All About Pocket Knives

Well I am still working at this.

Here is a test of one I just received from the snail-man.

I will try to do some pearl soon.

Any ideas on the focus ?

Ken, Pearl handles give me the most trouble trying to pick up the color in the pearl. I don't use a light box with pearl and try to use just natural lighting from the window with a white backdrop.

I tried a light box but ended up returning it. Could not get it right.

I like satin for pearl. White on white. Pink on pink, etc.

Here is a pink I did.

KOOL ... That is some good PINK you are showing...

Nice job I will have to work real hard to come close to yours.

I am going to use yours as a gage to work on.

First the knife then the background and I won't say any thing else...

Ken, there is definitly more than one way to skin a cat, but light boxes can and do work. The opal handled lobster below was taken in a light box, and look at all the fire. If you still have that Kodak Z700, turn the dial to PASS mode(this is your manual settings). Use macro,center spot, and center zone. Use diffused light and not the flash on your camera.
Gary[

Ken picking up fire is hard to do outside or in. The right lighting is everything. So just keep trying. For instance, I can get the fire inside under canned lighting at the right angle but outside, hopeless. That whole dark area on the second pic is where the real fire is in this knife but I can't seem to achieve it outdoors.

Singin46

Ken,

I'm sure capturing the fire in pearl is mostly the result of finding the right angle of the light source on the knife, in relation to the camera lens.

To prove this to yourself, try holding a pearl handled knife under a lamp, and see how the color changes as you slowly turn and twist the knife, changing the angle in relation to your lens ( eye ).

The color temperature of your light source probably has a big effect on the colors reflected by the pearl also.

The biggest difficulty may be to get the reflectivity off the pearl while controlling glare on the blades.

Practice and experiment. You'll save lots of money because you'll be too busy to be buying more knives.

Fran

capturing the fire in pearl is mostly the result of finding the right angle of the light source on the knife, in relation to the camera lens.

THis is totally correct. Just shifting up or down on the angle and produce a drastic change in the fire.[/quote][/code]

Remember to adjust your exposure levels as well. Slightly over exposure usually improves the photo. Try different levels to achieve the perfect photo

David

Ken, the soft focus may be due to camera movement. Try using a tripod with a hand held shutter release off the camera, or just set it to go off automatically on the timed setting. If you don't have a tripod, hold the camera against a solid stationary object to steady it.

Eric

It's raining, hailing, sleeting here in Pa. The roads suck, nothing is on eBay, the forum is quiet, and I'm bored. So..........I decided to play with the camera, my only Bulldog, my only pen.

This should illustrate the importance of angle.

Light in front from a gloomy North window, and incandescent from a rear overhead source.

The only thing that changed was the camera location as I moved it around the knife, and tried different angles. Don't judge location from the photos because I rotated all images in the program to look the same.

No adjustments to the camera. I just turned off the flash, and let the kodak V550 do it's own thing.

About 10 minutes time and some very nice black lip produced this illustration of the importance of angle.

Fran

Fran,

I know that the jest of this thread is the capture of pearl in the light, but I wanted to comment that Mark Z of knife world taught me that the pic must CLEARLY show the tang stamp as that is very important to most lookers. Not that yours isn't good, you just might try getting in a little closer to capture that important part. I like to tip the knife one way or another to get the best "reflection" for the photo. I use a little piece of gummy wall hanging material placed on the back side to hold the knife in just the right position. I also us a slightly tilted base for the knife as well. I had so much trouble with the pearls I did for the Jan 2006 article that I actually had Mark do them and then teach me. He is a master.

Oh and over exposure comment I made above will really help as well. NO flash please. I use plus one and sometimes two

Thanks for the tips David.

You are right, I was only trying to show one aspect of capturing pearl and the last photo is not that good at that either. It's "larger than life." It makes the pearl look better than in person, but I think illustrated the effect angle of light has.

I've just been taking the knife photos straight on, with the knife on a snack table, and the camera on a tripod overhead.

I'll try the exposure compensation, but if anyone ever makes a decent digital camara with dials to turn, instead of buttons to push and menus to deal with, I want one. Technology can be soooo taxing.

Fran