small enough that the viewer does not have to Scroll?

I use Photo Bucket and my photos take up most of the screen.

Billy

1. Well these particular photos are presently on my desktop in a file marked WebButaHilts. These are images i have already resized for web use. The original files are still on my desktop as well as burned onto a CD. I might eventually burn these web size images off to a disc too. Some people like to use external hard drives for storage. I would recommend that you always have a back-up somewhere as hard drives can and do fail at times.
2. I am a little confused by your question. On my laptop these photos are not side-by-side, they are stacked on top of one another and there is no need to scroll side-to-side to see them. If your photos take up most of the screen they probably need to be resized. The photos i posted here were sized to approximately 6x9 inches at a resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch). Most computer screens can not read anything higher than 72 dpi so while you would need something higher to make prints it's wasted file space for on-line use. If i changed the dimensions of these photos and made them much smaller they might fit side-by-side, but would be too small to be of much good. If you are seeing my photos side-by-side and need to scroll right and left to view them i am not sure why that is or how to fix it.
BTW, i cannot emphasize more that for the sake of future archives it is important that you do not just link us to photo bucket or some other server to see your photos. UPLOAD YOUR PHOTOS TO THIS SITE. The reasoning is that eventual your photo will no doubt be removed from photo bucket and then there will just be a blank space in the archived thread when people do research. Comments will become meaningless without your example to refer to. So everyone should make sure to upload their photos to this site so that they will always be here for study.

[aerosick]

Originally Posted by David

I use an external hard drive, so I'm covered on this one.

I knew the answer to this, but I had forgotten. Sorry...

I have not found the Photo Section here. Is this open to all Members no matter their Member Level?

Thanks,

Billy

[Rick]

Which you are .
Yep !
Scroll down on your post page to "Manage Attachments" bar, then browse your folder for the jpg you want .
If the image is too large the software will reject it; resize accordingly .

[migueldiaz]

Jens, David, many thanks for bringing up this topic!

Originally Posted by aerosick

2. How did you Post the 4 photos side by side so they are small enough that the viewer does not have to Scroll?

Billy, as far as I know the pics go side by side or on top of each other depending on the size of your web browser 'window' at the moment.

Pls. see the result of a little experiment I did:

[migueldiaz]

Jens and David, thanks again for your posts above.

I've re-read them and they will certainly serve as very good guides in photographing our puppies I for one will surely follow those pointers.

Earlier, I've come across the setup below by somebody who focuses on taking high-resolution pics of handguns and knives.

I realize though that his setup is leaning more towards the professional photographer (and I'm sure the likes of David will have something similar, if not more high-tech).

But for the rest of us, would the article below be still useful? i.e., would there be pointers which we amateur photographers can pick up?

Just to clarify though, I'm perfectly happy with the setup mentioned above by David. I think it accomplishes 90% of the results of an elaborate setup, by merely using 10% as much contraptions

Here's that article anyway, and the name of the photographer is Ken Lunde:

People sometimes ask me the techniques that I use to take these photos. I have tried to encapsulate the techniques in the following bulleted items:

Never, ever, use a direct flash. Doing so destroys the photo. I suggest natural light, preferably on an overcast day to minimize the strong contrast that can result from direct sunlight, but when that's not available, such as at night, I suggest fluorescent. My cameras (Nikon D200 and D300) have nine white balance settings: auto, incandescent, fluorescent, direct sunlight, flash, cloudy, shade, choose color temperature, and white balance preset. I need to set this correctly, according to the light source, otherwise the photo may turn out with a undesirable hue (either too reddish or too blueish). Summer 2003 UPDATE: I have been using a set of Lowell professional lighting, consisting of two Omnis and one Tota, and they have benefits in that it's a set of three lights, and their temperature rating is fixed and known (3200 degrees Kelvin) meaning that I can precisely set the same white balance value in my Nikon D200 and D300. Early 2007 UPDATE: Instead of setting white balance using a fixed temperature value, I am now using an ExpoDisc to set white balance, and am getting excellent results. I highly recommend it.

Careful focus. I always manually focus my cameras when taking these photos. When manually focusing, one of my previous cameras automatically zoomed to the maximum setting, and beyond maximum when the zoom was already set to the maximum setting. Zooming, if your lens supports this feature, lets you more easily confirm correct focus. For digital SLR owners, I strongly suggest a decicated macro lens. A true macro lens has three benefits: 1) close focus capability, measured from the focal plane, not from the front of the lens; 2) correct perspective, so that straight lines do not appear curved; and 3) the ability to use a smaller aperture, such as f/32 or smaller, depending on the focus setting.

Zoom to the maximum focal length, but do not use the digital zoom feature, if available. The default focal length may produce ever so slight fisheye effects, and to minimize this, and to maintain proper perspective, you should zoom to the maximum focal length setting. If you use a digital SLR, I again recommend purchasing a dedicated macro lens. To repeat from the previous bullet item, macro lenses not only provide closer focusing distances (which, by the way, are measured from the focal plane, which is where the film or CCD is located behind the lens, not from the front of the lens), but also provide the ability to use a smaller aperture (for greater depth of field, when it is necessary) and provide correct perspective. I use the Nikkor 60mm Micro lens for my Nikon D200 and D80 (I used the same lens with my Nikon D100), and started using a different lens, specifically the Nikkor 105mm AF-S VR Micro, in May of 2006, but ended up going back to the Nikkor 60mm Micro lens due to the more comfortable working distance made possible by its focal length.

Use a tripod and a remote release. My first digital camera came with a wireless remote release. If you don't have a remote release, you can use a delay timer, which almost all digital cameras have. UPDATE: for my Nikon D200 and D300, I connect them to my computer via a USB cable, and use Nikon's Camera Control Pro (Version 2) software to adjust the exposure settings, and to take the photo itself. The images completely bypass the onboard memory card, and instead go directly to the computer. I used the same method for my Nikon D100. Although I have wireless remote releases for these digital SLRs, and they all have an adjustable (for time) delay timer, I prefer to use Nikon's Camera Control Pro. Another useful feature, which my Nikon digital SLRs support, is Exposure Delay Mode, which activates the CCD a fraction of a second after the shutter is released, which has the benefit of minimizing camera shake due to the mechanical nature of the shutter.

Use a smaller aperture (that is, a higher "f" number, such as "f/11"). This allows less light through the lens, but it increases the depth of field. The greater the depth of field, the greater the range of distances that can be in focus at the same time. This doesn't help when taking side views, but when one end of the object is significantly closer to the camera than the other end, it allows the entire object to be in focus. Also, because less light is coming through the lens, you need to increase the exposure time, often to more than a second. Steadiness is thus critical (see #4). Don't get into the habit of automatically using the smallest aperture. If the composition of the photo does not require a lot of depth of field, there is no need to use the smallest possible aperture. Some experimentation (and experience) is necessary to know when a larger aperture is appropriate.

Post-process in an image-manipulation application. I currently use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, but used Adobe Photoshop CS3 prior to that (note that 95 percent of the people who think they need Photoshop actually benefit more from buying Photoshop Elements, which is not a chopped-down version of Photoshop; these applications are on separate development tracks, and some new functionality is developed first in Photoshop Elements then adopted by Photoshop, such as the "Heal" tool), and I originally used a combination of "Auto Levels," "Auto Contrast," and "Auto Color" to enhance the photos, and improve the color. Sometimes I used all three, but sometimes only one or two of these functions. It depended on the photo. If the color was really bad, I typically desaturated, which essentially takes away all color, resulting in grayscale. I feel that desaturating is better than poor color. UPDATE: I now carefully use the "Levels..." function, specifically its sliders. For the full-resolution images, I use the "Sharpen" or "Smart Sharpen..." filters. For lower resolutions, I once used "Unsharp Mask..." (set to 500% with a radius of 0.9 pixels) before scaling, but now apply the "Blur" filter before scaling, followed by the "Sharpen" or "Smart Sharpen..." filter. (The "Smart Sharpen..." filter was introduced in Photoshop CS2.) Early 2007 UPDATE: I highly recommend using Adobe Systems' latest application, Photoshop Lightroom, which is specifically tailored for digital photography use.

For posting to the web, I resized the images to be ten inches wide (720 pixels). Their file sizes ended up being about 100K, which is reasonable. The photos that I use for posting to forums are all set to 720x540, 720x479, or 720x482 pixels (taken with the Olympus C-3030 Zoom, Nikon D100, and Nikon D200/D300, respectively). Starting in March of 2006, I began using 1000x669 pixels for the web-size photos. The images began at 2048x1536, 3008x2000, or 3872x2592 pixels from the camera, taken with the Olympus C-3030 Zoom, Nikon D100, and Nikon D200/D300, respectively. Adobe Photoshop lets one freely resize images. I resize after I post-process them (see #6). I also have full-size (2048x1536, 3008x2000, or 3000x2008 pixels; taken with the Olympus C-3030 Zoom, Nikon D100, and Nikon D200/D300, respectively) versions for use as computer desktops, which is what these pages provide.

Below is a photo of my Lowel lighting setup, showing a Busse Combat "Custom Shop" ASH1 (Anniversary Steel Heart 1) knife as the subject:

[migueldiaz]

Below is a sample of Ken Lunde's still life photography on knives.

The original pic size is 3000 x 2008 pixels. I've 'excerpted' below a portion of the overall pic, to give us an idea of the fine details in the pic.

With everybody's contribution here in this forum, I'm sure all of us can do a better job!

[David]

Originally Posted by migueldiaz

Billy, as far as I know the pics go side by side or on top of each other depending on the size of your web browser 'window' at the moment.
Pls. see the result of a little experiment I did:

Thanks Miguel, i guess i knew this but didn't know how to put it. We have encountered this difference before when some has commented on the numerical order of photos and we all have different results based on our browser window. That can get confusing when photos are in different positions on different peoples screens. Thanks for illustrating it so well.
Yes, i have all kinds of professional lighting gear, but i still prefer to make these photos with natural light when possible, though sometimes the weather just won't permit it.
Unless there is some objection from the rest of the Mods i think we should make this thread a "sticky" and hopeful keep adding new info to it. Ken Lunde has provided some fine info here, but i have a feeling that this is a bit over reaching for many of our forum members who don't have the professional level of skill or equipment that produced these images. Still, it is nice to have it laid out for those who do have access to such stuff and want to give it a try.

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by David

... Ken Lunde has provided some fine info here, but i have a feeling that this is a bit over reaching for many of our forum members who don't have the professional level of skill or equipment that produced these images.

David, I totally agree with what you said

That's why I like very much your pointers above -- makes it very easy for all of us amateur photographers to create great pics!

On a related matter, earlier I was looking for an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera. My aim was to find a low-learning-curve-but-high-gratification kind of "idiot box"

Fortunately in Macworld's July 2009 issue, they precisely reviewed $100 cameras (excerpts of article are below). And Canon's A470 came out on top (it got 4 out of the max. 5 points). So I got myself one very recently.

In that camera's full review, the reviewer added that even though he uses expensive digital single lens reflex cameras, he plans on buying that Canon model because its macro shots are just too good. And I guess that's one of the things (macro shots) we are exactly looking for, in photographing our blades.

I'll post shortly sample pics taken with that camera ...