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geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: Phaedrus2129 on Fri, 18 February 2011, 00:42:29

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: Phaedrus2129 on Fri, 18 February 2011, 00:42:29

I'm hot as hell and have a crick in my back and I'm cranky because I just spent the last hour taking pictures of a keyboard I'm considering selling. And I spent more than half that time trying to get a decent picture of a keycap, using all different macro filters and angles and ISO settings and lighting arrangements and bending over with a bright lamp right next to my face.


You don't get told you might end up doing stuff like this when you get into photography. Before I would have just taken a few pictures with my ****ty Kodak and said Good enough! Now I actually care about clarity and color balance, so I torture myself trying to get a good shot, and when I did finally get one with everything near perfect there was a shadow of the lens. Gah. So I had to rearrange my lighting and take another five shots to get one as good.

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: kill will on Fri, 18 February 2011, 00:47:50

i dont do it ... but people set up white areas with lighting and tripods to sell stuff.  definitely helps with sales.

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: Phaedrus2129 on Fri, 18 February 2011, 00:48:38

I'd do that eventually, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: Phaedrus2129 on Fri, 18 February 2011, 00:55:05

That's a big-ass lego man.

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: kip69 on Fri, 18 February 2011, 05:52:05

Or a small cap, think different man! ;)

And here are some round tuits.  Just do it already LOL

http://www.mylot.com/w/photokeywords/round+tuit.aspx (http://www.mylot.com/w/photokeywords/round+tuit.aspx)
I like this one
(http://images.mylot.com/userImages/images/postphotos/1978533.jpg)

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: firestorm on Fri, 18 February 2011, 07:05:45

I consider myself somewhat OCD, but I have to distribute my compulsive efforts or I'd become suicidal or something.  

When it comes to photography, I can generally accept whatever results I get with what I feel is an appropriate amount of time spent on a shot.  Perhaps that's because most are candid shots of the kids where you only get one shot.  The amount or frequency of post processing I put into my shots has gone down over time, but there are still plenty of times I don't get it right.  I blame those damn CFL lights for throwing white balance off all the time.

When I sell stuff, I don't put too much effort into it.  It depends on the item.  When we sold a car, I put a ton of effort into detailing the car, then properly framing shots in good light.  For things selling for about $100, I might throw out a white sheet and shoot with a flash attached.  For $50 or less, items are generally shot where they lay.

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: sixty on Fri, 18 February 2011, 11:04:46

CS5 comes in such a pretty packaging in the US? Ours came in a lame paper case which folds open like a pyramid.

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: chimera15 on Fri, 18 February 2011, 11:12:26

I found assembling a lightbox/tent helped my photos immensely on ones I actually try to make look good.  You can assemble one yourself pretty cheaply.

Usually I just drop a keyboard or whatever on my bed and photo it though, and don't care. lol

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: Maytan on Fri, 18 February 2011, 12:38:32

Oh snap, I have that flashlight.

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: grilkip on Fri, 18 February 2011, 12:46:12

I made a 1 m3 lightbox, thing is, I can't move it out of the room that it's in, or do anything else besides take photos there.

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: TexasFlood on Fri, 18 February 2011, 14:58:24

Quote from: ripster;297097

Well......Ansel never said it was easy....

Show Image

(http://www.artiges-hfp.de/struktur/giffsnstuff/appleCampagne/apple_adams.jpg)

If you're aspiring to by Ansel maybe see if you can find a deal on ebay for, say a Tachihara 4x5" (http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/tachihara.htm)?  Ansel used 4x5"s at least part of the time.  I've seen guys up in the mountains carrying around cameras like these around.  Of course you'll also need a good scanner to digitize the resulting photographs.

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: TexasFlood on Fri, 18 February 2011, 15:02:47

Quote from: ripster;297097

Well......Ansel never said it was easy....

Show Image

(http://www.artiges-hfp.de/struktur/giffsnstuff/appleCampagne/apple_adams.jpg)

If you're aspiring to be Ansel maybe see if you can find a deal on ebay for, say a Tachihara 4x5" (http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/tachihara.htm)?  Ansel used 4x5"s at least part of the time.  I've seen guys up in the mountains carrying around cameras like these around.  Of course you'll also need a good scanner to digitize the resulting photographs.

Title: Rant: photography
Post by: TexasFlood on Fri, 18 February 2011, 19:27:22

Quote from: ripster;297370

I just like the ads.

This ad is good not because it is HD, it's because it's different.

Shouldn't Bill Gates be in there? :wink: