Anyone got tips for knife photography...?

[Ted]

Most of here probably noticed I've been doing a lot of knife photography. The macro shots are turning out pretty good, but I still don't have a good feeling about the overall knife shots. I've just made a new in-house setup, so I can do a lot more then the two hours I have on saturday & sunday with decent light (11.00-13.00). I just took these two (well, actually took about 40 and picked these :D ).
They're not that bad I think, but also not really exciting... :confused:

http://www.ted.tweakdsl.nl/ronin.jpg

http://www.ted.tweakdsl.nl/combo.jpg

Someone posted a link to Bob Lum recently, and I like the pictures on there a lot more. I can't figure out what makes the difference however? - Is it the background? lighting? subject? composition? or everything?

picture from Bob Lum (http://www.boblumknives.com)
http://www.boblumknives.com/images/folder2.jpg

Anyone got tips?

Thanks,
Ted

[KBR]

Thanks for posting about this subject, Ted. I've always wondered about how to take better pics as well, since mine only occasionally come out alright. :(

BTW, IMO, those pics are excellent.

[Rob]

Hi Ted!

Most of all it's the clean looking of the pic with the Lum folder. Try to edit the picture you make and remove every bit of dust, adjust the colors a littlebit and it makes a lot of difference. Here an example:

http://members.chello.at/robert.fruehauf/grafiken/forum/combo1.jpg

Can you see the difference? If not, I'll redo the pic of the Ronin. There it would be more obvious :rolleyes: If you have questions on what I exactly did, feel free to ask. I'll try to help as good as I can.

Cheers, Rob

[Rob]

OK, I was a bit bored at the moment so I also tried to rework the pic of the ronin. A little too dark, but I think you get the idea...

http://members.chello.at/robert.fruehauf/grafiken/forum/ronin1.jpg

Cheers, Rob

[Senate]

the background is very important.
I noticed that if the background is too smooth, has no character, the picture tends be "flat" and a bit "boring".

for example, I see a big difference between the picture of the Ronin and the Lum tanto. in the pic of the Ronin, in the background you have the Alpine Lowe logo, the zip and lots of seam, I like it. on the contray in the other pic you got 2 knives and a flashlight but the background is completely even.
that why wood and stones work great for knives pic, there are nervures, flaws, breaks, different tones of colour etc...

anyway Ted, you do a great job with these pics, keep 'em coming! :)

[Stuart Ackerman]

Ted,

Look at Scott Slobidian's photos, and see how he composes knife and sword pics... very interesting. Copy other people's compositions for your own photos for practice, and you will get a feel for it.

Having said that, you are on the right track!
Post some more here...

[CKE]

TED>they look good to me. I have a terrible time taking photos. Every now and then I do a really good one and then forget what I did. Ah well I keep on truckin and tryin to remember:) Take Care and sorry I am no help :(

[vampyrewolf]

lighting is the big thing. There's a few threads on photoboxes in bfc if you search.

other than lighting it will run you whatever 2 sheets of posterboard cost there, and is big enough for a 15" oal knife. Then just get 2 lamps, put bright WHITE lights on em, and snap away.

I've got a 100watt in my desk lamp, fully adjustable arm. I'll grab a hunk of posterboard tomorrow and show you what I mean even though it's not gonna be anything great with only a 2.2meg pixel camera.

[Ted]

Rob, that cleaner look indeed makes a lot of difference. thanks for pointing that out. Did you also resharpen the pic? - I already had given it a little unsharp-mask. Normally I just applied the sharpen filter, but with a background like the canvas or other cloth, that is too aggresive.
I need to work on the color too I see. I manually adjusted the white-balance on my camera some more on the 2nd one (little more blue), which was already better then the first one. I never know which controls to use in Photoshop :confused:

Senate, the background is indeed the difficult part. It's hard to match a knife with a good background. Best I think is too match the purpose of the knife with the materials surrounding it, otherwise it indeed get's boring or just silly-looking. I need to pay more attention to that. ( and go outside to find the right materials...) :D

VW, I made a new setup, with four 30" 'TL-balken' (how do you call those in english? see pic) which I can move freely around the subject. That gives a pretty even light.
http://www.allesvooruwkeuken.nl/media/budgetlightverlichtingselementen.jpg

zackerty, those are indeed good pictures. This one is real simple but very nice
http://www.slobodianswords.com/All%20Knife%20Photos/Large%20Knife%20Photos/Bowie%205%20Lg.jpg
I guess the looks of the knife als help a lot :D
I'll try to 'copy' some of that :p

Ted

[Rob]

Ted,

Yes, I also applied the Unsharp Mask Filter with the following values (same for both pictures): Amount: 50; Radius: 1,0 pixels; Threshold: 0 levels

The "normal" sharpening filters are indeed too agressive for the most editing jobs. When you use it, make sure that the "Preview" checkbox is marked so you can see instantly what you are doing.

Adjusting the colours is a little bit more tricky :) I am going to send you a mail on that...

Cheers, Rob

[UK KEN]

Ted

Take one ladder............ :D

Ken :p

[jsholli]

Those are some awesome pictures with great creativity...I wouldn't ask this if it was a big secret, but since everyone's pics are excellent it's no secret...


How in the world do you post such rich picture's???

My account will only let me post 100KB at a time.
1) are there ways to get around the 100KB limit
2) or are the different accounts with other limits, and
3) what program/format do you use?

Of coarse, I won't be terribly pained if this actually is a big secret! :D

[silverback]

Those are some awesome pictures with great creativity...I wouldn't ask this if it was a big secret, but since everyone's pics are excellent it's no secret...
How in the world do you post such rich picture's???


They link from their own pages via the arcane magic of html code. It is a black art and only for the initiated. :D

[Rob]

My account will only let me post 100KB at a time.
1) are there ways to get around the 100KB limit
2) or are the different accounts with other limits, and
3) what program/format do you use?[/INDENT]


Mine too, yes, not as far as I know, Photoshop/JPG :) :D

Its not really a big secret. When you write somthing that you want to post, there are some icons above the text frame. Click the yellow one with the little mountain in it, enter the URL of the pic you want to share, click "OK" and that's it.

Of course you'll have to have webspace somewhere, where you can upload your pics in the first place. So if you want to show pics that are bigger than 100k that's the way ;)

Hope that helps,

Rob

[vampyrewolf]

I can hotlink up to a 250kb pic off my space over on 250free.com... and there's no size limit on my isp space but I only get 50mb of bandwidth for my free 10mb space.

[jsholli]

Thanks guys,
I was ready to pull my hair out b/c no format or program was giving me the proper resolution :mad:

I will probably check into the webspace thing; it'd be cool to post all my knife pics!

[Senate]

also check with your internet service provider, maybe your subscription include some free webspace.

[OutofGum]

Wow, you guys take your knife photography seriously. I just put them on my desk, pull out the 2MP camera and shoot. Then... the extent of my post processing is pretty much resizing due to lack of photoshop. Here are some of my pics. They are hosted by imageshack, which is an amazing service.

http://img218.exs.cx/img218/2227/spydie18jk.jpg

http://img218.exs.cx/img218/5893/spydie24dx.jpg

http://img218.exs.cx/img218/8021/spydie36hb.jpg


If you think they suck... blame the camera... its 5 yrs old and 2MP. If they are good... just look at what I'm working with! :p

P.S. I have WB issues, I know this, don't point it out!

I really like the Lum pictures, they look quite professional - very sharp and the color is excellent. Spyderco should put some shots like that into their catalog.

[Rob]

Hi!

Just a quick hint: Try to shoot without using the flash. If there is not enough natural light, try to shoot with artificial ligt and set the WB on your camera so that it compensates the lightbulbs (or whatever you use). Doing this you can avoid the blade looking black on the picture (like the first you've posted) and you get more natural looking pictures.

The white balance on the first shot seems quite OK, but on the others there's way too much red in the pics. Does your camera have the possibility to choose between presets for WB? I also use a 2 MP camera and mine does have presets but no possibility to use your own setting.

Cheers, Rob

[CutEngineer]

There is something to be said for a little subliminal discord. The Lum is sitting on very hard, harsh, abrasive stone. I wouldn't leave that knife in a place like that.

I can't help paying attention to the subject.

[OutofGum]

The colors could be fixed pretty easily in PS... even thumbsplus could do it. I'll repost after I install them on this pc

[Rob]

Yeah, that's right. What I actually meant was the colour created by the flash.

Luckily I've saved some bad pics of mine:

With flash:

http://members.chello.at/robert.fruehauf/grafiken/forum/cal1.jpg

Without flash:

http://members.chello.at/robert.fruehauf/grafiken/forum/cal2.jpg

After taking a new shot and some editing:

http://members.chello.at/robert.fruehauf/spyderco/gfx/knives/c52mic.jpg

Cheers, Rob

[Ted]

just completed the final setup - it turned out a bit bigger then expected, so my wife will be slightly less happy when she sees it...

http://www.ted.tweakdsl.nl/evo.jpg

The rubbish around the krayton is just fiber from cleaning the handle...darn 8Mp camera - picks up everything ;-)

[Senate]

argggg the Evo Set!!! :eek: :)
the Grail for any spydie fan! do you own it Ted?
(and a very material question: how much did you pay for it?:))

[Rob]

Nice picture, Ted! Yours? :eek:

A bit too much yellow and maybe a bit too much red though ("maybe" because the TFT screen here at work NEVER is set right - not matter what you do :mad: )

Cheers, Rob

[Ted]

Nope, not mine, so you all can probably guess who's it is... :p

Rob, yes the color is a bit off, I tried adjusting it but couldn't get it right. I really need to read those PDF's, to understand what I'm doing.

[UK KEN]

Ted

Very close numbers! Not photos! :( No sunlight in the UK today :(

Regards Ken

[Senate]

if one more person post pictures of his Evo set, I'm gonna kill myself! :D