engraved rings/ photography question

[mbroder]

Here's a couple of bands that I set and engraved. Sorry about the terrible photography. Maybe there should be a section of this forum dedicated to taking and posting photos. I know I could sure use some advice...

 

[monk]

i think the quality in the ring s can forgive a tiny bit of foto fuzzy ! nice work

 

[TallGary]

Mark,

If you have not been to Sam's website follow the attached link. Look down the left side listings under Miscellaneous for photography suggestions.

http://www.igraver.com/

Gary

 

[jimzim75]

1.What you photograph the rings on can be important. The rings pick up that color. Light gray is best, it's nuetral color.
2.Looks like your using a dasor light as your source. Bright polished ring reflect light sources, sometimes to well.
3.The spiral photo light from my experience do not need to be defused. Sometimes to much diffusion makes the ring look cloudy and dull.
4.Depth of field is controlled by F stops. The greater the depth of field the more is in focus. This means long exposures, using
the Manuel mode on most cameras. You will need a tripod and to use the timer on the camera. Blurring can come form
camera movement.

 

[Sam]

Good advice from Jim. You might also read the iGraver tutorial on photography for more info.

As Jim said, a tripod is a must, and shooting aperture priority is recommended so you have some control over depth of field. A good DSLR w/macro lens is much, much better than a point-and-shoot camera, and well worth the investment. They're now cheaper than ever and it's a great time to buy one.

Lighting is really the key. The greatest camera and lens fail miserably in poor lighting. There are inexpensive collapsable nylon light boxes for $50 that work quite well.

It's difficult to see the detail on your rings, but they do look nicely engraved. I like the way you added the little flower rosette into the intertwining design.

~Sam

 

[mbroder]

Thanks everyone,for the advice. I only have a PHD (push here dummy) camera, but it does have many manual adjustments. I just never knew what to do with them. I will take the suggestions from Sam's tutorial and experiment. I've seen the photo tents on ebay for as little as $20 with shipping. So you think that would be a wise investment?

I do a lot of decorative ring engraving and would like to post good quality photos both on my website and here for some constructive criticism. The website has 2 kinds of photographs in the gallery. Very poor ones taken by me, and pretty nice ones taken by someone else. The difference is pretty obvious .

Hopefully, over the next few months I will be able to get a little more professional looking results thanks to this forum .

 

[Marrinan]

Mark, I might suggest checking out the Knife Network forum on photographing knives and the like-http://www.knifenetwork.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=26 there is a lot of info in the current and archive sections --Fred Marrinan