Help with high key metallic product shots

[Ray Hines]

Here's some more encouragement to let you know you don't need to spend big money. This was taken using a cheap ebay softbox, a piece of perspex and some scraps of card. You said you don't mind a bit of Photoshopping, this shot was levels, sharpening and a bit of bringing out the colour, nothing too complex. I'm an amateur so if I can do it, so can anyone.

 

[vigilante]

Still struggling a little. But I have learned some things.

1) I have three lamps but they are just not strong enough. I found that I could not take a picture of small things like a pistol slide within a 3 foot square lightbox! If I did, the lamps would end up being at least 20 inches or more away from the subject, and diffused by the box.

2) I know I need to light up the background more if I intend to blow it out. I had previously thought blowing it out is more of a post processing thing.

3) I have to use slow shutter to compensate for low power lamps, so I can only shoot from a tripod now. This currently limits a lot of angles I want though.

4) If I use any exposure compensation, or even use the popup flash, it destroys the color richness of my subjects. I can't use the built in flash at all I've found.

Getting rid of the lightbox let me build a more conservative table for shooting, but my lamps aren't doing it justice.

Here is a shot with the new setup, it has minimal post processing and I haven't fully blown out the white yet.

This is F/8 @ 1/6 shutter, +2, ISO100 and about 46mm.

My problem here is the +2 (or any exposure comp) blows out the richness of the color. These slides would look much darker and creamier in real life. Without the exposure comp, I need a longer shutter. Here is one without any +exposure, at F/5.3 and 1/40th shutter:

I guess the question here is this: what is better? Slower shutter, or faster shutter with + exposure?
Same goes for other pieces. Should I lower f-stop, or slow shutter to get in more light? Raise ISO or use exposure comp?

Here is a 100% view of a small section of a shot. It is out of focus because it is out of depth of field in the original shot. My question is what is with all the color noise? This is ISO 100, what causes this? Bad light? Dirty lens? Low quality lens or sensor or mirror or??

What are some problem associated with slower shutter speeds that I should look for?

Any more advice is welcome to keep improving this

 

[Ray Hines]

I can't see what the problem is with your background and item colours. With a slight levels adjustment you will have 255 255 255 background. Also after looking on Google Images I found something similar and again with a slight levels adjustment you can have the same quality image. Someone with a lot more product photography knowledge than me may come up with some better answers though, but I hope that helps some.

 

[W.Y.Photo]

Still struggling a little. But I have learned some things.


Here is a 100% view of a small section of a shot. It is out of focus because it is out of depth of field in the original shot. My question is what is with all the color noise? This is ISO 100, what causes this? Bad light? Dirty lens? Low quality lens or sensor or mirror or??

What are some problem associated with slower shutter speeds that I should look for?

Any more advice is welcome to keep improving this

If the room is very hot because of your lights or heater that can significantly increase noise, also, long exposures significantly increase noise. There is no such thing as "Bad Light" and Dirty lenses won't cause noise, just blurs or spots. A low quality sensor can definitely pick up more noise though.

In the first scenario the sensor picks up thermal energy as if it were light and in the second the sensor is exposed for so long that stray photons make their way to the images.
Noise cannot show up on a white background as the reason for noise is due to extra exposure to the sensor. That is why it only appears in the "color" areas.

Try shooting at a faster shutter speed and see if that helps.. If not then try moving your camera away from the hot lights or photographing in a colder environment.

 

[vigilante]

I can't see what the problem is with your background and item colours. With a slight levels adjustment you will have 255 255 255 background. Also after looking on Google Images I found something similar and again with a slight levels adjustment you can have the same quality image. Someone with a lot more product photography knowledge than me may come up with some better answers though, but I hope that helps some.

The problem is I'm trying to get it better in the raw image. If I bump levels or brightness, fill light etc then all of that negatively effects the object, taking away the richness of the color. Obviously I could mask out the product, and I do, but it's not always nice.

Here is a shot that I consider just about perfect. His camera is way better, much faster shutter and more open aperture, but the dark richness of the metal is there. Everything I do involving more light, flash, exposure comp, lower aperture, longer shutter, steals from this "dark" richness, but without those things I just get a black object in the dark!

Glock 19 Flickr - Photo Sharing

 

[dennybeall]

His gun looks like it has texture from noise. Yours looks perfectly smooth.

 

[W.Y.Photo]

I can't see what the problem is with your background and item colours. With a slight levels adjustment you will have 255 255 255 background. Also after looking on Google Images I found something similar and again with a slight levels adjustment you can have the same quality image. Someone with a lot more product photography knowledge than me may come up with some better answers though, but I hope that helps some.

The problem is I'm trying to get it better in the raw image. If I bump levels or brightness, fill light etc then all of that negatively effects the object, taking away the richness of the color. Obviously I could mask out the product, and I do, but it's not always nice.

Here is a shot that I consider just about perfect. His camera is way better, much faster shutter and more open aperture, but the dark richness of the metal is there. Everything I do involving more light, flash, exposure comp, lower aperture, longer shutter, steals from this "dark" richness, but without those things I just get a black object in the dark!

Glock 19 Flickr - Photo Sharing

Take a look at Ray's edit and compare it to that. They both look just as "rich in color". In fact I think yours looks better than his after rays edit. All he did was a levels adjustment.

Here's a nice guide: Using the Photoshop Levels Tool

I'm sure if you read that guide and play with the image just a small amount you'll come up with exactly what you are looking for.

After you are comfortable with levels, curves works even better. It's just harder to get used to using.

 

[vigilante]

Thanks for the encouragement. Keep in mind the photos are shrunk quite a bit and compressed to JPG before posting here, every imperfection is much more visible in the original full size shots!

I'm going to try and pick up a couple Neewer flashes and maybe some light modifiers and see if I can't improve this sucker.