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Taking photos in the workshop

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spuddevans:
I dont know if this is in the right place, if not please could someone move it.

This is in response to some requests in my Elmers#25 thread to share some info and tips on how I take photos in the workshop. I must emphasise that this is only my uneducated rambling, please correct or question anything below.


Anyway, disclaimer over with, on with the boring lecture.

Please bare with me as I am not professionally trained in any of all this so this probably will not come out as clear as it could be.  :coffee:

I think the most important thing in photography is the light, if you havent got good light then no matter what camera you've got your pic will still be a pic of bad light. So what is "good" or "bad" light? The answer is ... it depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you are trying to create a moody atmosphere then you may want to create some strong shadows and keep the overall tone of the image on the darker side. If however you are wanting to photograph parts on the lathe or mill or individual parts you probably want to have an image without any strong shadows.

Why not completely shadowless? Well, it can be pretty hard to achieve as you need to get equal levels of light coming at the model from all angles including from below it. So "nearly shadowless" is an easier target to reach without buying any additional gear.

So how to achieve it?   :scratch:

As we all know, light likes to travel in straight lines from its source, and then anything put in the light's path will cast a shadow on the same axis onto any surface behind it. So the way to reduce the shadows is to get the light away from the level of the camera and get it up above the model. Then the direct light from above can only cast a shadow below the model, and if the light is above the subject (ideally the light should be higher than the distance to the nearest wall) the light can also bounce off the walls to reduce the shadows below. Then if you stand the model on something light coloured, like a sheet of white paper the light will be reflected up to illuminate the underneath of the model.

So how I took my photos for my Elmers#25 build was this; I have a Dslr and a flash unit that can both swivel from side to side, but can also be pointed straight up or even behind the camera. So when taking the photos, no matter what angle I held the camera at, the flash was always aimed directly at the (grubby) white ceiling. The light would then bounce of the ceiling and back down onto the subject and would also bounce off the walls to fill in some of the shadows.

Of course you may not have such equipment, so what can you do?

One of the easiest things to do is to turn off the inbuilt flash on your camera and rely on your normal workshop lighting, and then mount your camera onto a tripod. You dont need a massive floorstanding tripod, you can get really small table-top tripods for just a few quid. The reason for using a tripod is to get rid of camera-shake. When you dont have the flash switched on the camera slows down its shutter speed to get more light in, but a slower shutter speed will really show up any camera-shake and will give blurry pics.

Then just set your camera's white balance to match whatever your workshop lighting is, ie flurescent or incandescent.

Most compact cameras will focus on the center area (some even can identify faces and focus on them, but unless your engines have faces on them that feature isn't much help ) so keep that area on the part you want to be the sharpest. Remember that the closer the camera is to the subject the smaller the depth-of-field is (the area of the picture that will be in focus). If your camera has a Macro mode that can help, but you face the problem of limited depth-of-field.

Remember that if you are wanting pics just for use on the forum you only need to have a pic 800pixels or so on the longest side, that's around 1mp. If your camera's reletively new it could be 6-15 times bigger than that. That will give you plenty of space that you could crop the photo down to size in an editing program. So dont feel you have to fill the whole frame with the subject, just crop down to suit.

If you have some photo editing software you can also do some extra tricks to bring out the best in your photos, but the details depends on what software you have. I have Photoshop Elements 5 ( the cheap version of Photoshop, but that has virtually all the tools I need), I got it from ebay for about £25. I use it to sharpen the finer details in the pics, and to adjust the exposure.


I hope I've covered it all, any questions please feel free to ask, I can't say that I'll be able to answer them though :lol:


Tim

spuddevans:
I've made up some e-C-o-C's (that's electronic-Crap-o-Cad's) to illustrate what I was rambling about regarding the difference between the effect of a built in flash and using workshop lighting. ( just in case you weren't bored enough by the epic tome above  :D )

These are overhead e-C-o-C's  :)






I know it says flurescent tubes but it could just as well be normal light bulbs, but I assumed most would use flurescents in their workshop due to the effeciency and cheapness of them.


Tim

Bernd:
Tim,

I've also noticed that many are not aware of the background color in their photo's either. That also makes a big difference in taking a picture of a part. I usally try for a neutral color such as gray.

What is your opinion on background color.

By the way all my pics are taken with a Kodak M883 8megapixel camera and then enhanced by HP photo software.

Bernd

P.S. You are in the right place to post a "How To".

Darren:
Thanks Tim,

I will be reading that over a few times, I have "some" gear, just been lazy. Oh and didn't know how to use it  :ddb: :ddb:

cedge:
Bernd
What?..... you don't like my bright yellow scrap boxes?..... :(

Steve  :lol:

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