tabletop lighting help

I want to take some photos of some small things I want to put on ebay. I've tried a large piece of white posterboard as a background and am using 2 incandescent bulbs--one from each side. But I'm not getting good pictures. Could somebody tell me how to set things up so I don't have harsh sadows, bad color and part of the item out of focus? Or point me to a site that exlplains it.

You didn't provide enough information but my guess is you aren't diffusing your lights. If you have nothing between the bulb and sujbect the light acts as a point source giving the hard edged shadows you see. That's why most of us use umbrellas, softboxes, etc. Make a simple scrim out of white fabric stretched over a frame and place that between the light and subject. The light is now and area souce that gives overlapping and indistint shadows.

As for color set a custom white balance or select tungsten. As for part of the item out of focus how small is it? Is it so small that DOF is an issue? Can you set a focus point with the camera you're using?

George Davidson said:

I want to take some photos of some small things I want to put on
ebay. I've tried a large piece of white posterboard as a
background and am using 2 incandescent bulbs--one from each side.
But I'm not getting good pictures. Could somebody tell me how to
set things up so I don't have harsh sadows, bad color and part of
the item out of focus? Or point me to a site that exlplains it.

Click to expand...

George,

Here is a photo I just took for a web site I'm working on. I also took a photo of my set-up using just the strobe for lighting.





--
Lawrence

George Davidson said:

I want to take some photos of some small things I want to put on
ebay. I've tried a large piece of white posterboard as a
background and am using 2 incandescent bulbs--one from each side.
But I'm not getting good pictures. Could somebody tell me how to
set things up so I don't have harsh sadows, bad color and part of
the item out of focus? Or point me to a site that exlplains it.

Click to expand...

--
Lawrence

you remind me I need a boom stand.

here is quick set up if it helps a bit.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1025&message=6356881

have fun!

Lawrence Keeney said:

Here is a photo I just took for a web site I'm working on. I also
took a photo of my set-up using just the strobe for lighting.





--
Lawrence

George Davidson said:

I want to take some photos of some small things I want to put on
ebay. I've tried a large piece of white posterboard as a
background and am using 2 incandescent bulbs--one from each side.
But I'm not getting good pictures. Could somebody tell me how to
set things up so I don't have harsh sadows, bad color and part of
the item out of focus? Or point me to a site that exlplains it.

Click to expand...

--
Lawrence

Click to expand...

gusano said:

you remind me I need a boom stand.

here is quick set up if it helps a bit.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1025&message=6356881

have fun!

Click to expand...

Nice shot. I would never have thought about turning my light up-side-down.

--
Lawrence

I wanted plexiglass and iluminate from bottom, but eyeglasses being so light, why not put it in the softbox directly....

boom... boom... boom...

George,

As others have said, you need to diffuse your lighting to avoid harsh shadows. I'd use at least 2 lights, shined through a piece of tracing paper, white plastic shower curtain, ripstop nylon, or other translucent white material. Tracing paper or ripstop nylon are probably your best bets since they should let a lot of light through. Don't get your diffusers too close to your lights since the heat of the lights can cause your diffuser to melt, scorch, or even catch fire.

Tungsten lights aren't that bright to begin with, so you will have trouble getting enough light, especially with diffusers. You'll probably need to use a tripod and a long shutterspeed in order to use a small enough aperture for decent depth of field. I'd suggest putting your camera in fully manual mode, selecting the aperture you need to have the whole subject in focus, and then selecting the shutterspeed that gives you a proper exposure. If your camera has an "aperture priority" mode you could use that also.

Continuous lights are easier in some ways because you can see your lighting before you take the shot, but you wil struggle with getting enough light. You might want to use a couple of flashes instead. For small tabletop work a couple of hotshoe style flashes mounted to cheap lightstands should be plenty of light. Lots of people say Vivitar 285's offer good bang for the buck.

Duncan C
---

George Davidson said:

I want to take some photos of some small things I want to put on
ebay. I've tried a large piece of white posterboard as a
background and am using 2 incandescent bulbs--one from each side.
But I'm not getting good pictures. Could somebody tell me how to
set things up so I don't have harsh sadows, bad color and part of
the item out of focus? Or point me to a site that exlplains it.

Click to expand...

--
dpreview and PBase supporter.



http://www.pbase.com/duncanc