Some pics...

[Leroy]

Hi everyone. I uploded some pics I took of 2 of my swords. Can you guys give some feedback on lighting and what not? I appreciate it.

 

http://public.fotki.com/hiritomi/Japanese-swords/

 

Thanks

-Leroy

[S.Haugtredet]

Hi Leroy,

i liked your pictures. Nice feel to them. Balanced background and nice "sun like" light from the side. And nothing to disturb the item you photographed. Many people have several other Japanese/oriental items in their picture wich only serv as distractions.

Some of your diagonals in the pictures are really nice. Good thing to lead the eyes into the picture. The balance in your picture are in general good to. Some pictures can feel a little heavy to either side or front. Just have "balance" in the back of your head when taking tha pictures

 

If i was to come with some minor pointers it would be light up some of the shady parts a little. You can still have some shadow, but the shadow won`t "swallow" parts of the item or become to "heavy or hard" in your picture. Also some where a tad out of focus. That the focus lies in the front of the picture and get`s blurry in the back is nice. But a general out of focus picture when everything else is nice is a shame. Use manual focus, don`t trust auto focus. Sometimes the cam don`t know what you want focus on.

Also use filter so soften those "lightspots" that shines in the metal parts of the sword. Like the "burn out" in on of the kashira pictures of the first sword. Flaging the light, taking a test shots and moving light or item until your satesfied with the set up is a good thing to do.

 

My thoughts anyway. Keep up the good work and share more photos.

 

Have a nice day Leroy :-)

[Rich T]

I like them. I think if I had to say something, it would be that they are too warm. There is too much red/yellow in the images. This may be due to not doing a white balance, using too much incandescent lighting, maybe there is just a lot of reflected warm light due to the colours around the items or maybe you are treating them some way ?. Whatever, they are just a bit too red for me.

 

Also, I would try to even out the lighting a bit, to stop that 'trailing off to black' look that happens, particually the shot with the kissaki in it.

 

Other than that, I like the style, keep at it.

 

Rich

[Leroy]

I like them. I think if I had to say something, it would be that they are too warm. There is too much red/yellow in the images. This may be due to not doing a white balance, using too much incandescent lighting, maybe there is just a lot of reflected warm light due to the colours around the items or maybe you are treating them some way ?. Whatever, they are just a bit too red for me.

 

Also, I would try to even out the lighting a bit, to stop that 'trailing off to black' look that happens, particually the shot with the kissaki in it.

 

Other than that, I like the style, keep at it.

 

Rich

 

Rich, I agree that they are too warm. I used AWB, and this was not even close to what I was seeing with my eye. I tried playing with the temp in my RAW converter, but I just could not quite get it right (i'm still learning this). I guess I will have to try a custom WB and more lights.

 

Thanks Rich and S.Haugtredet for the C&C. I'll keep working at it.

 

-Leroy

[Rich T]

Have you looked at something like Photoshop Elements, pretty cheap and very handy for this sort of work.

 

I downloaded one shot and used Auto Smart Fix on one and Auto Colour Correction on anther and got the following results. I am not sure how these sit with how they looked, but it was a single push of a button to get the excess red out of them.

 

Rich

[Leroy]

That Auto Color Correction worked pretty good. I have CS2 and used Adobe Camera Raw to set the WB. "Auto" setting looked like your Smart Fix image (2850). It's a bit to cool. Also, "As Shot" makes it to warm (3700). So I just played around with the temp. I didn't do a good job, I might add

 

Thanks for the tips. I'll keep working on it and post new pics as soon as I can. :D

 

-Leroy