Photo tent finally set up - Dial up beware - Several pictures

[Toney Robertson]

Well after too much time I finally got everything set up. I think it came out pretty nice. I even put a dimmer on the lights which comes in handy.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/PhotoTent2.jpg

Does anyone see anything that I need to do?

Here are some of my first pictures.

A reprint of my first bowl. A much better picture than I posted before. Spalted Maple 7 3/4 x 3 3/4 - Danish oil - Beal Buffed

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/1SideViewSpaltedMaple2008.jpg

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/1TopViewSpaltedMaple2008.jpg

Bowl #2 - Padauk - 6 x 1 5/8 - Danish Oil - It weighs two onces.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/2SideViewPadauk2008.jpg

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/2TopViewPadauk2008.jpg

And one more for this post. Bowl #3 - Spalted Maple - 7 1/4 x 3 - Wipe on poly - Beal Buffed.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/3SideViewSpaltedMaple2008.jpg

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/3TopViewSpaltedMaple2008.jpg

Any comments to improve my photography or turning are appreciated.

Also, is it better for people to post thumbnails instead of full blown pictures? If thumbnails are preferred, how do I do that?

Sorry for the length of this post.

Toney

[Don Abele]

First off, beautiful bowls. And nice tent set up. A few constructive (I hope) criticisms/comments:

If you look at the padauk shot, you are getting considerable shadowing along the front. I would try doubling the side lights. One in the back and one in the front. Point them inward so the center of the bulbs intersect in the middle of the bowl. With the five lights you would cover all angles and should not have any shadows.

All the lights should have the same type of bulb in them and you should adjust your camera's white balance for the light you are using. You can see how your white balance shifts from picture to picture.

Hope this helps some.

Be well,

Doc

[Curt Fuller]

First, those are all nice looking bowls. I really like the Padauk bowl.

Are those pics all right off the camera with no tweeking from your photo editor? All but the padauk shot have a brownish tint that looks like I used to get using incandescent bulbs. A real photographer would be able to tell you how to fix that. But what I did was replace my bulbs with daylight compact flourescent bulbs (5000K). You can get them at Home Depot or Lowes or probably a million other places. Once I did that I was able to just use the auto setting on my camera and it captured the natural color of what I was photographing. Also, a background that is neutral and doesn't compete or distract from what you're photographing helps. Those nice gray graduated ones look very professional but even a large piece of gray colored paper placed behind your bowl looks pretty good.

And finally, you can tweek the images using the photo software that comes with your camera but Google's Picasa II works great for me. It allows you to crop out what you don't want to see and also adjust the highlights, shadows, or even just click on the "I'm feeling lucky" option and it makes a 'know absolutely nothing about taking pictures' type like me able to get a pretty good result.

[Richard Madison]

Toney,
Mostly ditto what they said. Some very attractive work.

Meanwhile, suggest you eliminate the platform thing in your tent and run a smooth, continuous piece of background material across the bottom and up the back. Mine is a piece of old white sheet, ironed but still has some wrinkles. Other options are commercially available for fairly small $$.

Next, fix the color balance or white balance, as previously suggested. Read camera owners' manual to see if possible "in camera". If not, may need some "daylight" bulbs for lighting, as close to 5200K color temperature as available for reasonable $$.

Then, and only then, adjust positions of lights and camera for each subject.

Just a little fiddling and you will have an excellent setup.

[Bill Blasic]

As posted above either change to daylight bulb or set your white balance to the tungsten lights. Also as above the wrinkles in the sheet are distracting, keep it flat and ironed. Lastly put the camera on a tripod and stop down the lens to a higher f-stop (f 18, f 22 etc.) this will give you a greater depth of field and the front and back of the bowl will be in focus. That is why you use the tripod as the higher f-stop will slow down the shutter speed and the tripod will do away with any blurryness that would occur with the slow shutter speed. Finally if your using XP you might try a little app from Micrsoft that resizes the pictures. Microsoft Power Toys - Image Resizer.

[Khalid Khattak]

very beautiful bowls and turning...keep up posting...

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great looking bowls and photo tent looks good.

[Richard Madison]

Toney,
Forgot something. If you use dimmers on incandescent lights I think it will change the color temperature of the light and mess up your white balance. Maybe not enough to hurt, but you could experiment and know for sure.

And use self timer or cable release on camera. Even on a tripod, manual operation of the shutter can cause camera shake.

[Allen Neighbors]

Bill's advice about the f-stop is right on. Then, if you can focus on something 1/3 of the depth, it'll make it even better. Put something there to focus on, lock in the focus, remove the something... that's what I mean. :)

[Toney Robertson]

Has anyone tried lighting from the bottom? Seems that would give good lighting for the bowl.

I have it in the works to implement your suggestions. I appreciate the help.

Toney

[Richard Madison]

Yep. My little home-built photo table has an acrylic plastic top and some cross bars amongst the legs for "clamp lamps" to point upward through the top and wrinkled sheet backdrop. I use one or two lights underneath and one or two above, all with "compact fluorescent" bulbs, color temp. about 2700K, and white balance preset on the camera. It takes some fiddling with light positions and tripod elevation for each piece to get good pictures.

Check out Steve Schlumpf's posts on photography, as his setup is very simple and yet gives great pictures.

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Toney, I'm certainly no photography expert, so take my comment as such. I think you're making your picture-taking too complicated. For one thing, the more lights you use, the more opportunity you have for hot spots. Also, shining light through a fabric still produces hot spots because of the direct lighting. I've found that using white hardboard sides and a white roof, I can bounce my lighting off those surfaces and eliminate the harsh spots. Most of my own photos are shot with just one 500w work light, which I position in front, off to the side, pointed at an upper corner of my box. Sometimes, depending upon the size of the piece, I use a second 250w light pointed towards the opposite upper corner. The height of my photo booth roof is adjustable. I almost never point a light at the turning. Also, smooth seamless backgrounds are becoming expected by magazine editors and gallery folks.

As others have said, "color balance" is critical; it took me a while to figure out how to achieve the correct balance.