Photographing Rolex ?

[leopardprey]

Ok, you photo experts. How do I take good photos with my digital carmera. I have an Olympus 770 SW Camera. Laymans terms and how to do with out buying special lights, black boxes, etc...

Also, photos taken with the lower number of pixels so can post on the internet/TRF forum.

Seems the photos I tried to take before eith come out blurry or are too reflective.



Thanks.

[Andad]

Hi Chad,

I take most of mine outside and on the highest pixel setting which is 8 meg on my Sony N1 digital. I usually have a plain background or greenery for contrast. Setting is on macro and I take them from about 6 - 8 inches.
I also have a white light box with a fluorescent ring light but I find natural outdoor lighting is better for my amateur status. Watch out for reflections on the crystal but with a bit of practice you can see this on the screen.
I then use ACDSee to crop and resize.

I'm sure more professional advice will follow and I hope to learn a lot on your thread.

[Alex Stylianou]

Originally Posted by directioneng

Hi Chad,

I take most of mine outside and on the highest pixel setting which is 8 meg on my Sony N1 digital. I usually have a plain background or greenery for contrast. Setting is on macro and I take them from about 6 - 8 inches.
I also have a white light box with a fluorescent ring light but I find natural outdoor lighting is better for my amateur status. Watch out for reflections on the crystal but with a bit of practice you can see this on the screen.
I then use ACDSee to crop and resize.

I'm sure more professional advice will follow and I hope to learn a lot on your thread.

Good Post.

I Normaly Take Them On My PC Table Or Lightbox

[leopardprey]

Problem is can not take max pixels, as can not then down load on to this forum.

[padi56]

Originally Posted by leopardprey

Problem is can not take max pixels, as can not then down load on to this forum.

Just shoot at your max pixel on camera then resize with your photo software after you have edited your picture.As long as your picture is sharp a picture of around 800 X 800 pixels will be fine for net images

[Gedanken]

Chad, it's pretty simple to build a lightbox. All you need is a box, some white paper and a lamp. It really is just as easy as this:



As Eddie said, be wary of reflections, but the good thing is that most Rolex crystals are flat, so it's easy to offset the angle to eliminate reflections.

Take a shot ax max resolution, crop the photo and then resize the image to a max of 800X800 pixels - I just take the longer side of the photo and set it to 800. That's all there is to it.

[ohlins]

my lightbox....

[mikey]

I really like this post. This is very helpful advice and information. My problem is that if I go this far to learn how to take great pics of my Rolex will make me become a photographer. I am not looking for a career change.

[Arby]

I also use adobe photoshop to resize and adjust the levels as a final touch-up. (My 10MP camera likes to make an extremely large image.) Then I save it using the "save to web" option to lower the amount of memory to view the picture on a webpage while keeping the quality of the image as high as possible.

[Tools]

I use this set up.

I photograph OTHER peoples watches at 100 meters.

[Arby]

Originally Posted by Tools

I use this set up.

I photograph OTHER peoples watches at 100 meters.

Geez, with that lens you can focus on a mouses' gonads a 1/4 mile away.

[globalphotographic]

Hi.

I'm a freelance travel photographer and work for Getty Images / Lonely Planet.

I don't deal in macro shots anymore, which is what you need macro meaning 1:1, one inch on real life - one on sensor. But this is what you want:

1: A DSLR with a true macro like Canon 100mm f/2.8 would be preferable, combined with a macro flash.
2; cheaper: use a decent digital compact, you'll need a tripod, try to check for bad reflects on the screen, they'll mess up light meetering givin a darkish image, use a decent digital compact with a good macro- never accept less than 1:3 macro when buying or your watch will be very very small. Use a high f-number if you know what the means (big depth of field - or everything in focus)

Sincerely Sune
http://www.globalphotographic.net

[globalphotographic]

If you really want to go nuts here's a photo 1:5 I took using the combo below

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re.../mp-e-65.shtml


--Sune

[Uncle-AJ]

Originally Posted by globalphotographic

Hi.

I'm a freelance travel photographer and work for Getty Images / Lonely Planet.

I don't deal in macro shots anymore, which is what you need macro meaning 1:1, one inch on real life - one on sensor. But this is what you want:

1: A DSLR with a true macro like Canon 100mm f/2.8 would be preferable, combined with a macro flash.
2; cheaper: use a decent digital compact, you'll need a tripod, try to check for bad reflects on the screen, they'll mess up light meetering givin a darkish image, use a decent digital compact with a good macro- never accept less than 1:3 macro when buying or your watch will be very very small. Use a high f-number if you know what the means (big depth of field - or everything in focus)

Sincerely Sune
http://www.globalphotographic.net

I just checked out some of your pictures Sune, very impressive.

[Andad]

Originally Posted by globalphotographic

Hi.

I'm a freelance travel photographer and work for Getty Images / Lonely Planet.

I don't deal in macro shots anymore, which is what you need macro meaning 1:1, one inch on real life - one on sensor. But this is what you want:

1: A DSLR with a true macro like Canon 100mm f/2.8 would be preferable, combined with a macro flash.
2; cheaper: use a decent digital compact, you'll need a tripod, try to check for bad reflects on the screen, they'll mess up light meetering givin a darkish image, use a decent digital compact with a good macro- never accept less than 1:3 macro when buying or your watch will be very very small. Use a high f-number if you know what the means (big depth of field - or everything in focus)

Sincerely Sune
http://www.globalphotographic.net

Hi Sune,

I don't have F-stop settings on my Sony N1 (well not that I can find in the menu). If I change the ISO setting from auto to its highest setting of 200 (choices are auto-64 -100 or 200) would I expect a digital camera to close down the iris (to give me more depth of field) or reduce the shutter speed (which would not change the depth of field)?
I hope I have asked this correctly?

eddie

[BigHat]

Originally Posted by globalphotographic

Hi.

I'm a freelance travel photographer and work for Getty Images / Lonely Planet.

I don't deal in macro shots anymore, which is what you need macro meaning 1:1, one inch on real life - one on sensor. But this is what you want:

1: A DSLR with a true macro like Canon 100mm f/2.8 would be preferable, combined with a macro flash.
2; cheaper: use a decent digital compact, you'll need a tripod, try to check for bad reflects on the screen, they'll mess up light meetering givin a darkish image, use a decent digital compact with a good macro- never accept less than 1:3 macro when buying or your watch will be very very small. Use a high f-number if you know what the means (big depth of field - or everything in focus)

Sincerely Sune
http://www.globalphotographic.net

So glad to read this. After discussing with Jocke, I just bought that Canon 100mm f.2.8. Tired of the "your pics are too small or blurry" remarks.
Now I need to check on the macro flash you mention. Thanks for weighing in with your expertise.

[Andad]

thanks Adrian.

[globalphotographic]

Hi Eddie.

If you increase ISO less light is needed, and an automatic camera would adjust to a smaller aperture (smaller iris = larger f-number) giving you a wider depth of field but its going to increase the shutter speed as well with no effect on sharpnes if on tripod.

However you want to avoid increasing iso due to grains / noise becomming rapidly excessive above ISO 100.

-> So take some time to dig up the aperture setting, turn to highes F-number, use a tripod or self release, turn down iso. Photos in artifical light turns out yellowish though, so corrects for this if possible on camera (another very long story about RAW-files could be posted here, I'll refrain :-)

Good luck!

Sincerely
--Sune

[roadcarver]

Hi Chad,

I haven't setup a light box yet, but I usually use natural ligh as it works best since flash usually cause unncessary reflections. In leiu of the light box, I setup two seperate light sources (white light) using those flexible desk lamps and jus angle it so that the shadows are cancelled out.

I then use a background drop cloth to give it a nice background. I also use macro seting and use PS to crop it.

With macro photos a steady hand or a tripod will be most useful to get sharp photos.

[jhelms]

Sune, awesome pics and great links.

Can you recommend something for me? I have a Nikon D200 with the 18-200 (3.5-5.6) VR Nikkor lens. I'm learning a lot and want to gradually ease into being able to do some neat macro shots, which this lens won't handle.

The vast majority of my consumer-only shot making will be done with the 18-200, but is there an inexpensive good 'starter' macro that you would point me towards? It would be used very rarely. Is it a good idea to make sure a macro lens has VR of some sort?

So far, my Sony HC7 High-Def camcorder actually seems to take 'ok' macro shots, but I really want to use the D200.

Thanks - hope this doesn't 'hijack' the thread, it looks like a great overall discussion of macro pics, and I know several of us on the board have Nikon DSLR's.

[globalphotographic]

Cheapest Nikon Macro:

NIKKOR AF 60/2,8D MICRO at around 250$ buy at B&H in N.Y.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...Autofocus.html

For watches it'd be the best since 60mm means you'll
1) get it checp
2) have a great depth of field which the 105mm or more wouldn't lend you
3) don't need more zoom since watches wont escape as you approach :-)

You've got a nice camera, it needs decent tires - like the 60mm f/2.8 macro

A new world of macro watches will appear!!

Have fun

--Sune

[artbypaul]

Awesome post! Thanks for the great info!

Paul

[jmjm]

I got turned off to photography when everything went digital after I spent $$ building up my Canon USM collection with EOS 5 body.

Now, after many years of just using a Point & Shoot Digital Elph, I have my tail in between my legs and crawling back to Canon to look for a DSLR body.

Since I do not want to Spend $$$$ for something that will be outdated in a few years, I am considering the Rebel xti.

Any comments?

[perryj]

Originally Posted by jmjm

I got turned off to photography when everything went digital after I spent $$ building up my Canon USM collection with EOS 5 body.

Now, after many years of just using a Point & Shoot Digital Elph, I have my tail in between my legs and crawling back to Canon to look for a DSLR body.

Since I do not want to Spend $$$$ for something that will be outdated in a few years, I am considering the Rebel xti.

Any comments?

I love my Canon 40D and that's coming from a "Ex" Nikon guy

[SPACE-DWELLER]

Great thread!

Went straight to my bookmarks!