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I took John O's advice and went to Walmart and got some cheep stuff to try and improve my photo's. I got some halogen lights, a couple of cheep umbrella's to use as reflectors, a tripod and some fake black velvet. Here are the results of my first experiments.
I hope you guys are not sick of looking at my stuff

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

That is great John. What kind of camera are you using?

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

What a difference a little controlled lighting makes!! Nice, John. You'll get even better results as you continue to experiment.

I never get tired of looking at your guitars!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

It's a Canon but just a 2 mega pixel model. Hopefully one of these days I'll upgrade.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Wow! Those are really nice shots. Guess I'm gonna have to try that out myself. I already have the halogens, just need a couple of those umbrellas.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

John, cut it out!! You are obvously having way too much fun.

John,
These pic's are great.. what kind of camera are you usimg?
How many Pixels??
I have an old 2 Pixel camera that cannot give me the resolution you're getting.
Good job.
Walter

Those came out well. Really nice. But you may want to clean up those necks a bit in pictures 3 and 4 before they go to HB..........(sorry, I just had to say that).

   Nice shots John and great wood on that back. Your photos really caught the figure and color nicely on every part of the guitars. That's always a battle when photographing guitars. We are holding these instruments in our hands that exhibit all of that great color and figure that comes to life under our finish and the photos sometimes fail to capture it for the viewer, but these certainly got it!

   I use 5 megapixel camera and three medium synched softboxes for lighting and your results are every bit as good as any I've seen. 2 megapixels is great for web and general photo use. You can still even print excellent quality sheets using it that no one would have any problem with.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega GuitarsKevin Gallagher38567.610462963

2 mega pixel, Canon Powershot A60 or something like that.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I've been doing basically the same thing, Only mainly shooting slides and digital. If you want to take some good pictures for prints you can get the right colored light bulbs for slide film (seems to work well for digital too)at a good photo shop for about $7 each, a couple is all you need. I take a digital photos along side my film camera. Looks like halogens work great with a digital though!
The lighting is everything in photography.
I also made my back drop for about $30 or less. I went to the fabric store during a good sale and bought muslin 120" wide X 15 ft and tie dyed it. Wasn't sure how this would work, but my daughters and I had fun doing it. I plan to more in some various colors eventually.
Nice photos John.
Jim_W38567.519375

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Pic's look great John. I love that Imbuia under a finish. What color are your umbrellas and I wonder if it makes a differance. Well I don't mean any dark colors but I would think something like white, beige, or mayme a light gray would be best.

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The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Sweet! Looks like im headed to walmart too!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Bob, they only light colored ones they had were light yellow, I may try to find a silver or light beige also.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Hey the photos look really good, the guitars look great although the neck seems a little narrow in the 3rd and 4th photo.

That's my new accesibility neck . I find that if the fingerboard is located more in the middle of the side it cuts down on lower arm and wrist pains. John How38567.5495833333

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

AWESOME!

John, are you shining the light through the umbrellas, or reflecting it off them?

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Hi John, I really like those pictures but more so the subjects -- I'll send you my shipping address - no need to take them all to Healdsburg

I second the question above, could shed some light on the halogen/umbrella configuration?Anthony Z38567.6299421296

Hi Anthony, nice to hear from you. Got those parlor babies goin yet?

These were taken with the lights pointing towards the guitar thru the umbrellas but John O says he does it both ways so experimentation is in order. The only other thing I did was to play around with the camera exposure setting. Mind you I have no idea what I'm doing so go figure.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

your using the umbrellas as defusers as apposed to reflectors?

Thanks for the info John. Photography is more of a mystery to me than building guitars. Some day I'll read the manual that came with my digital camera -- maybe if I stack it next to issues of Guitarmaker and GAL in the library it might get some attention.

Have I started on the Parlors -- sorry to say but NO! I will be getting the Parlor molds from our friend John Hall in the next day or so and will no doubt be harrassing you for some help. Hopefully I'll be able to start on them mid-winter once the next batch of Archtops are complete.

Back on topic -- it would be great if you could share a shot for us of the guitar on display and your lighting set-up.

So by the looks of those great pictures it looks like you've made some headway with wet sanding the 8 bodies you told me about at ASIA.

Hey your right Michael, they are Diffusers, if I turn the whole thing around then they are reflectors.

Anthony, I don't have any pictures of the setup, but next time I set it up I'll try to take some. Here is a thread started by John O and there are some pictures of his great guitars as well as a picture of his photo setup that inspired me to try his techniques.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Where did the shot with the umbrellas go?

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.