How to photograph Japanese sword blades - need advice & help

[GARY WORTHAM]

Boy, I have tried to photograph the blades over the years, with miserable results, including today. The fittings seem to come out really good to great, and I feel the darker color and contrast of their material & shapes lend to the gentler results.

 

I see so many great, detailed, close ups of blades, at various sites, that make me sick with envy, of the skill at hand. I have looked for directive articles on the ABC of this process, and have come up short. So, I reach out to the vast network of photo wizards for their magic.

 

I use a new Sumsumg - digital - SL310W - 13.6 mega pix - 28mm wide lens - dual image stabilizer - zoom 6.0 & 21.6mm.

A lot of info that really doesn't make sense to me and how to use it. My Apple MacBook Pro 15.4" can handle anything put in it, But, garbage in is garbage out.

 

Help me !!!!! Gary Wortham

[Jean]

Gary,

 

Search NMB archives, the subject has been already treated several times. The easiest way is to have it scanned, there is a very good article on it.

[GARY WORTHAM]

Thanks Jean, but I have searched the archives and found nothing, except the reference to Darcy's instructions, which he removed due to people abusing his most generous information. If you or another can assist me further on this subject, thanks in advance. Gary Wortham

[Brian]

Gary,

Have you checked our own articles section right here?

viewforum.php?f=17

You will find some good articles by Richard K. George.

 

Brian

[GARY WORTHAM]

Thanks Brian. It looked a little complicated, but I will dig into it and see if I can make it would. I'm up to the challenge. Gary Wortham

[loiner1965]

Thanks Brian. It looked a little complicated, but I will dig into it and see if I can make it would. I'm up to the challenge. Gary Wortham

sometimes it seems easier to punch a ghost than to take pics of a blade....just patience and take notes is the only way to go.......and practice

[GARY WORTHAM]

You're right Steve. Started a binder of directions, instructions, suggestions, visions, and aspirations to begin my 2009 efforts of my sword's photography, as well as their fittings. Why would I think it would be simple ???? A challenge is what makes it worth while and more sporting. Thank goodness retirement is less than 6 months away, and I'll have the time and patience. Gary Wortham

[nihonto1001]

I have been taking pictures of blades for a website I am doing. Some are better than others. Here is what I have found empiricaly.

 

1. Take pictures on a angle to get good hada/hamon shots.

 

2. Set up lighting. Flash reflection will wash out the photo. Then again, sometimes the flash can bring out details not readily seen with the eye. I take a few with and then without flash.

 

3. Use manual focus.

 

4. Take many pics.

 

Please disregard the pics of the Fujiwara Sadayuki, I recently posted, as an example. They were taken very quickly. Here are a couple decent shots.

 

 

 

 

Jon

[Veli]

Hi!

 

This is my favourite article (which has been discussed in past threads in NMB):

 

Technology for Digitalizing Pictorial Data of Japanese Swords

Akira Ide, Kazuya Manabe, Hirokazu Shimizu, Masahirio Sugawa

Proceedings of the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2005

 

Copypaste the article name into Google, and you'll find the article in PDF form for free.

 

BR, Veli

[rkg]

Gary,

 

Let's see, where to begin... Please forgive me if anything below is too basic/condescending - I never know where

any particular photographer is coming from w/o more information, so...

 

First of all, it will save you a lot of time if you become familiar with your camera's operation, particularly the manual mode.

I took a quick look at your camera's specifications, and you may have a problem in that your camera doesn't appear to

have manual focus - not impossible to work around, but sometimes you have to do stuff like stick something up next

to the sword for the camera to lock onto, etc. to get it to even "see" the blade reliably - fortunately these little

cameras have lots of depth of field so you don't have to absolutely nail the focus point/shoot really stopped down

like you do with DSLR, MF, or large format camera, though you won't get optimal results. I also didn't see if it would

shoot tethered or not, which is also very helpful.

 

Note also that you've just become a victim of the Megapixel Wars - if you run the numbers the the geometry of the

sensor/lens arrangement on these little cameras, it quickly becomes obvious that a sensor size above ~8 megapixels

on them doesn't buy you much, if anything [lengthy diatribe deleted].

 

Second, depending on what you want to do, you might look into getting a decent tripod - you can do some OK stuff

with the "hunt until you see the hada show up/nie glow and hit the button" method, but you'll end up getting unpredictable

results with your camera, so you'll be shooting a lot more pics than you have to, and maybe not even get the "money shot"

at all before you get frustrated/tired and give up...

 

Third, its all about the light - swords are a b*tch to shoot which is why there aren't many cookbook articles out there - you

get better results as you start controlling more and more stuff (which is where the camera's manual mode comes in).

 

If you're serious, pick up a copy of Hunter and Fuqua's book and actually read it - or at least the very least the

sections about photographing metal and glass:

 

Light, Science, and Magic

 

Its actually a lot easier to shoot stuff when you start thinking about the physics of the lighting. And the previous poster's

advice about turning off your flash before you do anything is a Really Good Idea - you usually want the lighting coming

from a different place/be different (and actually for general photography you do too [another diatribe deleted]...).

 

Some guy in Canada distributed a videotape a few years ago that had some sort of OK cookbook ideas for where the

lights would go, though as you'd expect I do something different because I want to see different stuff when I shoot

a sword. Note also that the method the guy shows of supporting the sword for photography is creepy (basically it

involved building a stand and holding the sword off the ground with a cheeseball clamping mechanism at the nakago)

DON'T DO THIS!!! its entirely too easy for the sword to end up falling out and doing a tip plant, somebody walk

into the sword and get it bloody, etc. - the swords deserve better than this.

 

And finally, because of a sword's extremely high contrast, you need a LOT of pixels placed across the sword to get a

decent image. particularly in print (at ~300ppi the resulting image is tolerable - at 400PPI, its starting to look pretty

good) - and you actually need a printer that can honestly resolve this. So to get a kick-b*tt image, you're talking about

caturing at least 11000-14000 pixels along the length of say a 36 inch long overall piece (so don't count on getting

a stunning overall image of your pieces with your camera in one shot) assuming a 2x3 format that would require what,

a 55 Megapixel+ sensor... There's a reason why a lot of people scan (or revert to using large format cameras) on

these pieces....

 

I had posted a diatribe a while back on Mr. Hallam's list about this.

 

On the fittings, you are a little better off - a good start is to read up on how jewelry guys shoot stuff. Again, there

are few "cookbook" methods for these - I've always been a little surprised how two fittings that "appear" nearly identical

require very different lighting setups, and it can sometimes take a Very Long time fiddling to get the shot that

really captures the piece. Also, you have to be careful with a lot of the jewelry methods - decent fittings are

actually highly reflective, and doing the simpleminded stuff like putting them in a lightbox and hoping for the best

usually makes them look really bad. (unless you end up filling up the light tent with subtractive flags, but I digress..).

They're actually quite challenging to shoot and make look really good which is probably why I'm so fascinated with

imaging them...

 

Good Luck,

 

rkg

(Richard George)

[GARY WORTHAM]

Great ideas, suggestions, thoughts, and challenges. Never thought it would be easy. Very high tech, glad my minor was in physics. I can see, I will have a separate, full, binder; of sword & fittings photography, how to do it. Thanks !!! Gary Wortham