The better pictures you take, the more you sell your knives for. Hands down.
The best pictures start with excellent lighting. Ask any pro, it's about the lighting. When you go get your family portrait taken, they don't fiddle with the lenses or focus or background. That is 5 seconds each for those things. It's the lights they fool with until you are so aggravated you just want it done.
My set up is too big for most but I have to take pictures of products that are sometimes large.
Here is my light tent.
It is 1" pvc with pcv corners all slip fit together. For the light diffuser, I use Velum paper (architects paper) and scotch tape it. (I have a couple insanely large rolls of it I will need to get listed on my supply site. I guess I better get that done quickly.) It is available in the office supply places.
I use common white foam board for the side. The lights are daylight color (important to use daylight color) fluorescent bulbs in common reflector clamp lamps or what ever I had around.
Rule of thumb is 2/3's of the light from the back, 1/3 up front.
I use a power strip to turn all of these on and off at once. I make sure and turn off the tungsten over head lights so I don't get a red cast to the picture.
Here is a product picture. This was done using a hand held Nikon Coolpix 10meg and no flash. I sharpened it a bit and very slightly adjusted the mid tone contrast in photoshop 3.
The best pictures start with excellent lighting. Ask any pro, it's about the lighting. When you go get your family portrait taken, they don't fiddle with the lenses or focus or background. That is 5 seconds each for those things. It's the lights they fool with until you are so aggravated you just want it done.
My set up is too big for most but I have to take pictures of products that are sometimes large.
Here is my light tent.
It is 1" pvc with pcv corners all slip fit together. For the light diffuser, I use Velum paper (architects paper) and scotch tape it. (I have a couple insanely large rolls of it I will need to get listed on my supply site. I guess I better get that done quickly.) It is available in the office supply places.
I use common white foam board for the side. The lights are daylight color (important to use daylight color) fluorescent bulbs in common reflector clamp lamps or what ever I had around.
Rule of thumb is 2/3's of the light from the back, 1/3 up front.
I use a power strip to turn all of these on and off at once. I make sure and turn off the tungsten over head lights so I don't get a red cast to the picture.
Here is a product picture. This was done using a hand held Nikon Coolpix 10meg and no flash. I sharpened it a bit and very slightly adjusted the mid tone contrast in photoshop 3.
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