Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Photographing weapons

migueldiaz · 28th January 2010, 04:38 AM

I was just chatting with a friend who's a professional photographer.

His tip to me in photographing a sword (and so that the flash will not create a bright glare on the blade) is as follows --

1. use a cable to remotely place the flash, i.e., on the right (or left) side of the sword;

2. then place an (upright) piece of white paper or cardboard on the opposite side;

3. experiment with the various combination of the lens opening and shutter speed;

4. frame the shot so that there's a liberal amount of empty space to the left and to the right of the sword (will come handy when editing the image digitally later); and

5. to err on the side of caution, it's better to have slightly darker photos than brighter ones (slightly darker photos lend themselves better to digital editing).

I'll certainly try the above setup one of these days.

Then another friend said that rather than buying an expensive macro lens (for photographing details), it's better to just buy a cheap point-and-shoot camera with good macro capabilities.

28th January 2010, 04:38 AM	#33
migueldiaz Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Manila, Phils. Posts: 1,042	I was just chatting with a friend who's a professional photographer. His tip to me in photographing a sword (and so that the flash will not create a bright glare on the blade) is as follows -- 1. use a cable to remotely place the flash, i.e., on the right (or left) side of the sword; 2. then place an (upright) piece of white paper or cardboard on the opposite side; 3. experiment with the various combination of the lens opening and shutter speed; 4. frame the shot so that there's a liberal amount of empty space to the left and to the right of the sword (will come handy when editing the image digitally later); and 5. to err on the side of caution, it's better to have slightly darker photos than brighter ones (slightly darker photos lend themselves better to digital editing). I'll certainly try the above setup one of these days. Then another friend said that rather than buying an expensive macro lens (for photographing details), it's better to just buy a cheap point-and-shoot camera with good macro capabilities.