Studio photography
Working in the studio photographing golf clubs with my friend Nick (over from Athens) assisting.
Thirty-six shots required of each golf club head against a white background. Each head had to be rotated through 360 degrees, and photographed at every 10 degree interval. All the clubs are different lengths: different types of finishes like metallic, shot blast, glossy, matt; different shapes, flat, bulbous, angled. A lot of variables.
First we set the gear up. It’s amazing how a studio space fills up. A couple of shots taken on my Nokia N95 phone camera.
Assembling the kit and having a tea was the easiest part of the day, and a chance to discuss with Nick approach to photographing the golf clubs. We arranged the products by type and size so we knew which order to photograph them. Once the gear was set up Nick prepared the gizmo for holding the golf clubs. He was in charge of that procedure. It was still in an experimental stage.
The scene in a studio can look messy! As long the shot looks great… Some surfaces reflect light in bizarre ways. It can be a struggle, and time consuming, to find solutions to lighting problems.
The digital camera, mounted on a tripod, and tethered to the laptop, is ideal for product shot photography. You can see the detail clearly on a larger screen. It’s much easier to see what needs adjusting in the scene. You can shoot till you get it right.
The digital camera is tethered to the laptop via a 5 metre long USB cable. The cable is taped to the side of the tripod in case the lead gets pulled out. The laptop is running standard Canon software for capturing images. ( I do have a version of Capture One for shooting raw files). When a shots are important it’s possible to shoot raw and jpeg files simultaneously. The raw files can be adjusted to produce better quality jpegs or tiffs. It takes time to process raw files, there needs to be a fee for doing it. Download can be a bit slow but you can take several shots and let the software do its thing. You can also fire the camera remotely from the laptop which can save a lot of time.
The camera is fitted with a wireless trigger and two flash heads are each fitted with a receiver. Sometimes the triggers don’t work but it is rare. Have to keep an eye out for a misfire.
The laptop is an Apple g4 iBook until I can afford to invest in a more powerful Apple Pro laptop! It works well. I keep it clear of unwanted software and files. I use Canon’s ImageBrowser and Photoshop for viewing the files. Laptop is set up in its own space. A few blank CD’s to back up the work.
The solid tripod once in position is gaffer taped to the floor so it’s not knocked out of position during photography. The tripod has two spirit levels which provides a good starting point.
I am using three flash heads. The Bowens Prolite 100 (750W) is fitted with a metre square softbox. The two Bowens Prolite 60’s (250W) are pointed at 45 degrees to the wall to bleach out the background. The wireless trigger is used because the voltage in the flash units is approximately 12 volts and can damage the digital camera circuitry. Also its one less cable trailing the floor. Newer lights have a voltage of less than 5 volts which is safe for the digital camera.
I am using a Canon 30D digital SLR. On this occasion I’m shooting large jpegs (normally I would shoot large jpegs and RAW files simultaneously). Large jpeg quality is acceptable for this job. Attached is a Canon 17-40mm L lens. It’s a good quality lens and works well with digital, minimum flare if any. I am shooting at 40mm and only using the middle of the frame. I will crop the image substantially for final use. I haven’t take this lens off since I got mountains of dust on the sensor after switching lens! With this lens I have not had a spec of dust on the sensor! (Always turn off the power on the camera when changing lenses to minimise dust getting onto the sensor.)
Nick set-up the gizmo.
I don’t have a boom which would allow me to place the softbox directly above the golf club head so I used it to one side. A polystyrene sheet is used on the opposite side. It’s black on one side white on the flip. The set-up had to allow space for Nick to work in. He rotated the club head from the top position. On his initiative we also started doing some of the shots remotely from the laptop, saving time. We used a lot of gaffer tape to hold things in place.
With a basic set-up getting everything as level as possible with a spirit level I took some test shots for exposure readings, using a shutter speed of 1/60th second (that’s the fastest shutter speed available on this Canon camera) and apertures of f13, f14, f16. On this occasion I didn’t use a flash meter. I looked at the image closely, played with the Levels to see what leeway I had with the exposure.
I looked at the images in two ways, one as stills and secondly a flash movie. Not every shot had to be spot on and not every images needed to look like a perfect still. With the softbox on one side I wanted the other side to rotate into shadowy space choosing a black or white reflector depending on the colours and textures in the clubs. Some of the process is experimental. It can very time consuming.
More in to come in another posting…
Hey Bip… nice working with you that day - it was a long one - look forward to assisting you again sometime soon.
Cheers.
i think you are doing a great job keep it up i would love to come to your studi and see how you do it soooooooooo well
p.s im 14 yrs old lol and sooooooooo into photography ill send you some pics of my fav placee
plz reply ill send you some pics of my fav places 2 click lol where is your studio i was the sender of the last two messages plz plz plz reply, it would be my dream come true 2 become a photographyer
still no reply, plz reply my email is millz1810@hotmail.com plz plz plz