At the request of some C&F folks I’m trying to take some good photos of several whistles. The whistles with a low reflective finish are no problem, however the metal whistles and glossy wood whistles are a difficult with my limitied flash equipment (glare from hell), I’m wondering if anyone has suggestions.
I’m using a Canon Powershot G1 with the bilt in flash. I’ve tried dialing down the flash compensation, and I’ve tried available light only, but still can get good results. I also tried a using toilette paper over the built in flash as a make shift diffuser, to no avail Any other Ideas?
Hi,
My photographer husband says to put the whistle inside a white box..a styrofoam cooler even. Put plenty of tissue over the flash and make sure it bounces all around
the white box when it goes off.
Hopefully this will help.
Outside is good too!
Lolly
I have a big chair in front of a window, when I take a pic of a whistle I put it there so it gets more ambient light, and also turn on a lamp about 90 degrees to the side. I don’t have a flash on the camera.
The white box idea sounds good, it’s basically the same principle used in studio photography (with large reflectors)
–Beth (amateur photog and studied it briefly in college)
If the whistles are small enough to fit on top of a regular flatbed scanner, I have had good luck just scanning them in–a technique I picked up from Dale, as a matter of fact.
If what you are needing is a photograph on film, though, this won’t help, or if the whistles are too big.
I’ve used a scanner on turned wooden pens with brass tips, and it sometimes worked, but sometimes the brass was too reflective. Good idea, though, and worth trying if you have a scanner.
peepji its really good idea for photographers then you have nice, really nnnice pic and v. exactly ones but! theres one small but… with ambient light its gettin more and more naturall andself beauty
If you have or know somebody that has a scanner that may work for some of your whistles. That is what I used to get the picture of my Burke E in a post awhile back.
Good luck,
David
[ This Message was edited by: Feadan on 2002-05-10 21:49 ]
I don’t know what you’re using for a camera. Assuming it’s a 35mm, my suggestion is to take a sky blue cloth, place it on a table outside during a sunny day a couple of hours before or after the time the sun is overhead (so you have it say at 10 or 2 in the sky), supplement the backshadow area by means of a 60w desk lamp (just enough to kill the back shadow). Go with as small an aperture opening as you can (e.g. 16)as that will keep your depth of field sharp, and use Kodak 200 film speed film. Depending upon the brightness of the day, adjust your shutter speed accordingly. (My guess is either 125 or 250 but your meter will tell you.)At that shutter speed you can also do this without a tripod - although there’s no harm in using one to assure you get the framing you really want. This should preclude the flash and light diffusion issue.
Just for fun after focusing on the whistle, take a second shot with the aperture at 1.7 or 1.8. This will really kick up your shutter speed but you’ll have a photo wherein the whistle is sharp and the backround is out of focus. - Hope this helps.
(edited for spelling)
[ This Message was edited by: Glengary on 2002-05-10 22:25 ]
I wouldn’t use a lamp to compensate for light without balancing your colour-temperature, unless you want to go for the warmtone atmosphere.
Best thing to do is get hold of a non flash camera, use a the slowest film you can get for sharpness, shoot from a tripod at a small aperture using a low exposure in natural light [no direct sunlight, preferably outdoors], brighten it up with a reflector [any white sheet of paper will do], minimize glare on your whistles by using a polarising filter.
I still live in the old film and chemical age fiddling with the big 4x5 for this sort of jobs so you may find some differences when going dig.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-05-11 11:37 ]
Peter is quite right - don’t use a lamp - it’ll just make it all yellowish. Don’t use a flash but do use a tripod!! Just turn off the flash feature on your camera. If you have to shoot it inside, use the method I’ve drawn up here. A large reflector card does wonders.
A polarizing filter takes away some annoying glare, but also will take two full stops from your exposure. Best jsut to surround the whistle in as much white as possible. You may have to play around with your colour balance on the digital camera. The G1 is a nice camera with lots of features.You may also be able to adjust it later via Photoshop or other photo editing software.
Hope this helps:-)
PR
edited to fix image link - PR
[ This Message was edited by: Paul Reid on 2002-05-11 10:34 ]
I was a professional photographer for some years in the '80’s. I have used many of the suggestions above, for shiny objects (light tents and soft boxes on the flash heads being most common) but there was also a spray that you could buy, to dull the shinyness of the objects. I’m not sure what it was called, and I think that there would be something similar to use around in DIY stores or suchlike. It added a thin film to the shiny object and cut down the glare. Polarizing filters work quite well, too as mentioned.
Any other Ideas?
then you have nice, really nnnice pic and v. exactly ones 