spalted maple bowl, and photography woes

[Mark Pruitt]

This is the first in a series that come from a small load of timber given to me by a friend. She asked for a goblet, but I'm still practicing techniques because I want to give her something nice.:)

I had my doubts as to whether this one would survive finish-turning, due to the knot. But I took light, careful cuts and it stayed intact. I filled it with CA and maple dust; in hindsight I wish I had used coffee grounds. Oh well.

Finished with Danish Oil, Seal-A-Cell, and Beall buffed. Size is about 8" x 3".

Now about the photos. I took over three dozen photos of this thing and I never got anything I was really happy with. I am using a homemade tent, with a thin white sheet for light displacement, but the pics I was getting were so dark I eventually removed the sheet completely. I'm using three lights with Sylvania 75 watt floods in each. They are placed to the left, right, and above, at about 16" from the bowl. Even that was not enough, and I had to use the flash on my camera which in turn created unwanted shadowing.:mad: My camera is a Sony DSC-P9 4.0 megapixel.

Getting good pictures should not be this difficult. (Not that I'm calling these pics "good"--they ain't.):mad: At this point I will take any advice I can from you guys who post such nice photos!

This bowl is being donated to a silent auction fundraiser. I told 'em to let me know if it rakes in several thousand dollars.:p :rolleyes: :D

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[Nancy Laird]

Mark, the only suggestion I can make - amateur that I am - is that for the lighter woods, you might want to move to a darker background for the pictures. On a darker background, this maple might have popped out better. Try some dark blue or black velvet or fleece or velour for the background and see how the pics come out.

But it is a beautiful bowl!!! I like it.

Nancy

[Alex Cam]

Mark, I'm probably the last person that you should be taking any type of advice from, but the focus looks very soft. If you're holding the camera close to the subject, are you using the "macro" setting on your camera?

[Bernie Weishapl]

Mark the bowl is a beauty. I really like the wood. As far as the pictures I found a white background works best with most woods. Other than that I am a new at this to.

[Keith Burns]

Glad to see you post a turning Mark. It is a very nice bowl, well done. I think the comments made about the background color are correct. The other thing is manipulating the photo. I use Piciasa which is free from Google. It allows you to crop and straighten you photo and make some limited contrast type changes. Easy to use.

[Mark Pruitt]

Thanks guys, this one is now on its way to its new owner. I'll keep working at the photo issues.

[Mark Pruitt]

I just learned that the winning bid for this piece was $85. Kinda neat to be able to contribute something like that!:)

[Matt Haus]

Mark,

I would be glad to help you if you can give me more information on your current camera settings. What ISO are you using? What shutter speed? and What aperature setting? How do you have your lights configured? What is the temperature rating of the lights and what is the wattage. Given these, I think I can come up with suggestions. I will await your response


EDIT:

oK, looks like you are off line. Make sure that your camera is set to the temperature of the lights. Adjust the white balance like Jim states. ISO should be at 100 as this is best for enlargements. Less grainy on digital shots. Aperature will be the next thing. I adjust the aperature as high as is needs to go. aperature of 22 is the largest number but the smallest diameter. This lets less light in but will give you larger depth to the photo which means the front and back of the bowl are in focus. This will cause the shutter speed to get longer. This is where a tripod and possible trip cord is necessary. Also try the timer on the camera to remove camera shake from setting off the shutter. Smaller aperature will need more light and thus a longer shutter speed. I usually set the camera to aperature priority which will let me adjust the aperature and will automatically adjust the shutter time. If your lighting is not getting through the sheet, then you can play with the shutter time and put the camera on a full manual. Lastly, looks like you have a little glare on the bowl. Try adjusting the lighting to bounce off the sheet and not come in directly. Turn off the room light and play with the position so that you get a nice, soft area on the bowl. Depending on the finish of the piece, the indirect method works better for a high gloss and direct light works better for low luster. You won't need a flash on the camera if your lighting is adequate.

My personal preference is to zoom the camera in on the bowl so that it encompasses just about the whole visual area. I back it off slightly to allow borders. Now I don't have to crop it later, just resize the photo. Next, I set up the lighting to get the desired illumination and at the right areas and still cancel out any shadow benieth. I shoot aperature settind of around 15 and adjust so that the front and back are only in focus. This leaves the background out of fucus and gives a nice contrast to the piece. More size on the aperature (lower number) your depth of field gets too small to get the whole piece in focus. Too less (higher number) starts to focus too much on the background and gives you less contrast and will pick up wrinkles in the photo. On my canon 20D, the aperature priority sets the shutter speed, so I don't have to worry about that. Ok, maybe I have written too much but I hope this helps. Nothing beats a lighting tent with the appropriate diffusion of light that it gives. Good luck.

[Jim Becker]

Mark, what I'm seeing is a white balance issue...camera settings. And you need to fill the frame/crop more. Too much background and not enough workpiece!

Here's one of your photos reasonably color corrected, re-contrasted and sharpened in Photoshop Elements. It's still not great, but I think you can see where I'm going with this. And take a look at the sticky I posted of Jamie Donaldson's "Phrual Photo" technique...one light. No hot spots. (usually) Bounce is better than direct, even with a diffuser on shiny things.

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[Don Fuss]

Mark,

I think the pictures look just fine, but Jim's advice sounds spot on to me. I'm certainly no photography expert (you even saw my sad little tent), but I find that using a white background makes it very easy to adjust the color levels of the image in post processing to better match what the piece actually looks like. Correcting the white balance makes the piece look more lifelike, I find. Getting a great picture straight from the camera would be very difficult, I would assume. Far beyond my skills, at least.

Great bowl, by the way. I really like that wood.

[Matt Haus]

Mark,

Getting a great picture straight from the camera would be very difficult, I would assume. Far beyond my skills, at least.

When you have delt with the umpteenth number of pictures, editing in photoshop gets a little old. I find that I can get great pics right out of the camera but it does need to be tweaked. Some of the better cameras have saturation, sharpness and contrast tweeks as well as white balance. You are correct about the white balance bringing out the natural colors. A little time looking at the spectrum of light you are using and adjusting the camera can save you lots of headache later.:cool:

[Mark Pruitt]

Matt,
I'm afraid my camera may not offer all of the possibile settings that you ask about. The only two settings that I could change that affected the quality of the picture were exposure, which I set to +.7EV; and white balance which has only five options that are labeled Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Flourescent, and Incandescent. With both of these settings, I experimented within their range and got the best I could get. My lighting was simple--three desk lamps with 75 watt floods, positioned to the left and right (both to the front) and above.

[Matt Haus]

Mark,

You said sylvania lights. I switched to the florescent bulbs at home depot. the 5500K, I think. they are about 6-7 dollars a piece and are the curly type. It made the world of difference for me. Looks like that and the white balance will be the key for you. Good luck.

[Ken LaSota]

Mark great job I like the style and color. As for photography I am in no position to talk I still have problems.
Ken