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I thought if I saw something I could do it. Well, I must have missed something. I purchased two worklights on stands. They are rated at 250 Watts each, making each stand rated at 500 Watts. So total was 1000 Watts, not nearly enough.

Problem two, the umbrella, I couldn't find any that were either white or tan. All I could find were some that had panels of pure white with alternating navy blue, golf umbrellas. In my mind the amount of white would be enough since these things are huge. Nope. I didn't get enough reflected or flipped around, diffused light to take a picture. Bummer.

Okay, it all goes back the the store and I'm bringing home the big guns, two 500 watt lamps per stand, 2,000 Watts total,and I'm on the prowl for all white or tan umbrellas. As Churchill said, "Nevah give up."

Try lining the inside of the umbrella with aluminum foil that has been pre-crinkled...it should provide similar reflectance to a white background.

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

Good idea, JJ. You can also just cover large pieces of cardboard with aluminum foil and mount them above the lights. Mounting the cardboard might get kinda tricky, though, but where there's a will, there's a way.

Dickey, the reason why those umbrellas didn't work is because photo umbrellas are lined on the interior with a very reflective surface.

Also if you're just using standard high-wattage bulbs, you'll want to either get tungten film balanced for them, or filtration balanced for them. Studio floods are usually 3400k whereas standard tungsten lightbulbs have color temps closer to 3200k. I've seen tungsten film and filters available for both color temps.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Bruce,

spray aluminum paint on em!

Bruce,

My set-up is made up with one 500w lamp (I had this one kicking around) and the other one is the 2 - 250watt thing. I also have a white ceiling and walls in that room so I get some more reflection though. I have even turned the 250s on half power on occasions.

I think you need to mess with the camera settings. (white balance maybe???)

Bruce: I have one of these silver lined umbrellas for the main light source and one plain white for fill lighting -

http://cgi.ebay.com/Professional-36-Silver-Studio-Photo-Umbr ella_W0QQitemZ7536647604QQcategoryZ30082QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

and use 150 watt daylight bulbs. I tried the halogen 350 & 500 watt shop lights and they don't put out as much light as a normal 150 bounced off of umbrellas. It dosen't make sense but it works for me.

This is the setup that I use - http://cgi.ebay.com/Dual-250-or-500-watt-Photo-Video-SoftLig ht-Umbrella-Kit_W0QQitemZ7535667487QQcategoryZ3860QQrdZ1QQcm dZViewItem

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Thanks John and Tim.

Okay, now that I looked at all the photo umbrella stuff on ebay and amazon, I see soft gentle lighting is what you want not barn burning temps.

Tim, thanks for the ebay tip, that led me to a company that just sells them off amazon.com Belger photo supply. I got my two 48 inch white reflector/diffuser umbrellas for 9.95 each and 6.41 shipping. I believe the company is in Texas.

This is one of my major problems, no one has umbrellas that will work in my town.

Okay, to be continued, photos to follow.....

http://www.belgerphotography.com/Dickey38572.4531712963

Good information here fellas, keep it coming. I need to learn this stuff, and I am starting at zero!

Jeff

A couple of points; It can be done without umbrellas by playing with the light position.
Low level lighting can work as you should be using a tripod anyway, also a cable release helps.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

There are a couple of different kinds of umbrellas: "shoot-through" usually translucent white fabric, is used much the same as a "softbox" to diffuse the light to remove harsh shadows. The other type is a "reflector" umbrella, which has a highly reflective surface, used to bounce light. The reflector type umbrellas do soften/diffuse the light a little bit compared to just aiming your lights directly at the guitar, but not nearly as much as a softbox or a shoot through umbrella.

The softer, more diffuse light will produce much less definition in the shadows (that's a good thing) and will also allow the wood grain to show up very well through the high gloss guitar finish.

Color Temperature Explained

The color of photographic lights are rated in degrees Kelvin. The higher the temperature in Kelvin, the "cooler" the light, the whiter it will be, and the more similar to sunlight. Halogens put off a lot of heat to produce the light, but they are whiter than any of the incandescents (even the "color corrected ones.")

Unless you shoot outdoors on an overcast day, or have sophisticated photographic studio lighting (and possibly color-correction lens filters) you will probably have to correct the colors in the photo. Since you will probably be color correcting anyway, I recommend that you don't worry too much about color of light, as long as you make sure that ALL of the light in the scene is from the same type of source (all sunlight, or all halogen, etc.)

Instead, spend your time getting the scene lit correctly to eliminate glare and unwanted reflections and manage shadows, and composed "correctly" (artfully.)

A tripod is a must, and use the self timer to keep your hands off the camera when the shot is taken.

Backgrounds: Your background can be anything from your back yard to a studio backdrop, but it must not compete with the instrument. If shooting indoors, you'll probably want to use a backdrop. Your backdrop can be anything from a piece of fabric to a professional hand-painted muslin backdrop. Look at some examples, but find a color or colors for the backdrop that "works" with wood tones. An easy technique to make the backgroung out-of-focus is to change the camera's aperature (marked as "f-stops) to a large aperature. There are hundreds of places to read about this, so I won't go into details here, but keep the entire guitar (or the part you are highlighting in a close-up) in perfect focus, but have the backdrop far enough away so you can easily set an aperature that will blur the background. Search Google for articles on:

aperature "depth of field"

This is getting long-winded. I'll stop here, and hope it is helpful. There is another recent thread ("a couple more thoughts on photos") about digital darkroom color correction that may also be helpful.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Yup, it can get long-winded in a hurry. BTDT.

Just a quick comment based on my own experience having to do with umbrellas, whether shoot-through or reflective.

If your photographic subject is positioned in such a way that a direct reflection of the umbrella is visible on its smooth surface, it will show quite a few details of the umbrella, including the ribs if shoot-through, and including the ribs and flash assy if reflective.

To me, this is very messy looking. This is why studio photographers who are shooting photos of smooth surfaces, especially curved ones, use very large light boxes. That's also the reason why Frank Ford is using such large light boxes. The subject's smooth surfaces just reflects the wide expanse of the evenly lit box. It gives a very appealing result.

You'll even see this technique used with close-ups of people's eyes. Look at the reflections coming off the eye, and you can tell what sort of lighting the photographer uses. A sharp, sort of starry looking reflection is caused by an umbrella. A smooth, even one is caused by using a light box.

Best,

Michael

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

Mmmmhmmm, mmmmhmmm. Anyone want to buy some halogen lights and a couple of umbrellas, brand new, never used!

Bruce, the halogens and umbrellas may yet work, but you may need to pull the lights further away from the guitar. Obviously, the softboxes are an "upgrade" in technology, and can be placed very close to the guitar.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Michael McBroom mentioned reflections. This is another area of difficulty, because these guitars often have a surface that is polished to a mirrorlike surface.

The glossy surface is going to act as a mirror, no matter what. So, the trick is to remember that the mirror will be in the shot, and you need to photograph something in the mirror that won't distract from the shot. If you just tip the guitar back, you'll photograph the ceiling or the sky instead of the photographer, which will still not show the back of the guitar very well. Instead, you will want to photograph a "scrim", a flat black board or piece of cloth.

Remember from either high school physics class or the pool hall that the "angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection", or in other words the cue ball bounces off the rail at the same angle that it hit the rail. Set your guitar on a stand. Move back a few feet and over to the left a few feet and put the camera on a tripod. Move to the right and hang the flat black (scrim) cloth. Your setup should look something like this diagram:


(Top/birdseye view of setup)

Using a setup like the diagram above, you'll photograph the back of the guitar, and the back of the guitar will have a nearly undetectable flat black scrim reflected on the back of the guitar, instead of the photographer. If the black scrim shows up (in focus), just move the black scrim further away from the guitar (in the same angle of reflection.) The further back the scrim is, the larger it will need to be. If you don't have a "softbox" (diffused light), shoot outside on a cloudy day. Do not use a flash! That's it!

Advanced: If you need to get a shot of the back of the guitar (or other mirror surface) that appears more straight-on rather than at an angle, try this:

Adjust your zoom lens to its maximum telephoto setting.

Move the camera and scrim back further away from the guitar, and more toward the center. (You still must not get the camera's reflection in the shot, though.) Without changing the camera from its maximum zoomed-out telephoto state, move the camera back until you have the shot framed the way you want - that's your maximum working distance.

Of course, a lot depends on the particular zoom or telephoto lens, but the further you move the camera away from the guitar, the closer to straight-on you will be able to shoot.

Hope this helps!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

More great comments, Dennis.

"The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflectance" is usually one of the very first things I mention when I discuss photographing guitars. Can't believe I missed that one

However, I don't mean to be unduly picky sounding, but once again, the real world intrudes. Dennis' diagram works only for a perfectly flat surface. It has been my experience that, when photographing a guitar that has an arched top or back, often I have to position my camera at a much more severe angle to eliminate the "blow-back" reflection. By "blow-back" I mean the sort of harsh reflection you'll get when shooting a flat object straight on with a built-in, or camera mounted flash.

Using the above principle, it is easy to eliminate this glare if photographing a flat surface. But if the surface is curved, even slightly, things get more complicated. A curved surface reflects more than a flat surface does, so one often needs to be a bit more extreme with camera positioning. Now, this is true mostly for, like I said, camera mounted flashes. But even if using a remote light and/or scrim setup, the curvature of your subject's surface needs to be taken into account. Thankfully, if you're using light boxes and a scrim, you can see how you need to position things just by careful observation. If you're shooting with a flash sans modeling light, however, things can get a bit tricky.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

I come from the ol` "lean it up against a tree outside the shop" school of photography. Grab the ol` Pentax and shoot a bunch . One or two should turn out pretty good. If I get too good with the camera you`ll be able to see all the zits! Now , if I could just figure out how to post a pic things would be going my way.

Dale,

Me too:



There are two ways to upload images to this site. If you take a look at the set of icons above the window that you type text in, notice the second and third from the right, the ones with a tree in them. The second from the right allows you to upload images of 150k or smaller to Lance's server. The third from the right allows you to enter a URL for an image that is already located somewhere on the web.

I usually do the latter, since I store most of my images at my website anyway. Also, it keeps Lance's server's allocated space from filling up too quickly.

Best,

Michael
Michael McBroom38572.8455324074

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

Mike , I tried it and am informed that the image is too large. is there a way to reduce the KBs or whatevers so it will transfer. I know when I attach it to an e-mail I choose a low res setting so it will not take all day to load. I`m going back to the image and see if I can figure a way to down size it.

Lance turned me on to a Resizer, an upgrade to Microsoft Windows operating system. You just click on the picture right click and pick one of four sizes and boom, it's done, never leaving windows. Forgot what it's called. I'll check.


XP PowerToys Image Resizer, works within Windows XP, no muss, no fuss, totally easy....



Here is a screenshot.Dickey38572.9186111111

Hey Dickie, great idea! I went to the web site and discovered that power toys only works with XP and I`m running 2000 professional. Back to square one. I think I can scan the pics again at a lower resolution. That seems to be the only solution I see but I don`t know what res to scan them. I`m open for suggestions. I don`t know a lot about guitars and I know even less about computers! I`ve reached an age where there are no kids running around this house to help me solve my problems.

Dale,

Resampling/resizing images is a snap with halfway decent imaging software.

I've been using Paint Shop Pro for years. Takes me less than 30 seconds to resize an image. I've found that images set to sizes as large as 800x600, when saved at a mid-compression level as a jpg, fit way below the requirement that Lance has here. Typically mine come in around 60k.

You can most likely find an older version of PSP for dirt cheap on eBay. It's up to v8.1 now, I think, but I'm still using v4.0, and I'm happy with it.

Best,

Michael

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

Thanks for the info Mike . I`ll see if I can hunt one up. I thought this thing had paint shop on it . I`ll go take a look.

Michael McBroom's guitar, leanin' on a tree.

I still prefer the background soft or out of focus to "pop" the subject. (This ultra-quick example is a few notches below down-and-dirty when it comes to digitally finding the edges of the guitar, but you may see what I mean.)

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia