How to take Good Pictures of Electronics

John and others.

There is no magic bullet for bright spots due to lighting.

A polarising filter might help only if the light is single direction to start with.

When I worked at the Photography studio the copy setup used two light sources at 45 deg with polarising filters and a filter on the lens to eliminate the reflections, which is a little bit OTT for home use.

Subject placement

For most of my images I use natural light coming in from a window behind and mostly above the subject.

The window is on the south side (light is from the north in our end of the world) and it is often later in the day, so it is much less intense and is not direct.

I place a white card or white surface to bounce light back onto the subject.

One of my reflectors is a A4 paper that has been laminated and it works well since it can be bent.

This lighting works better than the studio lights as there are no bright spots and you can easily see the results.

You can easily check the light by clenching your fist and pointing your knuckles at the light source. The shadow on your palm will give an indication of where the light is coming from and how bad the shadow will be.

Colour

The light colour (Flash, Tungsten, LED, Florescent v natural) can be corrected in the camera and often the colour needs tweaking slightly to enhance the image, so you can use whatever you have as long as you understand the correction required.

My Metz flashes tend to be blue, and both the internal flash and studio flash are white, so know your equipment and the effects is more important than using xyz.

Depth of Field

I shoot at the lowest aperture (highest F stop) the lens has which usually dictates a shutter speed of 1-2secs.

Rather than the close-up rings I use an extension tube between the lens and body, which gives the magnification while keeping the lens away from the subject.

There is software that will allow stacking of images to improve the dof, but you need to take multiple images at different focus points.

At these speeds and dof it is important to use a cable/remote shutter release. If you can't then use the self timer and cover the eyepiece to prevent stray light from entering and fogging the photo.

RAW v JPG

All my photography is done in raw format which means a 24mB raw image.

Raw format allows some manipulation before it gets converted to a jpg, but the most important part of the manipulation is to sharpen the image which brings the three individual sensors into line.

Many of the cameras do a reasonable job of taking what they see and converting it, but it is a compromise and once it is a jpg anything you do is subtracting from the image.

Because of the small size of 35mm format, images need to fill the frame (something you don't need to worry about with a 6x6 camera) so get as close as you can.

Post manipulation

There are lots of things that can be done after the image is taken.

I've removed scratches or annoying bits, however if the detail is not there, you can't easily recreate it using software.

From experience it is quicker to do it in-camera rather than post image, so download the image and check it on your computer while the subject is still setup and go back and reshoot if you're not happy.

Hopefully these insights help someone.

Mark

Hi Mark,

Would you mind sharing information about your camera, make and model. It sounds like it has quite a bit more control of aperture and shutter speed than mine does. When I used to do film photography I used a Minolta XD-5 SLR and this allowed control of everything. I presently have an amateur camera Canon SX 410 but it will not let me actually set apertures and shutter speeds though its electronic features are very pleasing.

John

your camera, make and model

I'm currently using a Nikon D3200, but have done the same with a D3100 and F301.

Each of these has manual setting M which allows both shutter and F stop to be set.

I use an older manual lens (that came with my F301) since it has a closer minimum focus setting and macro.

The tubes I have are old school (totally manual), so the auto lens won't work (you can focus but not adjust the f stop).

Canon SX410  ... Yep no manual setting ...

Sadly many of the point and shoot style cameras remove all the bits that help when you are doing this sort of work.

I'd see what you can find in the way of an older digital camera that allows the lens to be swapped.

Many of these got traded in for no other reason than it had something shiny that someone thought they needed.

Mark

your camera, make and model

I'm currently using a Nikon D3200, but have done the same with a D3100 and F301.

Each of these has manual setting M which allows both shutter and F stop to be set.

I use an older manual lens (that came with my F301) since it has a closer minimum focus setting and macro.

The tubes I have are old school (totally manual), so the auto lens won't work (you can focus but not adjust the f stop).

Canon SX410  ... Yep no manual setting ...

Sadly many of the point and shoot style cameras remove all the bits that help when you are doing this sort of work.

I'd see what you can find in the way of an older digital camera that allows the lens to be swapped.

Many of these got traded in for no other reason than it had something shiny that someone thought they needed.

Mark