Photo Success - 1st test photo with new setup

[fotoman]

If you happen to see the other day, i created a new lightbox. over the past few days i've been polishing some of my pen woods to use as a floor. Everything was a great success. I'm gonig to do a writeup on my lightbox, but, i think that I have built in alot of flexability and durability for some experiments i want to run.

The only flaw so far in the design is, you have to move the lights away from the box, in order to easily setup items in the shot.

Here is the first test photo my unbranded tourbillon on hand polished macasser ebony

[freddy333]

Looks good. Awaiting lightbox details.

[dvn]

How did you take the photo like that? I tried many time and could not get it.

Very nice photo Pho. Looking forward for more.

[fotoman]

I had 1 photo of it in an older thread. I'm going to do a formal writeup, but, basically, i got a black cloth organizing cardboard sides from fabric store on sale for 5$. Got semi transparent white cloth. Cut a few holes in the basket, draped the white cloth over. As a floor, i ordered a black cutting board. I'm using swirly floresant bulbs. They have a variaty called daytime sunlight. It will drive you nuts if used for room lighting, but, i figured it would produce a very true color reproduction. I was correct, i did do an auto color correct, but it was super super minor.

Special design features as compared to my old one (wire hangers and cut up t shirt)

1. all black structure means i have less places to reflect off the crystal. I used to manually place a black cloth to cover up reflections.

2. long openings are great for flexability

3. decided to go long rather than wide. I want to do more with the background of photos. The longer distance will allow me to easily blur out the background without the camera having a good ability to perform that type of shot.

4. Those things, plus the halogen bulbs are big upgrades to my old way. There is much much more flexability built into this one.

5. I have a stack of woods fabric's fake animal skins and some wacky items to use. I also carved up PHO in wood. I have alot of ideas on what can be done, but i'm only just getting started.

Its the "props" that will be part of the writeup I am still testing some ideas, but i think i maybe onto something cool a good way to dim and blur background using a black mesh, like a wedding veil. I like these "headshot" style photos, but i want some more color and texture. The ebony is a big upgrade from my previous photos due to the nice marbling. I'm actually really happy that the core of the build (completely from my own brainstorming, no tutorials actually worked as i expected. now its just a matter of using those core functions to be a tool for creativity. I only did this one piece because i wanted to make sure everything held up well on my large pc screen in photoshop rather than on the dinky camera screen. - It worked

[fotoman]

How did you take the photo like that? I tried many time and could not get it.

Very nice photo Pho. Looking forward for more.

a low end 150$ camera

and a light box

here is my old and new lightbox - I'll be doing a better tutorial on this when i'm done with the first stack of stuff i already committed to. but, they are very simple, they diffuse the light which evens it out and allows for you to take longer exposure shots to get the brightness of the photo. The wood is polished so it will have a slightly reflective surface. I may need to clearcoat but for now, i'm ok with its reflective properties. There are a million "how tos" on how to build a lightbox for cheap, or buy one on ebay. You wont need my detailed help there. I'm going to concentrate on the materials i'm using to dress the watch and how to handle common problems - crystal reflections, dust, finger prints, bad white balance. They are probably already covered in Pugwash's photo section. But, I will also touch on whats worked for me and what hasnt

By phoband at 2012-01-07