I've combined both my intense interests into one for this one. If you don't know, I moonlight as a pro photog shooting mainly people and products. This is a tutorial will show you how to easily shoot your tools in a professional manner for almost next to nothing (not including the equipment).
I'll break this down into 3 sections.
1. Things you'll need
2. Shooting the tool
3. Editing the photograph
1. Things you'll need. Camera:
It doesn't have to be super awesome, but you will need full manual functions (yes, this may scare some but manual is the only way to go for shooting studio type photos).
Since I shoot Nikon, I use a D3100 for hobby stuff and when I don't want to bring out my big heavy guys. Lenses
A stock kit lens typical is in the range of 18-70mm (which converts to roughly 24-100, in traditional 35mm terms). While this range is fine for shooting every day stuff, it's a tiny bit short for what you want to do with your tools. If price is an issue, this inexpensive telephoto lens will be your key to successful photos (for this tutorial). I used a simliar, but upgraded version of this lens (70-200 vr). You'll be shooting a smaller apertures anyways, so having professional grade, wide aperture glass isn't so important (ie. you don't need f2.
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Light
This is THE single most important bit of kit you'll need. Without light, there is no photography, and in studio photography, it's all about control of that light. Flash provides that split second burst of controlled light that you just can't get from hot lamps. This convience doesn't come cheap however, but simple smaller flashes (as long as you can tilt the head to point it at the ceiling) run anywhere from $120 to $450. For this tutorial, I used a discontinued, but still in heavy service Nikon SB800. They'll keep popping until I tell it to, or it fries, whichever comes first.
Background
The background is where you can save money, for a while background, a simple rolled up and released poster board ($1 or so at any craft store) will be your studio. While you can use coloured backgrounds, I found white to be the most successful for simplicity sake. Curving the surface is crucial, this will surround the tool in light and give it that studio look without having to use expensive softboxes and scrims.
The tool is hung from a shelf with craft wire. I think it's 26 gauge. You can also use string or fishing light. It's whatever I had laying around in my kit. Find a connection point that will provide you with the most agressive or showcase-y angle. There are plenty of holes to thread the wire through (a bonus for using wire, self supporting). You'll want to lower the tool so it's about 1/3 or 1/2 down into the 'tube' of cardboard, I have it a little high but you get the point.
Here I shot with the camera's kit 18-70 lens with the flash pointed at the ceiling, you can already see that the tool is surrounded in white and will be easy to pick out. (not final image just yet).
2. Shooting the tool. ok, so you've strung up the tool, rolled the cardboard and got your kit ready to go. Now point and shoot right?
No.
You have to dial the settings in.
The thing about working in a studio environment is have full control over your subject matter, you are just lucky that tools don't attitude or talk back at you. This part is slightly technical, but if you reading this, I have to assume you somewhat understand the theories and concepts between aperture and shutter speeds (otherwise, I would writing for days on end).
Aperture Tools, by nature are small. So there is a significant amount of detail you want to capture. By using a SMALL APERTURE (such as f8-f16) you can achieve a HIGH DEPTH OF FIELD, which means more things are focus, from the front of the tool all the way to back of the tool. Think of a set of lamp posts down a street, if you use a LARGE APERTURE, you will only see one or two of the lamps closest to you in focus. BUT if you use a SMALL APERTURE, it will extend the DEPTH OF FIELD and allow you to clearly see 5-6 lampposts.
The downside of using small apertures, is that is lets LESS light in (because the hole is significantly smaller) but more on that later. For now, stick to using f8-f16
Shutter SpeedsSince you are shooting in a studio environment, you will want to use the highest shutter speed your camera will allow you to shoot while having a flash on camera. My D3100 being a consumer level camera, can only sync up to 1/200 sec with a flash on camera, so I keep it there. This is a good point to stop and say, are you in M mode? Manual is the only way you are going to get repeatable results and have full control over things. Auto mode is for suckers.
Focal LengthsWe've covered that using a telephoto lens will be better for this application, but I never explained why. In short, short/wide lenses distort outwardly. making things larger than appear. This maybe what you are looking for so try it out as well.
A telephoto lens 'compresses' space, combining the many 3d elements and squishing them into one plane of sight. Telephoto lenses also provide you with a narrow field of view, so it's easier to shoot within a small studio environment. This provides a lot of advantages when shooting smaller items like tools. It makes sure that the details are in focus. The downside of using a telephoto lenses is that you need the space to walk back away from your suspended tool, so when you set up your studio, make sure you account for that. OR if you have no space, forget everything you just read and go back to the wide/short lens.
LightingI already stressed that light is the single most important facet of the photography gem. If you are fortunate enough to have a higher end external flash unit (like a Nikon SB800/700/600/900, even the small SB200) you should have a certain degree of manual adjustment. Find out how to turn you flash so it fires the SAME power every time, typically it's measured in fractions of halves. (1/1, 1/2, 1/4...). Since you shooting SMALL APERTURES, you'll want to start at, at least, 1/4 power. Take a photo and see what it looks like, if its too dark, bump up the power, and vice versa if you see the white bleed into your tool. The beauty of digital, shoot, review, shoot again, get it right in camera. \
You'll want to point your flash head towards the ceiling (make sure it's white). This does 2 things, 1. spreads the light out making a huge light source 2. redirects the light so it gets funnelled into the open tube.
Shooting Anglesso you've got things all set up, you've test shot, everything's locked in for settings. Now comes the fun part, shooting the tool.
Take risks, go sideways, portrait, landscape, above the tool, below the tool, rotate the tool (wire is positionable too). See what you like? Time to shove your card into your computer and extract those juicy photos.
3. Editing the PhotoDownload the images from your card. If you can, shoot RAW format. You can shoot JPEG but you lose that adjustability. I am going to go through really quickly how I adjust RAW files.
Once I downloaded the images, I pick the one I am going to work on. I open it up in Photoshop. It'll bring up Camera Raw and the general settings to adjust.
I typically boost the exposure, fill light and blacks to get the a good tonal range from light to dark. I then move the clarity slider to get some grit and move the brightness to dial it back down a bit. It's kind of a trial and error, you'll get the hang of it.
I then go to the Curves tab, and I make the classic S-curve, boosting the highlights and darkening the shadows. Again, making a nice tonal range from light to dark.
Then do some sharpening, and lower the noise from editing.
Finally, I open the image. Note: at this point, nothing has been saved or permanently damaged the photograph file. Working in RAW gives you this advantage.
When in the Photoshop arena, I take the eyedropper and get the whitest white for a brush colour.
I use this to paint out any remaining greys or shadows. If you've hung and positioned the tube correctly, there shouldn't be any, but I do it anyways.
I then proceed to paint in the outside of the tool with the selected white. You can always check if the white is TRUELY white but checking the colour, the RBG values should be (255,255,255).
Now, the magic. With the same colour brush, but reduced in size, carefully paint away the wire used to suspend the tool. I usually do this on a separate layer just in case I screw up. Go slow.
If there is any overlapping wire over the tool, use the clone/heal combo to get rid of it. Remember what scale you are looking at too, it only needs to APPEAR to be gone.
Once you've erased and patched the wire, there you have it!
There are 1000's of ways to do things and this is the easiest and most cost effective way I could figure out. So this tutorial is more of a suggestive method than a strict regiment.
So get your cameras warmed up and shoot your tools catalog style!
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