Official Luthiers Forum!

Have any of you considered using a lighting tent to photograph your guitars? If you have tried it, how did it work? If you thought about it but didn't go that route, what steered you away from it?

Obviously, it would require a pretty big lighting tent, but it looks like you can pick up a 48"x48"x48" tent for a hundred bucks or so. They seem to be the standard for product photography, and it looks like they would eliminate a lot of the lighting/glare issues.

I've used a light tent for a few projects - mainly personal art projects (a
b/w photo collage of a trumpet). 48x48 seems a little tight for me. I like
some space in there. Did you see the link I posted in Brocks photo/logo
thread? The person who write the tutorial does product shots for some
major companies. It's a good read and I think it can save you some
money.

If I were to shoot a guitar, I'd have a seamless background with three soft
boxes. I haven't done any "real" photography since graduating college
and losing the lab :)

Thanks, James! I hadn't looked at that link before, because I was having a hard time getting it to work. But I finally put in the effort, and it looks very helpful.

Any idea why he recommends a shower curtain rather than a white sheet?

It's about diffusion. I don't believe a shower curtain will produce the
same diffused light as the material they use for soft boxes and light tents,
but I can't imagine a white sheet letting much light through.

Think about heat, too. 500 watt (the minimum you want) lights are HOT.

What kind of lights do you have? Light tents just make for an easy (very
easy) setup. Soft boxes aren't terribly expensive. A light box is like a
tent in that it has a frame that slips in to frame it out. That frame slips
over the light mount and twist locks on. I'm sure it would be very easy to
adapt to your fixture. And a roll of seamless paper is around $30. Earlier
I said three lights because the third would lighting that background
paper. You want it bright (a stop or two brighter than anything else) to
make it completely white in the exposure.

Light needs to be so much brighter than we think.

James, thanks for the suggestions. I'm starting pretty much from scratch in terms of light, reflectors, etc., and I welcome any suggestions you can offer. I have the tripod, camera, lenses, etc., but none of the studio equipment.

Hey, no problem! It's a big thing to get into. And, you know, there are
different ways to work. I like working with hot lights (lights that are
always on, not triggered as a flash). It would help me visualize.

Off topic, but I did this with two soft boxes. One on each side with the
light baffles set wide.    

[IMG]http://www.languagepool.net/samples/photoshop_flowers.jpg[/
IMG]James Orr38969.1714699074

For the attachable Nikon flash, I purchased a difuser that slips over the business end of the flash. Not the control of using the set-ups above, but with difuser and boune the flash, you can obtain very good shots.--just a thought.

Back in a previous life when I did a lot of photography, I picked up a tip from a wedding photographer that I found worked well for diffusing a flash, and softening the highlights. You need to have a pretty good sized flash, though, with bounce capabilities. The old Vivitar 285 or 283 (or equivalent), set to max output, should work.

Take a piece of white posterboard and cut it to a shape about 8" square, leaving about a 2" x2" extension below one of the sides of the square. Attach the square to the back of your flash, holding it in place with a rubber band wrapped around the 2" extension. Point the flash up at about a 75 degree angle or so, and fire away.

I've used this a lot for both product and people photography. Works surprisingly well.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

I will not use a flash. I take pictures with natural light. A cloudy day is the best, but you can get great light right at the time the sun goes down. You have about 15 minutes of even and warm light. I also can get good shots outside on a sunny day under nice shade - tree or patio cover.

Another tip - Get a CPF to control reflections. (circular polarizing filter)

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.