What lighting equipment woudl you suggest

Bolerus · 20 Sep 2006 at 16:29

I need to photgraph pottery.

With the lights pictured (All we have) If i face the lights at the pottery etc, i get terrible reflections, but if i face them at the walls to bounce light around the area is too dark. I can of course lighten the pictures in software apps. but would, if at all possible liek to get a better starting point.

The "room" is a landing at the top of the stairs to the attic (which is actually my office)

Unfortunatly there is no natural light at all, and there is no other physical place to take the pictures.

As you can see from the pic, I hope. we have one big "halogen?" light and two smaller ones. At the moment we only have two poles, but we can get another easily enough I guess.

I had a go at making a diffuser out of cardboard and some tissue type paper, and had a large card sheet to try reflect the light.

Any ideas would be great. The boss is a bit strange in that he wil happily pay £600 for the camera, but getting £20 out of him isnt so easy, but if it will improve the lighting and there fore the quality of pictures then I think I can talk him around.

We were suppsoed to been having an expert come in (the person who said that boss must have the mionolta dynax 7d) but now we have the camera he recommended, he doesent seem to have the time to come in. so I am pretty much left on my own, except for you guys.

I know the pic is a terrible one, but just snapped it quick, whilst mentally composing this message.

Munromax · 21 Sep 2006 at 15:32

Only 2 things immediately spring to mind:
1. Try to find somewhere else to picture the objects - preferably outside (Are they large?)
2. Maybe work more with home made diffusion
Since the subject is stiil life - you can really play around with shutter speeds and exposure compensation (if the camera allows) - Also White Balance settings will make quite a difference.
Have you done much of this kind of photography - worth searching the web for ideas!

MajorPart · 21 Sep 2006 at 15:53

Set the white balance to tungsten or halogen and does your camera have a manual setting (just re-read you should do with the dynax 7d) just play about with it over exposing it a bit (not sure what fraction of stops it allows to be honest) each shot see to how it comes out.

and area you using a tripod?

Bolerus · 21 Sep 2006 at 16:54

MajorPart said:
Set the white balance to tungsten or halogen and does your camera have a manual setting (just re-read you should do with the dynax 7d) just play about with it over exposing it a bit (not sure what fraction of stops it allows to be honest) each shot see to how it comes out.

and area you using a tripod?

Yeah am using a tripod (its there to the right of the table)

there is no possible way we can take *** photographs anywhere else. I have tried to broach the subject of changing rooms, and the boss is adamant this isnt going to happen.

With regard to white ballance. No idea what that does (as i mentioned, i have been thrown in at the deep end, with a camera I dont really know how to use and with no idea on lighting etc.

The paper manual with the camera is less than useless but there is a cd with a more in depth one, I guess the first thing i shoudl do is go through it again and learn what things do. But of course the real problem is I dont know what changing shutter speed does, or what effect anythign has.

Yup i really am that much of a newbie.

I did have a go at making my own diffuser, you can just see it on the table there,

I curt a cardboard box down and shaped it to make a snug(ish) fit around the rim of the large light and then covered the front of that with some tissue paper type stuff, but to be honest it didnt cut down the glare. So I guess i didnt use the right material

Bolerus · 21 Sep 2006 at 16:57

I have asked, if i am to be responsible for the new photgraphy, to be sent on a course so I can learn about lighting and various settings.

Unfortunalty, his opinion is that going to college for a night course wont help because they wouldnt teach me specifcally about photgraphing pottery

Euge · 22 Sep 2006 at 00:53

Bolerus,
I think you are being asked to do the impossible. It looks like you got a boss that wants professional levels of photography using building site lights. Maybe it's not an option but if I were in your shoes, I'd walk. It looks like you've got drive and ambition but it is not being appreciated.
I'd give it one last try with those lights. Try this, make a light tent out of muslin or net curtain material. Place the pottery inside the tent, the lights outside and the camera pointing through a slit into the tent. The curtain will help diffuse those lights. FWIW I'm just giving my 30 years experience from the workplace.
Euge

Bolerus · 22 Sep 2006 at 15:37

ok 2 follow on questions.

1) If I build a light tent, do I leave one side open, to photgraph through.

I have looked at light tents, and read the build your own light tent thread on that tutorials web site. But the problem I foresee is that the minimum focus distance is much great that the size of the tent, so if i just cut a slot and pop camera through the slot. it will be physically too clos to take the pictures.

1a) ok 3 follow on questions. Was I going in the right direction by trying to build a home made diffuser, but the material i used to cover it was wrong?

2) I thought about making some reflectors with silver foil (another idea on one of the tutorial type web pages I have accessed through here) but where would be the optinum place to put them?

I thought maybe.

if the item was at the centre of the table, putting a light high to the right, and a reflector high to the left angling down.

I havent tried it yet (im not at work today) but would this be the sort of way to set it up.

Or more inportantly what is the right way lol.

IF somebody said, what you definatly need to do this task is...... at a cost of ......

I think mr boss man would be prepared to listen, I dont want to paint a picture of him being a mean ass, like all business men he wont want to pay for anything he doesent need, and as i mentioned before he bought the camera under the impression that as soon as we got it, and I had learned a few basics, his expert "friend" woudl come and show us how to achieve the results we want.

Also of course, on purely selfish tone. If you guys can help point me in the right direction, and I can sort it out "on my own" I will get lots of brownie points for next time I want to spend some cash on computer upgrades, or a new lens, and (if it doesent come across) I am enjoyign playing with the camera, just the lighting is getting to me a bit.

At home today, I saw a wood wasp in my garden, and my first thought was oo I wish I had the camera here lol

Euge · 23 Sep 2006 at 00:18

You make good points about the minimum focussing distance of your lens, it is possible that you would need a "huge" tent. Another suggestion to try is this.
Camera on tripod. Pottery on stand of some sort. Room in darkness. Put the camera into TV mode. Set a slow shutter speed. Use the timer to fire the shutter and use a penlight torch to paint light onto the pottery. Allow a shutter speed of about 10 secs to start and work either side of that. Use something like a black velvet background.
I take your point about your boss being a typical business man who wants value on an investment. What I would suggest is sell yourself to him, show him some photographs from some of the "how to's" in the photographic mags. Tell him I can do that, but that there may be some financial outlay on his behalf if he wants to get great results, Hammer home the point to him that his pottery is so good that it deserves to be displayed using the best means possible. After all in business you got to speculate to accumulate.
Hope this helps

Bolerus · 23 Sep 2006 at 00:33

thanks for the advise, i will play some more on monday. I also plan to go through the on cd manual with camera in hand and try to learn a few of the myriad of settings.

Have been thinking about this a lot over last couple of days, and I think part of my problem is that (with the excpetion of ISO settings) I am pretty much using this cam on automatic.

So, my next try is to turn lights onto the walls etc so to eliminate glare, and try playing with the shutter speed.

I hope me asking, what are probably stupid questions doesent anoy anybody, Also with any luck one day (soon lol) I will be able to answer other peoples question in return.

thanks again for the advice pointers.

Bolerus · 28 Sep 2006 at 22:37

Just for information (and perhaps some1 has some extra ideas / tips)

Got boss to buy and extra light and pole (so we still one pole short but will deal with that later) from the tool mart place in cobridge. Yeah they are building site lights but better than nothing.

I made some diffussers, hard to explain, but made a cardboard base that slots between the light and the pole, then extended the bar thing on top of the light and joined the 2 with tissue paper that we use to wrap items (think i folded it so that is 6 sheets think , or might be 8, im nto at work now)

did that for 2 of the smaller lights, then made what looked like a box kite for the big light (one sheet of paper, then a big gap and another liek a filtration system kind of thing)

Still get some glare but no where near as much.

Dropped the shutter speed to 1/30th on iso 400 and had a play with the aperature compensation dial.

and I am quite happy with the results now. Could be better but i think i am moving in the right direction.

Now.
A friend borrowed me (well he said i can keep it) a reflector thing, it is 2 big circles with a conection piece, but where do I actually put it? shoudl it be close to the item, or close to the light ?