I tried tonight taking some photos of my two big Foxes to see if they would be suitable for posting or e-mailing. They downloaded and came up clear and sharp enough, but every one has a glare on the gun which is from the lighting. I took them under a fluorescent overhead fixture and with a small lamp positioned just out of the picture for enhancement. But, it didn't work. Which fixture would you think caused the glare, the overhead fluorescent or the small lamp off to one side?

Many of you post very nice photos that you take yourself at home. How do you get the proper lighting, without fancy equipment, to prevent the glare on the gun?

Any tips appreciated. Stan

I used to take guns out to the backyard on a bright day with sun behind clouds and the pictures were more than acceptable.
-Jani

No hassle, no setup presentable digitals with no glare, reflection, shadows available outdoors on overcast day. Sometimes wild strawberries, Black-eyed-Susans, trees, fence posts distract less than blue packing blankets and white garage doors. Guess some feathered protein would be even better. (This is a cheap expedient which looses it's appeal in winter.)

jack

Stan,
I've been using bouce flash lately for many of my pics. Also a large diffuser on my flash helps. There are many lighting techniques to do the job. If these things sound foreign to you, stop by your local camera store and look thru their books for one on lighting, there's always one or two in all camera stores. Expensive lighting is not necessary if you improvise. You can make your own photo lighting from common hardware store lighting. Closeups require close, intense lighting. Try a halogen reading lamp or workshop lamp. Remember that glares bounce like billiard shots and try to keep surfaces/lights at angles that don't reflect directly back at the camera.

As mentioned, the best lighting is outdoors on a cloudy day , avoid a white or very light background as it will fool your sensor and give you a dark
image,and the use of a large white sheet of cardboard flat/horizontal below the gun, but out of the picture, will bouce light up and eliminate a lot of shadow and can be used to highlight engraving on closeups.

You can do just fine indoors if you use indirect lighting and bounce flash like Chuck mentioned.

The difficult part of flash photography is that you normally can't see the result of the flash prior to the exposure. You can overcome this by taping a small flashlight like a mini mag on the flash. This will give the same reflections and shadows as the flash.
If you have a solid tripod the light source doesn't need to be extremely bright since the subject isn't going to have any movement. This will allow you to get by with indirect room lighting and reflectors to produce shadow and glare free images.

I have found that taking pictures outdoors is a lot easier. But I also learned that if I use a flash indoors, that if I don't take them from a 90* angle, I don't get the flash coming back at the camera. Try taking them from more of an angle. It might help.

Birdawg,
The really cool part about digital photog is that you can take lighting test shots and see them right away. I've taken many shots on occasion while adjusting the lighting.

Thanks, fellas. All very good ideas, it sounds like, and all in agreement with one another. That's even better!

I'll giv'er another "shot" this weekend and try the suggestions you mentioned.

Would taking the photo outside on a sunny day, but in complete shade, work similiar to an overcast day?

Stan

I take lotsa digital pics and eventually get one or two good ones fit for keeping. By trial and (lotsa) error, I too finally twigged onto taking the pics outdoors on an overcast day for best results - but the snow background Dec-March is a bummer. Digital cameras and gun marking close-ups are made for each other.
I WOULD REALLY like to see (and really NEED) an article in Double Gun Journal or Shooting Sportsman on features/selection of digital cameras and taking better digital pictures. There might be enough "meat" for a two part series.
"Better Digital Pictures For Dummies" - for insurance purposes, advertising, personal gun records or e-mail sharing.

Stan,
Yes, in the shade on a sunny day is a good place. The shade will flatten the light.

Ian,
We've got some really good amateur and professional photogs here. Maybe they'll chime in. I was a wannabe since I was about 11 yrs old but never made the leap.

The instant feed back of digital is great and you don't need things like Polaroids. Having a modeling light will give you the results you want much faster. Shooting outdoors with high overcast will give even light but it is not nearly as predictable as being able to do your shoots when you want such as evenings during the winter.
When you do shoot under cloudy conditions make sure you adjust the white balance show the color show off properly.

Stan,what I do (since my digital is a point and shoot) is to use the light coming in from a north facing window. Turn off the flash (since it cannot be directed) and use a tripod. I have used a number of different backgrounds and this works quite well. I too was bothered by the glare until I started using this method.

Regards - Ian Forrester

I have had some good results taking my pics in the early morning or late afternoon to early evening. The light is softer then. I have also put a strip of masking tape over the auto flash on my digital camera. This has had mixed results but it works sometimes.

Ian,
I bought a Nikon D50, Nikon flash SB800, and a remote cord that allows me to shut off the built-in camera flash and position the SB800 flash. This setup uses the lightmeter in the camera to control the flash so you can point the flash any direction and even bounce the flash off of walls and ceilings to soften the light. The flash can also be positioned to cast the light from the side/top/back or wherever to emphasize details.

With the newer D80 (10 mpxl)coming out soon, the D50 (6 mpxl) is already dropping in price. Unfortunately, the Nikon lenses are staying up there. I have a 60mm Macro-Nikkor for the close stuff and a variety of other lenses for the general work. I also have two point-n-shoots that I sometimes use for quick pics to post.

Thanks for info Chuck.
Just spent a bit south of 1K for a gee-whiz Olympus digital camera with two lenses for SWMBO. I didn't really pay much attention to the fine points - just wanted to get her a nice gift for our vacation. SWMBO loves it, and my dropping several multiples of 1K recently on two new (to me) "go-bang-items" didn't raise an eyelash.
Seems I'll have to spend some time in her instruction book to appreciate the Olympus' potential. SWMBO is an artist and woodworker, but I couldn't get her into stock work, nor engraving, maybe I'll get her into firearms photography.
Who knows..it may even lead to more SxSs to photograph.

I agree with all comments regarding lighting. I use outdoors when I can but it just isn't convenient for me 99% of the time. Indoors, I'm sure a remote flash as Chuck uses would be ideal, but I'll lkely never have one. My onboard flash is worse than useless. I get by with a half-dozen tungsten lights with clamps and some Home Depot 500W work lights that I can move around (and use for working on my car,too!). Can't completely eliminate reflections, but I can control them.

One suggestion I haven't seen made is to include a gray card in the scene where it can be cropped out. My guns all wear pretty wood and reproducing the colors is pretty much a one-click operation in Kodak Easyshare editing.

These were done with no flash, only available light.

I will typically meter the light for a neutral part of the item I want to shoot, then take a few images in the exposure range I think I'll need for the shot.

A tripod is essential to clear, crisp images shot in available light.

--Tinker

These gents are right as far as being in the shade on a sunny day. I almost always take mine under a tree or under the roof of my deck. It ususally works out better than indoors with a flash. Plus it gives you a better feeling or environment for a picture that the outdoors is the topic to begin with. Best wishes.

Lots of good tips, particularly outdoor/overcast.

Coin finish with engraving gave me probs with specular reflections, and Ken Hurst solved them fast: Mix copier toner into a Rig-rag, then wipe on/into engraving.

If you start with absolutely flat lighting (equal wherever you point your incident meter), you can then add highlights and shadows as desired. A 1.5 or 2:1 ratio is a good place to start (higher for greater drama or impact.) Tinker's look like around 3:1, perhaps higher in the bottom one.

You can create flat, reproducible lighting indoors the way Oscar did: Four equal photofloods or flash units at the top corners of a cube, with the subject at the cube's geometric center. Diffusers are helpful. Individual light's distances can be varied from selected corners to create departures from perfectly flat lighting. A PVC pipe cube frame works well.

Includint a neutral grey card (and it doesn't have to be a very big piece) for color balance is a great suggestion. Metering the exposure off a full sized card is most pro's starting point.

I have often thought about doing a story for SSM about firearms photography but just like everythign else, there is no simple road map to getting professional results. My set-up has evolved over a couple of decades and continues to as I get farther into digital imaging. Here are some of the results.
The set-up for veriticaly holding the guns using a steel rod in th bore. There are many advantages to this system.

A verticle image shown horizontally.

An at the workkbench close-up.
I use a Nikon D100 and that wonderful Nikor 60mm micro lens Chuck mentioned, for most images.
Tungsten lighting (1500 watts, 4 lights) bounced into reflectors and back onto the subject. There are way too many tricks to post here, but with enough encouragemetn I might do a magazine story.
SDH

There's a great selection of "still life" photo books out there. Without exception, lighting is the the biggest part of these studies. Composition is another subject and should be at least as lively a discussion.

Steve, I would very much like to see an article written by you on photography. I believe many folks would benefit by it. I am light years ahead with my photography because of your help. MP

I would really benefit from a SDH's "How-To" article.
March ON!!

Steven,

An article would benefit many, many people. There is nothing quite like experience coupled with the ability to express it understandably.

Thanks again to everyone for the help. My camera is nothing fancy, don't even know if I can disable the flash on it. I'll have to dig the manual out to see. But, we're gonna play with it and see what we can do. I really want to be able to reproduce the figure that is in the buttstock wood on the A-grade in a photo. We'll see.

Stan

Thanks for the support, gentlemen. I'll put that notion in the hopper for a column or two on next years schedule.

Here's one of checkering in process with available light.
SDH