Today’s Blog: – out of the normal but in to the normal
Hello all – if you guys did not know I enjoy watches…I have many and many have me…they are a form of my precious…none really get me going the way Breitling and Casio G Shock though.
I hang out on a few watch forums and I have posted a few post with photo sets of various watches. One question that I often get asked by those GREAT group of members there is this –
“Could you please give us some tips and tricks on how you get these shots, as well as maybe a behind the scene look?”
So welcome to this post – however let me preface this with – this is NOT going to teach you the basics of a camera and I will assume that you understand FStops, shutter speeds ISO etc as well as basic exposure principals. I am going to attempt to show you all how I do this. So without further blabber from me – let’s get into this. Maybe I will do video on this as well if there is enough interest. Also if you come back and check you will see some posted with various other things that I enjoy including knives, flash lights and things that go BANG!!! All of these things are forbidden at the main forum so I am not able to post these types of things there.
Technical details:
Camera – Canon 6D
Lens – Canon 100mm Macro lens
Lighting – Cheap clamp on lights from lowes, 5000k 1600 Lumen 23w CFL (100w eqivolent)
Light box with black background
Now here is the basic setup, there is a light clamped on each side that is being diffused by the sides of the tent.
Ok, so there is the basic setup, now one of the tricks is getting the proper viewing angle that clearly shows the watch face. The only time I dont worry about this is if I am getting a detail shot in close where the DOF (Depth Of Field) will blurr out the face anyways.
You will also want to play around with the apeture – also known as FStop. I go anywere between F2.8 and F11. Remember the lower the number the less will be in focus and the higher the number the more that will be in focus. You I use an ISO speed of either 3200 or 6400 – this will be dependant of the shutter speed that you are shooting. Shutter speed I move between 1/40, 1/125 or even 1/400 – this is the variable that moves around to get the exposure that you want. I typically will underexpose the shot purposely because the camera has a hard time interpretting the light situation with the two bright lights shining in. Over exposed means to bright under to dark. I typically find that 1-1.5 steps under works beautifuly. Remember that the slower the shutter the more steady hand you need. A lot of people will tell you to get a tripod – I agree with this, however for my macro work especially on these watches I hand hold ALL of them.
So below is the latest shoot that I did with the Casio G Shock Gulfmaster – it is a gorgeous piece that I really really like. Also note that I purposely used some darkening on the shots where the digitals don’t seem to viewable – I did this to draw your eye in to the subject. You will see on most that the digitals scream out at you as it should. I hope that you enjoy these as much as I did making them. Also if you have questions leave a comment and I will do my best to answer them.
