Photographing Windstones?

[chrisherself]

[chrisherself]

I was just noting the high quality of the Windstone ebay photos. I was wondering what sort of lighting and tricks you use to get such sharp photos, without reflections from the finish. I have a pretty cruddy camera but I’ve tried all sorts of tricks without much luck. Aside from the black velvet background, what else do you use to get all the detail in?

[BDW]

Some people use tents similar to this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Portable-Photo-Studio-Lighting-Light-Box-Tent-Kit-PLT05_W0QQitemZ250405670341QQcmdZViewItemQQptZContinuous_Lighting?hash=item250405670341&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234%7C66%3A4%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1309%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A200

This way you don’t use the flash since you get enough light and there is no direct light source reflecting on the piece since it has to go through the canvas.
It’s easy to make your own if you don’t want to pay to mugh.
Shop around for deals…

[Melody]

chrisherself wrote:

I was just noting the high quality of the Windstone ebay photos. I was wondering what sort of lighting and tricks you use to get such sharp photos, without reflections from the finish. I have a pretty cruddy camera but I’ve tried all sorts of tricks without much luck. Aside from the black velvet background, what else do you use to get all the detail in?

This is a question for John, He does the photography!
I’ll get him to answer -when he gets a chance.

[John]

We have a pretty professional studio with all sorts of soft boxes (fabric diffused reflectors that go over the strobes) and other attachments for the lights so I can get a diffused light from any direction or direct, hard light from any direction. I don’t waste a lot of time with the eBay pictures because I don’t want them to ever look better than the piece really is. For ad shots I spend quite a lot of time getting just the right amount of shadow detail and brightness to show the shape of the piece and bring your eye to the faces.

The basics are:

Direct hard light from the front will bring out the color but give bright specular highlights.
Direct light from the top or side will give shadow detail.
Diffused light from the side or above will give less vivid color rendition, soft highlights and less shadow detail.
The larger the diffused area the softer the highlights.
Lighting through fabric can give a diffused and directional light combined while a white reflector is less directional and a Mylar or mirror reflector will give a harsh directional reflection.

I use a combination of all of the above in the studio and, sometimes, even a honeycomb grid in a direct reflector to shoot a narrow beam of light. The eye sees many more shades of grey than film or digital can record so you need to learn to “see” the lighting as you imagine it will appear. I now have a very accurate digital camera and capture directly to the computer so I can see each shot on the monitor as I work and that helps a lot.

[Author]

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