Taking good pictures of bulino

Ron Jr.

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Dec 30, 2009
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Viroqua, WI
Hi, I'm new here and a real newbie to engraving but have been doing scrimshaw professionally for about 2 years now (Ron Jr. Scrimshaw), I just completed my first bulino engraving a few days ago and had a heck of a time getting the so-so photo shown, a lot of the fine shading in this piece is lost/not visible in the photo. Anyone have any advice for taking decent photos of small detailed engraving? Oh yeah, I use an olympus E10 with a macro lens so I know the camera can do it the problem is me! I think the problem is lighting as I can get half decent photos of small scrimshaw..... Thanks in advance for any help you can offer with this matter. Ron
 

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Sam

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Hi Ron. Nice Welcome to the Cafe. Nice bulino engraving and your photo is fine. I see nothing wrong with it. Perhaps a little levels adjustment in Photoshop could give it a bit more contrast but I wish more Cafe member would do this well with their photos. From what I can see your pendant is reflecting a white surface which makes the engraved lines dark in a photo. That's the way to do it. Tell us more about your lighting setup, please.

Cheers / Sam
 

Arnaud Van Tilburgh

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Ron, welcome and thanks showing some of your work.
I use a tracing paper to put on my bench lamp, that way the light is more diffuse and makes an equal "reflection" on the surface being photographed.
arnaud
 

Ron Jr.

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Hi Sam and thanks, I have a tripod and a remote button for my camera (both are a must in my opinion if your going to take pictures of small detailed things) I did use photoshop to tweak the contrast a little and as far as my lighting set up goes........ promise not to make fun of me, a single led flashlight held at just the right angle to get a good reflection. The multi led flashlights have bright and dim spots in the beam and dont give you a nice even reflection like the single led, on the down side the single leds beam is very small so it wont work on larger items.
 

Ron Jr.

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Thanks for the suggestion Arnaud I will try it, its simple and low cost which is always a good thing:)
 

truehand

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Nov 13, 2006
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Toronto, ON, Canada
Nice bulino work Ron!

For a small flat item like that you might want to explore the "axial lighting" technique that coin photographers use.

This technique provides really great contrast and it's also a great technique for preventing the camera from being reflected in shiny objects.



There is a great article on Mark Goodman's excellent numismatic photography website.
www.coinimaging.com
 

Kevin P.

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Ron, it looks terrific.
The one thing I might suggest is photographic diffusion film.
Kevin P.
 

truehand

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Toronto, ON, Canada
hey Rod, I'm glad you found that website as cool and informative as I did. I was thankful the day I stumbled upon it as well. He does a great job explaining how to light small objects for photography.
I was so intrigued by the 'axial lighting' that I took a piece of glass right out of a framed picture on the wall next to my desk and had an 'axial lighting' setup within minutes! I used a 250W halogen shop light, diffused with plain white paper, for a light source.

Cheers,
Dave
 

Ron Jr.

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Dec 30, 2009
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Viroqua, WI
Thanks!

Thanks for the advice and compliments everyone:) I will post the results when I try some of the things suggested but first I gotta finish another piece to photograph! Have a good one and thanks again. Ron
 

RoycroftRon

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Apr 11, 2007
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Buffalo, New York, United States
Not sure if it would apply to this, but I use a polarizing filter over my lens to reduce glare. A must for reflective sculptural objects in my opinion. It can also enhance - or reduce color intensity so be observant.
 
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