not accurate colors, mark III 5D

The_Traveler · May 6, 2014

Never having shot with a Canon, I can only speak for my experience using other dSLRs and that is one chooses to use either auto wb or custom wb when actually making the shot.

Roomka · May 6, 2014

now that i think about it, both white balance settings need to be in custom, i just put them to custom and no more green tint to the watches.

The_Traveler · May 6, 2014

And un-blue the background, brighten the contrast

Roomka · May 6, 2014

how did you unblue the background?

The_Traveler · May 6, 2014

I used a color balance layer and adjusted the highlights area.
Still looks a bit green but I don't know what your real background color is, so I stopped messing around.

Lew

Scatterbrained · May 6, 2014

BTW: when you're shooting watches, it's customary to set the time to 10:10. This allows the hour and minute hand to frame the manufacturers name/logo without covering it up.

The_Traveler · May 6, 2014

If you want me to re-shoot these for you, just send me the watch.

Roomka · May 6, 2014

yeah i always set to 1010 this was just a test shot, btw what would be the best setup to have to shoot watches, right now i have a real crappy setup

ive been told that 2 speedlights would be the best because they have a pure white light, but as far as the box im not sure to use a tent or.......

Scatterbrained · May 6, 2014

Roomka said:
yeah i always set to 1010 this was just a test shot, btw what would be the best setup to have to shoot watches, right now i have a real crappy setup View attachment 73151 View attachment 73152

ive been told that 2 speedlights would be the best because they have a pure white light, but as far as the box im not sure to use a tent or.......

For watches, or any other still life work, I'd rather have constant lights than speedlights. Granted studio strobes are optimal but not necessary. It's important to be able to see what your lights are doing as you set them up, you can't do that with speedlights.
As far as set up goes, I would say it depends on what results you're going for. If all you want is a white "drop shot" the light tent will work, if you want to be doing "beauty" shots then you'll have to take the time to build the lighting to suit each watch. I can show you three different watch shots and the set up will be different for each one. It's really a matter of what you want to achieve and how much work you want to put into it.

runnah · May 6, 2014

Just as an aside I think these type of watch shots are much better.

Omega Watch / Misc / Desktop HD, iPhone, iPad Wallpapers

white just makes them look like kmart.

anyways...

Roomka · May 6, 2014

well our site is http://elementintime.com/new_arrivals.aspx so thats mostly what types of photos are done, these are products people buy so i wouldn't want them to be artistic, they would need to be looking as close as possible as if you were to hold them in your hands.

Scatterbrained · May 6, 2014

runnah said:
Just as an aside I think these type of watch shots are much better.

Omega Watch / Misc / Desktop HD, iPhone, iPad Wallpapers

white just makes them look like kmart.

anyways...

View attachment 73159

yep, that's the difference between a beauty shot and a drop shot, but if you're only taking one shot, you generally are going to want a drop shot for use in catalogs and online sales sites, but the beauty shots are definitely more fun to make.

You can make cool looking white seamless shots however. . . .

Roomka · May 6, 2014

i did some cover shots for facebook but not like crazy artistic,

but anyways what you were saying about constant lights is good advise, since i will needing to see what im taking before the actual shot

Scatterbrained · May 6, 2014

Roomka said:
well our site is Element In Time | New Arrivals so thats mostly what types of photos are done, these are products people buy so i wouldn't want them to be artistic, they would need to be looking as close as possible as if you were to hold them in your hands.

View attachment 73162

The problem there is that the watches all look flat and somewhat featureless. Granted I'm just on my laptop right now, but I can't tell what surfaces are brushed and which are polished, it looks as if the surfaces of the watches are all uniform. That's one of the unfortunate side effects of a light box, the uniform, soft light removes contrast, while also creating black reflections from the openings in unfortunate areas. you're selling $12k watches, they would certainly benefit from better photography and processing.