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How to photograph movements


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Sorry for the delay in posting a new tutorial, but I've been busy having a life and arguing about the US presidential election. :)

Here's what you get when you take a photo of a movement. No Macro, no special lenses, just set up a lamp and tripod.

movement-01-640.jpg

As you can see, there's a hideous amount of reflections, shadows and burned out areas. Here's the set-up used:

no-bag.jpg

This is how I imagine most shots are taken.

With the simple addition of nothing more than a plastic bag, you can make a cheap and instant light tent. Just put the subject in the bag, fluff it up and take your shot.

with-bag.jpg

The results are remarkably different.

movement-02-640.jpg

Click either movement photo for a larger version.

Comments, as always, appreciated.

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random (& somewhat unrelated), but the panerai panerai panerai engraving looks very nicely finished on that movement....is this one of the older (nicer) versions of this 111e movement? :g:

It's from my old $110 Silix Radiomir. The movement is dead (runs intermittently) and has been replaced with an inaccurate-looking one (Mrs Pugwash doesn't care - she just wears it), but it still looks nice.

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Great tip pug. Does this work for all kinds of pictures, not just movements? Does the bag have to be white? My local supermarket has light tannish plastic bags.

It works for all kinds of pictures, yes.

As for being a white bag, why not give it a go and post the results with your tan bags?

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  • 1 year later...

Hi Pug

Nice picture of the movement, but if you accept a small critic.. just a tiny one, i think the movement is a little bit bright but i guess that was just to have both the background (dark) and the movement (bright) looking nice and to do it in a simple way.

For a more expert audience, using exposure bracketing and then by merging them (the so called HDR) would give an increased dynamic range and of course a little bit more work taking the pictures.

However, the tip of the plastic bag is excellent. Thanks for adding that and teaching others in the forum to improve theirs photographic skills.

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