The how to photograph watches thread

The how to photograph watches thread

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Discussion

Stuart

11,635 posts

250 months

Monday 4th October 2010
quotequote all
rottie102 said:
Camera In Phones suck though wink
I dunno about that. My iPhone 4 takes staggeringly good pictures for what it is.

rottie102

3,993 posts

183 months

Tuesday 5th October 2010
quotequote all
Stuart said:
rottie102 said:
Camera In Phones suck though wink
I dunno about that. My iPhone 4 takes staggeringly good pictures for what it is.
For what it is - yes.

Now go and take similar pictures :




Shall I go on? wink

LordGrover

33,531 posts

211 months

Tuesday 5th October 2010
quotequote all
rottie102 said:
For what it is - yes.

Now go and take similar pictures :
Shall I go on? wink
Only fair if you make a call, send a text and browse the web on your camera.

ThatPhilBrettGuy

11,809 posts

239 months

Tuesday 5th October 2010
quotequote all
rottie102 said:
Stuart said:
rottie102 said:
Camera In Phones suck though wink
I dunno about that. My iPhone 4 takes staggeringly good pictures for what it is.
For what it is - yes.

Now go and take similar pictures :


Shall I go on? wink
I didn't know the iPhone 4 came out in 2005. From wikipedia :-


rottie102

3,993 posts

183 months

Tuesday 5th October 2010
quotequote all
ThatPhilBrettGuy said:
rottie102 said:
Stuart said:
rottie102 said:
Camera In Phones suck though wink
I dunno about that. My iPhone 4 takes staggeringly good pictures for what it is.
For what it is - yes.

Now go and take similar pictures :


Shall I go on? wink
I didn't know the iPhone 4 came out in 2005. From wikipedia :-

And your point is?
What's the difference when the picture was taken.

As for the other reply - well, that's what I agreed on - it takes goodish pictures for a camera in a phone. Just please let's not try to compare it to a dslr.


End of off topic?? Let's not ruin a very good thread.

ThatPhilBrettGuy

11,809 posts

239 months

Tuesday 5th October 2010
quotequote all
rottie102 said:
And your point is?
What's the difference when the picture was taken.
My point is it can't have been taken with an iPhone 4. Saying how good the pictures from it are then posting one that can't have been taken with it doesn't really help when comparing kit.

Adrian W

13,848 posts

227 months

Tuesday 5th October 2010
quotequote all
rottie102 said:
End of off topic?? Let's not ruin a very good thread.
I hate to say it.......but he's the mod, he ends the topics

rottie102

3,993 posts

183 months

Tuesday 5th October 2010
quotequote all
ThatPhilBrettGuy and Adrian W -

Please read everything again, slowly this time... wink

So, back on topic, anyone else willing to share any tips and trick about photographing watches?

ThatPhilBrettGuy

11,809 posts

239 months

Tuesday 5th October 2010
quotequote all
rottie102 said:
ThatPhilBrettGuy and Adrian W -

Please read everything again, slowly this time... wink

So, back on topic, anyone else willing to share any tips and trick about photographing watches?
Sorry yes I see what you mean now paperbag

That's all good then. So as you say back on the subject...

...Somewhere I've seen an article where at 50mm lens is taped on the front of a telephoto...back to front giving a super macro. The DoF was amazingly small. A couple of mm I remember. That'll be interesting to try. Also I've got a microscope somewhere. Hhhmmm...

andy tims

5,571 posts

245 months

Tuesday 5th October 2010
quotequote all

rottie102

3,993 posts

183 months

Tuesday 5th October 2010
quotequote all
andy tims said:
From the above - this is awesome!

andy_s

19,397 posts

258 months

Wednesday 6th October 2010
quotequote all
andy tims said:
Some expert tips from Muska's thread "A watch photographer"
http://www.harrytan.sg/watches/Better%20Watch%20Ph...
He's done some great photo's in the past - that's a really good guide for someone who doesn't know their f-stop from their elbow. Like me. Cheers.

cyberface

Original Poster:

12,214 posts

256 months

Wednesday 6th October 2010
quotequote all
LordGrover said:
rottie102 said:
For what it is - yes.

Now go and take similar pictures :
Shall I go on? wink
Only fair if you make a call, send a text and browse the web on your camera.
The iPhone 4 is only 'staggering' because all iPhones before it were preposterously, laugh-out-loud appalling biggrin I've had and hacked them all, and the iPhone 4's camera is in a different league to all previous iPhones.

However the iPhone is not the only smartphone. I'd expect the top end Sony Ericsson units to have half decent lenses for phones, but I've never used 'em.

There's always the argument about how it's the photographer that makes the photo, and not the kit - but this is only true for images where you're not in control. Something like the sunset this evening as I got out of my car - by the time I'd rushed back home, got out the DSLR and tripod, messed about trying to remember what settings to use, and taken a photo, the light would have gone. So iPhone it was.

With watch photography - completely different argument since you have complete control over the subject. So use the best kit you've got, makes sense, no?

Of course, that doesn't mean that this thread should only focus (ehh) on DSLRs because we don't all have one. Tips on shooting with a cameraphone are *very* useful because a lot of us will take better *wrist shots* with a cameraphone than their DSLR… However I'd recommend that nothing inferior to, say, the iPhone 3GS be considered as a 'camera' phone - the 'camera' unit in previous iPhones was simply SO poor quality that I can't imagine any way of getting a reasonable photo out of one...

cyberface

Original Poster:

12,214 posts

256 months

Thursday 7th October 2010
quotequote all
Mwuahahaha!!!!

Sod the recession, in fact sod anything relating to being sensible. I walked into my local camera shop looking for these £10 'extension tubes' so I could turn my latest acquisition 'one lens to rule them all' Tamron 18-270 into a macro-capable lens.

Here you go sir, said the friendly chap. Extension tubes - £169. WTF? Surely I can get a proper macro lens for not much more? Yup, I can.

So now I am furnished with a proper macro lens for my Nikon. Prepare for 'all the gear, no idea' cyberface to take some bloody average movement and dial closeup shots with equipment that a talented photographer would turn into magazine-advert quality stuff!

rofl

Anyway - had to learn about aperture. So I tapped up my uncle, who is a retired professional photographer (they never retire). He slagged off my Tamron lens, pointed out that he had the Nikon model better than mine, and when I complained that he was a pro, he dropped in 'well, I wasn't going to mention the £100k+ collection of Hasselblad medium format cameras I used to use professionally' - he's that sort of guy. However, even though he picked a fight he was always going to lose at the end of the night (family get-together - always bad news in the cyberface household), he taught me very succinctly firstly why (a) my Tamron 'one lens' was having trouble focusing (my fault - slapped a circular polariser as combination lens protection on, without realising it saps 30% of the available light. Idiot), and (b) what aperture settings mean and how to control them on his camera (which was very similar to mine, being the next model up Nikon digital).

So…. let's see what I can do, somewhat inebriated, in completely artificial light and utterly inappropriate surroundings…. (there will be a photo here in 15 minutes or so)

Stuart

11,635 posts

250 months

Thursday 7th October 2010
quotequote all
Excellent. Gratuitous spending on unnecessary camera gear always gets a thumb up from me. I'm a specialist in self justification and spouse fooling, and camera stuff is both very easy to sneak into the house and easy to justify (look how lovely you/your mum/the cat looks in this photo now I've got this new lens etc).

I'm surprised though CF. Given your general awareness of "stuff" and analytical mind I thought you'd have got to grips with aperture, light and depth of field some time ago. Interesting subject to play around with once you understand the fundamentals, and it it'll transform your approach to picture composition.

Time to suck up to Uncle Cyberface too. Does he have kids? If not then I'd line yourself up to inherit the Hasselblads. smile

cyberface

Original Poster:

12,214 posts

256 months

Thursday 7th October 2010
quotequote all
OK - no tripod, somewhat drunk, handheld in artificial light with no flash - bits of Project Lator:





My first two pictures with this lens and I've got no idea what I'm doing, but I *like* what a complete idiot can do with this thing lick

I have a particular 'thing' for screwed balances (weird) and would love to transplant the screwed balance of the older chrono into the Landeron 189 but… we will see.

That's with standard settings and manual focus - no manual alteration of aperture etc. yet so I can change the depth of field.

Stuart - yes, normally it'd be something I'd be all over, but I've only acquired a DSLR fairly recently (couple of years?) and had so much work on my plate that learning the minutiae of how cameras actually *work* has escaped me. I've always tended to focus (argh) on landscape photography esp. mountains when skiing - and all that needs really is a nice wide angle lens and being in the right place at the right time with the right light (easier in the mountains!). Close up stuff and portrait is proving a right old challenge and I need to learn stuff. So I am.

No more messing around when inebriated though, don't want to bust this one!!!!

Stuart

11,635 posts

250 months

Thursday 7th October 2010
quotequote all
cyberface said:
I've always tended to focus (argh) on landscape photography esp. mountains when skiing - and all that needs really is a nice wide angle lens and being in the right place at the right time with the right light (easier in the mountains!).
One for another thread perhaps, but I'd disagree with this, as will you once you play around. For landscape you can do a huge amount with depth of field - and the results from shooting wide open can be as pleasing as they are different from closing down as much as possible to give a DOF from your nose to the horizon. Play around next time you're out, and you'll see what I mean.

Pics are good, but they make me feel a bit inebriated with that tilt-shift look. I'd narrow down a little so that the depth of field extends to make the foreground in focus just a little more. The strong bokeh behind to bring out the detail of the movement is pretty bloody good for an inebriated first go though thumbup.

cyberface

Original Poster:

12,214 posts

256 months

Thursday 7th October 2010
quotequote all
Stuart said:
cyberface said:
I've always tended to focus (argh) on landscape photography esp. mountains when skiing - and all that needs really is a nice wide angle lens and being in the right place at the right time with the right light (easier in the mountains!).
One for another thread perhaps, but I'd disagree with this, as will you once you play around. For landscape you can do a huge amount with depth of field - and the results from shooting wide open can be as pleasing as they are different from closing down as much as possible to give a DOF from your nose to the horizon. Play around next time you're out, and you'll see what I mean.

Pics are good, but they make me feel a bit inebriated with that tilt-shift look. I'd narrow down a little so that the depth of field extends to make the foreground in focus just a little more. The strong bokeh behind to bring out the detail of the movement is pretty bloody good for an inebriated first go though thumbup.
Sorry, should have said 'all I need really is a…' - absolute statements about a discipline I know bugger-all about are obviously idiotic. I'm just so struck with the beauty of the mountains that all I need is a camera that has a half decent lens and can do VGA resolution hehe One of my favourites is still from the 'dark ages' of digital photography but the cloud level was below the mountain I was standing on, creating a 'sea of cloud' effect - wonderful, and nothing to do with 'photography' as a skill and artform but just because I was *there*. But as you say, a topic for another thread.

Whilst I can still hit the keys I'm aiming at, I'll call it a day because I thought the whole pictures were in focus above - not sure what you mean by 'tilt-shift' Stuart? confused


paperbaghehedrunk

LordGrover

33,531 posts

211 months

Friday 8th October 2010
quotequote all
Are you sure you haven't just been fiddling with tiltshift?

ETA: Oops - mentioned already. Here's a linky to a DIY tiltshift site: click.

Edited by LordGrover on Friday 8th October 08:14

andy_s

19,397 posts

258 months

Friday 8th October 2010
quotequote all
cyberface said:
creating a 'sea of cloud' effect
Called a 'cloud inversion' in rambler parlance.

I saw some 'tilt-shift' stuff for the first time on the BBC's pics of the Monaco Grand Prix I think, very weird yet cool...


Fer fecks sake - just as I'm getting to grips with watches the last few days have seen me trawl around for information about cameras now - I really do need to replace the perfectly good Canon ixus I've got with something far more ingenious and interesting. This led me to the Photography sub-forum, this led me to Olympus OM1s (vintage, manual, classic) and then yes, to Hasselblad (visions of Alfie & David Bailey). Once I'd pulled my head out of the clouds I started reading up on micro 4/3rds cameras, and I think, that's where my money will go next...

Edited by andy_s on Friday 8th October 09:09