These pens may be worth $1000 Canadian!

Which picture/pose do you prefer?

  • Top pic.

    Votes: 16 72.7%
  • Middle pic.

    Votes: 1 4.5%
  • Bottom pic.

    Votes: 5 22.7%
  • None of the above. They all look like crap!

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    22
  • Poll closed .
:eek:
Very nice Mack! How do you like the mechanism and the "feel" of the clicker when working it???
Hi Jonathon; It's not as smooth feeling as I might like it, but it is very reliable, which in my estimation is more important than smoothness. Too bad someone can't put the two of them together!
Very nice pens from a very nice pen turner!
:eek:
 
Mack,

Apologies if this is more of a critique or more advice than you wanted, your first post seems to invite it.

I selected the first image just because the contrasting background is needed. I didn't like the amount of glare. Putting a cheap white bed sheet between your light source or sources and the item being photographed can diffuse the light and cut a lot of the glare. Light tents are pretty cheap too and are used the same way. Someone was using a folding light tent at the club meeting I attended to shoot the tools and turnings accompanying a demo.

I was seriously into photography a few years back and might be able to help those interested in improving their images. However it should be borne in mind that out of over 100,000 images I never took a perfect one. My standards are pretty high. :D

Hu
 
Mack,

Apologies if this is more of a critique or more advice than you wanted, your first post seems to invite it.

I selected the first image just because the contrasting background is needed. I didn't like the amount of glare. Putting a cheap white bed sheet between your light source or sources and the item being photographed can diffuse the light and cut a lot of the glare. Light tents are pretty cheap too and are used the same way. Someone was using a folding light tent at the club meeting I attended to shoot the tools and turnings accompanying a demo.

I was seriously into photography a few years back and might be able to help those interested in improving their images. However it should be borne in mind that out of over 100,000 images I never took a perfect one. My standards are pretty high. :D

Hu
Hi Hu; here's a pic of my photo set-up.
View attachment 75136
My camera is a Canon S5 IS, tripod held shooting at f8, the limits of the camera.

I'm using 3, 4 at times, 6500K, 100W = 23W CFL bulbs. My tent is covered with a double layer of interfacing from a fabric shop. The background grey is picture frame mat board as is the black I sometimes use. I can't seem to get rid of the glare.

Any add'nl tips/hints with respect to getting rid of the glare you can provide me with will be most appreciated!


 
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a few thoughts

Pretty nice set-up, much nicer than the spur of the moment rigging I usually use these days. Moving the lights back and doing something to diffuse the light at the source might help, maybe some of the cheap textured plastic, have to watch out for heat doing that. Moving light back isn't a one for one thing if I remember correctly. I think twice the distance gives one-fourth the light but I'm working from fairly distant memory.

Taking full manual control of the camera you can try underexposing a stop or two, might help a little along with tweaking in post processing to lighten up the overall image. As you know though, there is a lot of difference between the light level of glare and the rest of the image. I have reduced it like this but it doesn't work great.

Don't laugh but there is a spray anti glare I think B&H and others sell. Might be worth a try, probably spray a little on something else and dab it on the metal of the pen. With the digital darkroom you can copy another section of gold over the glare, using just the darker setting on the clone and maybe 10% opacity paint the glare away with multiple passes leaving the area brighter but not blown. A cheat and I don't know how to do it with whatever current software you use. Hurricane Katrina ended my photography about eight years ago now so I am pretty rusty. I sometimes placed a flat piece of something gold or silver in an area I knew I would be cropping just to have something to clone from. Cloning from another image works too but starts getting tricky. Curves and/or levels and simply cropping the very top off of the light end of the image can help.

The glare is something that requires on the spot tinkering once you have a decent set up like you already have. If one thing doesn't work I try the next thing but it may take five or six adjustments with test shots in between to get rid of all or most of the glare. I offered help and can't give a concrete solution to the first question. What can I say, my face is RED! :thud:

hu
 
well mac, i amnot a photographer like hu is so wont attempt at helping you in that fashion but i think some things could use a colored back ground to make the project color more pronounced.. so that was why i like the top pic.. a gray back ground may have done it well also???
 
well mac, i amnot a photographer like hu is so wont attempt at helping you in that fashion but i think some things could use a colored back ground to make the project color more pronounced.. so that was why i like the top pic.. a gray back ground may have done it well also???

Larry,

As woodturners go, I'm somewhat of a photographer. As photographers go, I'm a pretty good windmill man!

Hu
 
well mac, i amnot a photographer like hu is so wont attempt at helping you in that fashion but i think some things could use a colored back ground to make the project color more pronounced.. so that was why i like the top pic..
a gray back ground may have done it well also???
The bottom pic was taken with a light grey background, but I see I have washed much of the grey away by over exposing the pic!
 
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