Taking professional looking pictures?

Right here's Tachi's "Two Minute Ghetto Studio Tutorial"

So, you want to take photo's like this on a budget:



Yeah I know, it's not that good, but it's a 2 minute tutorial, you can fiddle and tweak in photoshop later!

What you need:

Camera with hotshoe (for a flashgun)
Any old P.O.S flashgun that works with your camera (check trigger voltages!) that is poseable
Roll of plain, white wallpaper
Piece of white card/foam
Rubber band

First, setup your "studio" by hanging a length of the wallpaper over something high (I used my monitor) allowing a gentle curve in the paper to reduce shadows

Stick your subject on the paper, roughly central, position best to reduce shadows from the existing lighting



Cut the card/foam for the flashgun according to:
http://abetterbouncecard.com/

Attach it to your flashgun

Take photo's in manual mode (RAW if you can) adjusting settings and the position of the flashgun) so you get the right light at the right angle.



You can paint out what shadows are left in photoshop if you really want a pro look.

Total price (excluding camera and flashgun) £4

You can see in the phone photo the shadows from the lighting in the room without using the diffused flash, and see what the diffused flash does in the proper photo's

 

That picture really looks artificial, it has been modified quite alot so don't expect pictures like that coming straight from any camera :icon_bigg

 

I usually do just like Tachikoma using a white background, in my case i take one of my gameposters and turn it over to the white side:icon_bigg

But i rarely use flash as i'm not so good at it, my flash results really sucks. I mainly just use long shuttertime (using tripod of course) and often slightly overexpose to make the background more white... but it don't work too well with colourful stuff as they don't look so vibrant as if using flash. I also take most photos under very bad light conditions, i guess i need to practice Tachikomas flash suggestion:icon_bigg

I don't have much picture editing skills but i now simple stuff like change contrast, RGB levels, sharpness..etc etc.
I have DSLR camera (Konica Minolta Dynax 5D).

Here are two examples:

 

12MP is probably overkill unless you are going to want to make some "proper" prints from them, plus you can get some very competent older 10MP camera's much cheaper if you only want to do it the once.

Ly, if you ever want to get shot of that camera in the photo, give me a shout!

 

one question; you'll be only taking pictures of static items? also consider that thos lighthouses might be small for some of your needs.

I have some experience in the field and i suggest you tachikoma's way. Also i suggest you to start taking some pictures before going on with expensive equipment. If you have enough space using 2 connected flashes, with light diffusors is a FAR cheaper and effective solution.

 

Looks alright, but you can do the same thing with two desk lamps and the aforementioned roll of wallpaper, but it depends if you want to save money and piss around with setting it up yourself or just take the photo's and be done with it.

 

i've been checking the auction again...

take some careful measurement of you items before buying.

 

If your camera shoots RAW, just use regular lighting and change the temperature and white balance later

 

ASSEMbler what camera are you using today? Have you used it with a tripod?

 

it's a matter of how different lamps can give different dominating light. ie. if you take a by night picsture on a city you'll see that some light look greenish, other whitish, other orange, etc tec. anyway the matter of different lamps and different "coloring" can be adressed with some filter to be placed on the objective or afterward with photoshop, so don't worry too much.

actually if you have to worry or not about it it's up to the level of perfectionism you want to reach

 

your problems with color are quite strange... can you make me an example or better post a pic? it would be the first time i hear of such a problem; consider that lightning, white balancement, exposition, exposure time etc can make a great difference in the result. also, are you using the manual setting or the full auto?

 

One of the good things with digital photographing is taht you easily can change the images afterwards, i almost always do that... so if you don't want to "gamma correct" them the you really need to be a good photographer and i doubt you will get the help you need from this forum... as mentioned before i recommend dpreview.com :nod:

About my pics i posted earlier... even if i had a bad lightning condition so was the light fairly even on the objects as i have a lamp that shines up in the roof so there never was any direct lightning but it is kind of too dark for "professional" photographing... but the result looked ok anyway i think :icon_bigg

I was reading that 10-12 megapixel is the limit for DSLR with APS-C sensors, having more will not bring more details. For more MP you need Full Frame (35mm) sensor.
And also many compactcameras and mobilephones have stupidly high MP where it is not needed as it dont add detail to the pics it just makes the files bigger.

 

My collection pictures started looking a LOT better once I changed my lighting from standard light bulbs to the curled fluorescent ones. AWS recommended them to me, and he was right about everything about them, and the light is a lot "purer" like sunlight, and its also more energy efficient.

I would have KILLED for lights like this before the GBA SP came out.

 

Thats what I use in the room I took the above photo's, in my living room we have those tiny Halogen lights, and all photo's taken there are bright orange!