hamper lightbox

[J.Leclair]

here's my light box. Made from a small pop up laundry hamper from the dollar store and some white fabric from fabricland's clearance bin. I have maybe $10 in it all together. Dimensions are 21" long x 11.5" deep and tall


Folded

my camera is a canon rebel xt I got it last year and have barely touched it other than to take some family pictures (on auto mode) to tell the truth I'm a bit intimidated by it lol I'm not very tech savvy I dont even have a computer,I have to borrow my wife's laptop and she usually has to help me lol.
took it off auto mode for the first time and tried a couple shots tonight but wont bother posting the results
because they were dark and out of focus. used iso 100 but couldnt figure out how to slow down the shutter speed. I'll need to read through the manual...

 

[John Wilson]

Good idea for a low-buck solution!

Since many people will find this thread in the future, this would be a good time to start with the basics for anyone who is new to SLR photography. I thought I might share some ideas to help demystify it. Please don't take offense if I'm saying things you already know.

The main things to wrap your head around are: Aperture Canon calls this Av, or Aperture Value (how deep the area that will be in focus), Shutter Canon calls this Tv, or Time Value (how much light the camera lets in / how fast the camera takes the picture), and ISO (the sensitivity of the film/sensor). The first two, aperture and shutter, work hand in hand. ISO is a distant third in importance. That's your crutch to save an otherwise bad photo when there isn't enough light available.

Some tips:

1. Set your camera to MANUAL MODE. This is important so that you can control everything instead of the camera trying to create its own idea of what the image should look like. Your camera will still Auto-Focus in manual mode. Manual just lets you control the aperture and shutter settings.

2. Use a tripod if at all possible. If you cannot use a tripod, you will have to have a shutter speed faster than 1/60 (typically) to avoid blurry photos. With a tripod, the camera isn't going to move, so you won't get blurred photos even with a long shutter time. I see from your photo you are already doing that.

3. Your Aperture Setting (f/8 is a good starting point) will depend on how much depth of field you want. This determines how much of your knife will be in sharp focus. For knife photos, you don't want half the knife blurry because it's too far from the part you focused on. Well, unless that's what you want on purpose. The point being: you do have control over this in Manual Mode.

4. Your Shutter speed setting will depend on how much light you have. With product photography that isn't moving, and you use a tripod, the shutter speed is the least important setting. All you care about is a properly exposed photo. A long shutter speed allows more time to expose the image, and a shorter time allows less. A longer shutter speed allows for a lower ISO setting, and a cleaner image free of noise.

ISO: This is the real benefit to digital cameras because you can change this from shot to shot. ISO is the sensitivity setting for the sensor. On your camera, you probably don't want to go over ISO 400 or else the images will get grainy (noisy). Typically you want the lowest ISO for the cleanest photo. But this is a compromise. You may need to pump up the ISO until you get a good exposure under some conditions. You need your aperture at f/8 or even f/16 to get the whole knife in focus when you are that close to it, and that takes a lot of light. Instead of lowering your aperture (f/stop) you want to extend your shutter speed. If you're on a tripod, who cares? Nothing's going to move, especially if you use the camera's Self-Timer to fire the shutter.

Use the Self-Timer (or a remote release) That way, pressing the shutter button won't cause the camera to move or shake because you aren't touching it.

White Balance: Don't worry about this unless Auto isn't giving you the color you want. If your pics come out looking yellow, change the White Balance to Tungsten or Incandescent, and voila!... the colors will be turned natural. Every kind of light affects the color cast of the image. Cameras are really good nowadays, but they are still just machines (computers). You can make better decisions than your camera will with just a little practice. You should be able to view a photo you've taken on the display and scroll through the various WB settings until it looks just right. But try Auto first.


Light is EVERYTHING. No need to overthink this. For what you are trying to do, the amount of light and the direction of the light is all you really care about. The amount of light allows you to fill in shadows and to light the whole knife at one time. The direction of your lights controls where your highlights and shadows fall. Sometimes you want shadows. Sometimes you want bright highlights. This is all about where your move your lights and and how that light reflects off your knife. With a lightbox, you are limited to how much you can move the camera around. Moving your lights is easier if you don't like seeing that hot spot, or you want to fill in a dark area.

Don't be afraid to put your lightbox on the floor and shoot downward with your camera. Shooting shiny knives is no small feat. The light reflects off the blade at the angle of incidence. Having your light bounce off into space is better than having the light bounce off the knife and right into your lens, causing bright white blown out highlights.

 

[J.Leclair]

Thank you very much for taking the time to give such a detailed reply. As you can probably see in my first picture I do have the box on the floor and I do have the camera on a tripod. I made my first attempt at straying from auto mode but will deffinately need more practice and some fiddling with the settings to get things looking right.

 

[John Wilson]

I did see that you used a tripod. I didn't recognize the lightbox being on the floor- I thought that was a table placed in the doorway.

Why not post up some pics? Knife photography is way more challenging than one would think. Getting detail in a shiny object without blowing highlights or seeing unintentional objects in the reflections takes a lot of skill and practice. I think a lot of people could learn from seeing common mistakes and then seeing what it took to fix them.

I think back to my film days - when it was days later before I discovered I had botched the whole shoot.

 

[J.Leclair]

I did see that you used a tripod. I didn't recognize the lightbox being on the floor- I thought that was a table placed in the doorway.

Why not post up some pics? Knife photography is way more challenging than one would think. Getting detail in a shiny object without blowing highlights or seeing unintentional objects in the reflections takes a lot of skill and practice. I think a lot of people could learn from seeing common mistakes and then seeing what it took to fix them.

I think back to my film days - when it was days later before I discovered I had botched the whole shoot.

Lol I don't have anything to clamp my lights to so just set the box on the floor under an end table and clamped them to the lip under the table. I had dart league tonight so no time to play with the camera tonight I will take some shots and post them tomorrow evening.

 

[J.Leclair]

Ok these two were taken using iso 100 and f11 perhaps a bit to bright? Still much better than before (I haven't got any of my own knives finished right now so just grabbed a knife out of the kitchen block)
No post editing done at all

 

[John Wilson]

that's really not bad at all. the knife is exposed very well and you didn't blow the highlights. now, if this was a shot for an online auction this would be great. the knife is well lit and the viewer can see exactly what they are getting. But, lighting that is the same brightness everywhere in the image is not flattering to the subject. this lighting is referred to as "flat" because it is the transition of highlight to shadow which creates a sense of depth and texture.

so, this image is a fantastic starting point. keep these settings in mind. these settings will be where you begin your photo shoots each time.

so, while it is a good shot, for something a little less ebay-like, the idea is to decide what you want the viewer to notice first. what is the subject? is it the finish on the blade? the handle? the subtle lines and curves of your design?

those things need slightly different lighting. that's why you'll see knife photos where the image is a collage of shots.

for our purposes, let's only worry about one shot at a time.

Using this shot as a starting point, what would you change? the first thing is the brightness. by changing the f/stop from f/11 to f/16 the whole image will darken. f/22 would darken it more. eventually we will lose details in the black handle to shadow.

or-

we can move our lights. the intensity of light falls off quickly with distance. also, by using cardboard or some material, we can block some of the light and create areas of shadow where we want them.

shadow creates mood

sometimes you want subdued light in order to see subtle details, but not really shadow.

angles allow us to use highlight and shadow to draw attention to what we are trying to communicate, such as lines and curves

background matters a lot. is the knife competing with the background? is a shiny background causing unwanted reflections? is the pattern distracting?

the image can tell a story. or not.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[J.Leclair]

Once again thank you for the detailed super helpful reply. Gaining more confidence with the camera with every shot...
Beautiful knives BTW.

 

[John Wilson]

Thank you. I think if you make some quick and dirty stands to clip your lights to so that you can move them around, you'll discover that you can do anything you want to fairly easily, just by playing around. Just like your shots, all of mine above are jpegs straight from the camera with no post processing. Photoshop, Lightroom..... all great tools but should never be a crutch. A crappy photo that has been photoshopped looks just like a crappy picture that has been photoshopped.

 

[csalt09]

Great thread. Very informative.

 

[jaxxas]

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