Ideal lens to shoot oil cans

TMorrow · Oct 3, 2016

What would be the ideal lens to shoot this shot? I used a Tokina 70-210 1:4-5.6 And while I know I need to work on a sharper focus I'd like to get started on the right foot as far a starting with the proper lens. Thanks.View attachment 128301

480sparky · Oct 3, 2016

The lens you have will work just fine.

Personally I would be using the longer focal lengths.

Designer · Oct 3, 2016

Has the EXIF been stripped? Either that or my reader is not working.

Would you post the EXIF, please?

Also; where is the focus? The easiest way for me would be to take a screen shot of the portion of the shot showing the focus area.

Besides the technicals; there is a bit of background showing in the lower right corner. It is spoiling the low key effect of this shot. Another idea for the background is to pose your subjects in a cluttered garage, for instance. Let a bit of it show up.

tirediron · Oct 3, 2016

Agree with Sparky; that lens is fine. It's a matter of selecting the correct aperture and point of focus for the necessary DoF. As an aside, I have the large version of that Golden. Nice set-up!

astroNikon · Oct 3, 2016

on another note ... I like the lighting. Cool image.

TMorrow · Oct 3, 2016

Thank you all for the comments. I will keep working at it with this lens. I also have a Canon 75-300mm that I'll try. Designer, I'm not sure why the EXIF does not show up. I can see it on my computer where I have the photo stored. I do admit this digital photography is all new to me and I understand very little of it so far. Here it what I have.

Shot 30 seconds
ISO 200
Devise Canon EOS 30D

Also Designer you are right about the lower right corner. This shot is done with light painting and I really need to get the light only where it should be. I do like your idea of the shop as a background and I'll definitely give that a try.

Thank you all.

480sparky · Oct 3, 2016

Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 30D
Image Date: 2016-10-02 20:17:33 +0000
Aperture: ƒ/0.0
Exposure Time: 30.000 s
ISO equiv: 200
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Spot
Exposure: Manual
Exposure Mode: Manual
White Balance: Manual
Flash Fired: No (enforced)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: sRGB
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined
Creator: unknown
Software: Adobe Photoshop Elements 11.0 Windows

jcdeboever · Oct 3, 2016

This is good

TMorrow · Oct 3, 2016

Thank you Sparky and JC.

Sparky did you get that using an exif viewer? Can anyone recommend one for Firefox?

480sparky · Oct 3, 2016

TMorrow said:
Thank you Sparky and JC.

Sparky did you get that using an exif viewer? Can anyone recommend one for Firefox?

FxIF

Exif Viewer

TMorrow · Oct 4, 2016

Thanks Sparky. What a handy tool!

fmw · Oct 4, 2016

Nice image. It seems the ideal lens for this shot is the Tokina 70-210.

Tim Tucker · Oct 4, 2016

Not had a long diatribe for a while, so here goes...

When I first saw this I dismissed it as another over dark image against too much black. But when downloaded and shown in CS6 against a darker background it reveals itself. Why?

Because on a computer screen that generates it's own light you see the differences. When you view the image on the darker background (with a lack of white) your eye adjusts and expands the range of tones to fill the space. You therefore see the tones in the background as being lighter than (or not so dark against) the darker background. You se the difference between the tones and the dark background. Unfortunately when you display it against white instead of expanding the tones your eye compresses the tones because you've given your eye something so much brighter. Your eye then sees the tones in relationship to the white, and sees them for what they are - a very small percentage of tones at the very darkest end of the scale available to you.

Here is a simulation of how your eye tries to see it:

The point is that the image looks completely different when viewed against different backgrounds.

This is how I see it against black but stabilised so it also looks good against white, compare it to your posted version against a white background by opening them up in new tabs and flicking between them:

BTW the lens is fine.

TMorrow · Oct 5, 2016

Thank you Tim for your keen observations and for the explanation. I knew my photos sometimes looked different when posted on a forum than they do stored on my computer, but I didn't know why. I plan to reshoot this photo and try to get more mid tones in it. So much to learn here!