tent/no tent experiment

[Emily]

I make finished jewelry only when held at gunpoint or hit up for a donation to a charity auction. (The two experiences are pretty similar, really.) It's auction time, as you can tell by the fact that I'm posting pictures instead of drinking stewed coffee at the police precinct.

Warning: I am the most amateur of photographers, and don't take a lot of bead/jewelry pictures, so don't expect anything earthshattering here.

Instead of my usual cheapo eBay white fabric photo cube and three lights, I thought I would try a ghetto version of Scott Tanner's approach: one light shining down at a slight angle. Scott's picture of his set up showed a photo of beads flat on a horizontal surface. I was going to be taking pictures of a necklace on a vertical display, which I knew probably meant that the light should be angled differently, but I had no clue how. Since my lighting consisted of a fluorescent daylight bulb in a Home Depot reflector and my light stand consisted of a halogen torchiere floor lamp (dead), the angle of my lighting was going to depend on which way I could get the Home Depot reflector clamp to fasten on to the top of the lamp and stay put, so I had limited ability to adjust it anyway. In the end, it was shining down at more or less a 45 degree angle (if I still remember what a 45 degree angle looks like, from my geometry class 30-some years ago). To make myself feel like a Real Photographer, I had the camera on a real, honest-to-God tripod, which I definitely needed because with only one light my camera was giving me the "hand shake" warning symbol. Macro setting, custom white balance, "click," and it's all over but the Photoshopping -- except I moved stuff around and took a bunch more pictures.

(All of these have been inexpertly Photoshopped according to my best efforts to follow the directions in Scott's Levels and Unsharp Mask tutorials.)

Here is a photo using one light, no photo tent:



Here's a photo using the photo tent and one light, still in the same position as it was in the photo without the tent:



Here's a photo using three lights, no photo tent. I definitely liked having more light. I got much better color and had to do less fussing in Photoshop. The problem is that three lights gave me all sorts of weird shadows. This is the best (least shadowy) of numerous pictures, including the ones with three lights that were taken in the photo tent. You would think that having the light diffused through the fabric would help with the shadows, but it didn't. For a piece like this, one light definitely seems to be the way to go. (Yes, Scott, you told us so.)



These beads all do have a lot of texture, so they didn't present the problem of blinding glare that perfectly smooth reflective surfaces would. That's an experiment for next time.

I'm not throwing out my photo tent yet, but I'm not automatically assuming that I want to use it every time, either.

[Tanner Studios]

Good job Emily, Testing is the best way to improve your photo skills.

I have two tips for you. When deicing what angle to set the lights. Look to what the high light and shadow are doing. And put the high light where its pleasing to the eye. Thats a hugh pet peeve of mine. maybe your light could have been off center a little bit. So the high light was not in the center of your bead.

The other thing is exposure. All cameras have trouble metering when there is a lot of white in the image. Check your camera to see if it has a meter compensation control setting. Or a manual setting. What you will need to do is set the exposure about one stop higher than what your meter is telling you to shoot at.

I snagged your first photo and reset the levels. I think you'll like it better it show off your beautiful beads a little better.


As you can see from the levels box. That I had to move the white point in a lot. That shows how far your meter was off.

Great job
Scott