The how to photograph watches thread

[cyberface]

I guess this one could be a useful sticky or wiki - mods, please decide.

Lots of us post pics of our watches on here. There's even a perpetual Wrist Shot thread. Many of the photos are simply dire - the usual excuse is 'poor equipment' but unless you've got a pre-3GS iPhone, that's BS Some of the photos are comically bad - taken clearly with a multi-megapixel decent digital camera, with the owner's patterned carpet in crisp, precise focus but the arm and watch blurred to hell Some aren't even recognisable as a watch. Many photos taken with the flash are all over the shop because watches tend to be shiny and the flash bounces back off the watch and blinds the CCD. And the slightest amount of shake or blur ruins fine detail, which is a shame when you're trying to show some particularly beautiful guilloche on the dial. Even if focus is manually sorted, some photos don't look anything like the watch in reality because the colours are all out of balance, and this can make what is an utterly stunning watch in real life look plain and dull in a photo.

I'm guilty of ALL of the above at some point (though never focused on my shoes, I've certainly had a freckle on my wrist in perfect focus but the dial guilloche (which I wanted to show) blurred enough to be useless.

Every photographer I've met whose photos I consider to be 'art' (good, in other words ) all say the same thing - it's not the camera, it's the subject / situation and the light. This is true - artistic photos often result from being in the right place at the right time, and any camera you have will have to do. But in the case of watch photography, we've got a defined desire for the photo (a clear, accurate image of the watch showing what it really looks like).

So - how do we do this guys? I was inspired for this thread by a reply from andy tims, whose photography is consistently superb. Oddly enough the other regular who I immediately think of when great photos are considered is andy_s, so that's two quality snappers called Andy. And I can't forget tertius, who is also one of the top dogs (his photos of his Zenith El Primero chronos are just sublime). No offence to the other regulars here who also take cracking photos, but these three are my favourites….

andy tims said:

NeMiSiS said:

I take it you have a decent camera and maybe light box, they are not your average BlackBerry shots, well done.

Cheers
The camera is a Nikon D90 (so pretty decent, but far from pro quality) No light box though, I just position the watches near some natural light - usually the kitchen window sill.

Please can everyone chip in with suggestions on how to take great watch shots. Focus (heh) on the type of camera being used. I have a D50 Nikon but can't achieve anything *like* the results Andy Tims does - his camera is better than mine but not by the proportion that his photos are better than mine.

Ideally I'd like this split into three classes - recommendations (from those who've had success) on how to get the best watch picture using:

• a smartphone camera (forget pre-3GS iPhones, the camera was beyond useless, but most modern phones can take acceptable photos done correctly)
• a typical point-and-shoot (e.g. Canon Ixus, that type of thing)
• a typical DSLR (an average one like my D50)

I'm assuming that anyone with an old SLR and film is an enthusiast and knows what they're doing. But most of us have cameraphones, most of us will have a digital point-and-shoot, and it appears that quite a few of us here have DSLRs. And many of those (like me, for example) are 'all the gear, no idea' and don't know how to use them properly.

Selfishly, I'd really appreciate tips on what settings to use with my D50 so I can just bung it on its tripod, arrange the watch in the position I want, adjust the focus manually so it's perfect, and take the photo. However I'm so inept that every time I try this, the camera makes some decisions for me… and I'm not skilled enough to use FULLY manual mode. So for DSLR muppets like me - which variables at a *minimum* do I need to adjust to get good watch pictures? I understand focus and exposure length. Do I need to know about aperture… and if so, what do I do? And how can I set my D50 to allow me to manually do focus and exposure (and whatever else is required for watches) but everything else is handled by the camera? It's a lot of questions, sorry if it's asking too much.

For point-and-shoot, you're going to be dependent on the camera's autofocus in most cases. The quality of the light will therefore have the biggest impact so tips on where best to actually *take* photos, and with the light from which direction, would be useful. I've found that using the flash always ruins a watch picture so manually turning off the flash with a point-and-shoot is essential - this often then needs a tripod to avoid shake. Some point-and-shoots have adjustment for exposure, aperture, colour balance (digital) etc. so tips on what can help here would be good.

For smartphones, there are fewer parameters to get really good photos. Bright natural light is best because the phone can take a short exposure time and this minimises shake. Any application that allows you to take a photo either timed after a delay, or by pressing a hardware button (and not pressing a touchscreen like the standard iPhone camera app) is valuable since you can then clamp the smartphone somewhere solid, turn off the flash and use a longer exposure without hand shake ruining it.


But I'd really like to take quality photos with my DSLR. If everyone chips in with top tips (and examples where necessary) then this thread could be a gold-mine of information for the entire forum, and even better - improve the average quality of posted photos. And that'll be superb, because there are people here with some utterly beautiful watches - and a real broad range of tastes - and sometimes I'm left thinking 'oooh - that looks like it'd be gorgeous but I can't tell from the photo'.

I'm about to start Project Lator and that will involve lots of photos, some of some exquisite detail. If I take the photos with my current skills and knowledge, the thread will be disappointing. I'd love to get *great* pictures of this.

And a fancy setup isn't needed. Yes, the SLR makes manual focus a bit easier and more wieldy. But I bet one of the Andys or tertius with my iPhone 4 would take a better picture of my watches than me with my DSLR. It's in the skill and knowing how to use the light, then knowing how to use the camera.


Basically, I know some of what I don't know - and that's more than half way there (there are, of course, the unknown unknowns, but I don't want to go there because I'll have that Rumsfeld explanation in my head and be laughing all afternoon). Industry and trade secrets aside, what are the best things to do? Especially if one has a DSLR?

[cyberface]

Thanks *ever* so much - this has given me already a load of information which will make my pictures orders of magnitude better.

Haven't been on the forum much this week because of 18 hour days on an insane timescale project, and though both my Lator with Landeron 189 and rose gold Chronographe Suisse (turned out to be rubbish, wasn't expecting to be lucky twice with eBay frankly) have arrived, I haven't been able to do anything other than pull the casebacks off and check the size and whether the CS was 'heavy solid 18ct rose gold' as described by the seller (it isn't - the caseback is incredibly thin 18ct rose gold, the lugs are hollow and the watch weighs less than the 9ct plated Lator - hardly a 'heavy gold' watch… looks like I may have to get one custom made).

However this doesn't mean Project Lator is dead and I won't be taking the photos that I wanted to learn about here… because the CS contains a Landeron 48 - with a screwed balance. I've only seen screwed balances on top-end watches (proper top-end) and the Landeron 189 in the Lator doesn't have one.

All my documentation says that most parts are interchangeable between Landeron chrono movements… so I'm going to try to fit the screwed balance to the Landeron 189. It may not make the movement keep better time, but it'll look much nicer

So, now I'm armed with basic knowledge of what the aperture f-numbers actually mean and examples of what they do, I reckon close-ish photos with great focus and control of focus (depth of field) are within my grasp, which is essential when photographing a movement!!!

Keep it coming and thanks for making it sticky - no doubt there are some trade secrets that will be kept secret by those in the business who want an edge, and I have no problem with that - but already I feel that I can do better with my DSLR even without buying a dedicated macro lens… This sort of information helps us all, especially in the Wrist Shot perpetual threads

[cyberface]

andy_s said:

Brilliant stuff, good initiative CF and thanks for all the input. Is there anything anyone does to the pics after taking to enhance them or is it all 'raw'?

Given my Apple tendencies I've got a basic install of iPhoto - which has amongst its very basic 'easy' features a levels adjuster. This shows the RGB intensity across the spectrum and I use it extensively to get away with crap light conditions - if you've taken a photo in bad light then you may have all the colours bunched up towards the darker end of the range - iPhoto lets you stretch it out to make the most of a bad pic.

However the best trick is to not take a bad photo in the first place. There's only so much you can achieve with software - if you don't have the data to begin with (resolution here applies to both range of intensities of colours as well as spatial resolution) you can't magic it into existence. Interpolation is obvious to most eyes, and with finely detailed objects like watches, sometimes pretty useless.

[cyberface]

LordGrover said:

rottie102 said:

For what it is - yes.

Now go and take similar pictures :
Shall I go on?

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 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]

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!



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)

[cyberface]

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

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!!!!

[cyberface]

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 .

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 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?