New Photo Tent

[OldGrumpy]

My wife gave me a photo tent for Christmas. Makes a ton of difference in the quality of pictures I can make. Still lots of room for improvement on pen making and photo taking, but I am having lots of fun.

 

[TBCbushings]

Nice pens and pictures!
Brian

 

[76winger]

They do help. Enjoy getting it and your camera working together well.

 

[toddlajoie]

I like the composition of the second photo MUCH better than the first, but I would suggest that you look into turning off the flash on the camera and instead use some lights on the tent. This will help get rid of that shadow behind your pen, and make the lighting a bit more interesting, bringing out the detail of the pen/wood. You can go as simple or as crazy as you want with the lights, but my suggestion for cheap/easy/available is the clamp on aluminum dish lights, they're cheap, you can put all kinds of different lightbulbs in them (my suggestion would be the daylight flourescents) and you can clamp them to just about anything to position them where you want them. 3 or 4 of them and a small tripod will likely make a huge difference.

If a tripod is out of the question, then scratch the aluminum reflectors and get 3 or 4 dirt cheap halogen work lights (I've seen the ad HD for $7 each, nearly costs as much for a replacement 500W bulb...) They will give you enough light to shoot without a tripod AND heat your shop during the winter...:biggrin: Just do be careful. they really do get hot and can melt or catch things on fire if they are not treated with care....