Photo Critique Followup

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Cwalker935

Cwalker935

Member
Joined
May 18, 2014
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3,517
Location
Richmond, Va
As many of you will recall, I asked for and received a critique of a photo over this past weekend. I also received many helpful tips for improving my photos. Rich was particularly helpful. In addition to putting these tips into practice, I spent some quality time with my camera manual to learn how to use a magnifying feature for manually focusing. The end result is the following photo of my entry into the recent into the ballpoint contest. My earlier picture was not very good.

I feel that this photo is actually pretty darn good. Any thoughts?

image.jpg
 
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Well, first off, this is a different pen. And a "wowser" at that. Nice work!

The photo is quite a bit better the the previous batch. But, frankly, I'm not a fan of shooting direct on. My tastes call for the pen to be at an angle. And the color balance still seems a bit off to me. Too "green"? I'd also up the exposure a stop or so.
 
I am still struggling to get the "white balance" right. The direct shooting was to make sure that my focusing was better. I will experiment with some sexier poses now that I have a better handle on the manual focusing. My screen was too small and eyesight too poor for manually focusing before I learned how to magnify my focus point.
 
I saw your photos at the start of your other thread, this one is a big improvement, looks like you are on the right track.

I am not familiar with your camera, but I think you should be able to take a white balance reading and save it as a custom setting for your lighting and environment where you are taking your pen photos.
 
That is a big improvement. And I agree with Ted on the color balance. And you don't have to turn the pen much, just a bit. Maybe 10 degrees at most.

And BTW, that is a killer pen. :good:

EDIT: When I was doing the same thing you're doing now, I looked closely at the stand. When I felt like the stand looked correct, everything else did too. I also went to Michaels & got a piece of gray foam board to use as a backdrop. That gave me a good color reference.
 
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Yes, you are onto it now !!
It looks great from here, but are you happy with the colors compared to what the pen looks like in your hand ? If you are happy, you can move onto your composition now, placing the pen in a pleasing setting to show it off at its best.

I am also a member of a photography forum, I went there for help to better my pen photography. I find the photographers on that forum liked my pens sitting on a staged scene, such as the pen sitting on a nice greeting card, but ask a penturner if they liked that sort of photo or one of just the pen sitting on a plain background, most seemed to chose the plain background. Just an observation.
Because of this I nearly always sit my pen on a piece of grey textured paper, sometimes I will use a small rock or piece of antler to prop the pen up a bit.
I know your acrylic stand is convenient, but I dont think it helps to show off the pen at its best.
This is just my opinion anyway.
 
I have continued playing with my color settings and feel like this is close to the right color composition. I feel like i now have a better setup, and a better handle on aperture, shutter speed, etc. I think that I now just need to continue tweaking and working on how best to pose my pens. How to display pens seems to involve alot of personal preference and I need to decide what I like. Thanks for the support and helpful tips.

Thanks Rich, Bob, Ted, Jan and Ironwood
Janster, be well.
Btw Ted, go Hokies! Sorry, but I went to Va. Tech and am hoping that the Hokies have a good showing on Sat.

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.without a doubt, a nice improvement. The nib seems out of focus and the clip has smudges. I try to remember to wear cotton glove when I place the pens in the stand. Also if you tun the pen 90º to the lens all most all of the depth will be on an equal plane. At that point you can focus on the center band and all will be pretty much perfectly focused. If the clip is somewhat plain Jane I would twist it out of the way. You're heading in the right direction IMO. Be well.......Jan
 
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