Today the Etsy shop-building team met to have a photo-shoot. We set up light boxes with a variety of background papers and did some experimenting.
Thanks to Brenda for hosting, and to Karen, Caroline, Ellen Y., Karina and Sharon (and me, Dana!) for coming!!
First, some recent work. Here's a series of pics taken on Brenda's ottoman of the participants recent work that they wanted to photograph:
Karina's brass castings just came back and are amazing!!
This is Ellen's beautiful piece.
Recent gorgeous work by Sharon!
Karen's fun skull earrings!
Okay, now onto the PHOTOSHOOT!!
These lovely earrings by Ellen were taken with her iphone!!!!
Caroline's necklace, also taken with her iphone, came out great! IMHO, the best photos came out on a mid-tone background. The pics taken with background papers white or black, suffered a bit from contrast issues and camera confusion!
Caroline's gorgeous earrings.
Caroline's necklace and earring set. A great composition and a nice shot WITH HER IPHONE.
In fact, many of the pics were taken with iphones, which surprisingly did very well! Look at Karen's comparison:
Karen did the above comparison... "It doesn't have the depth of field, but the iphone photo is pretty darn nice!"
The iphone also has a lens available, called the Olloclip (at Apple stores or at the Apple online store) that helped get closer to objects and still have them be in focus- it has a macro/wide angle lens, as well as a fisheye lens.
Here are some links:
Light box use was really important. Hard to count on natural light being available or convenient. Also, don't use incandescent lights- too yellow! Use these specialty bulbs made to mimic natural light:
Good pictures came not so much because of a good camera, but more because of the nice diffused light from the light box (even a handmade one by Karina!) either purchased or made. Mine was a structure of PVC piping (see earlier post) with a white sheet hung over it, then lights shone at it from either side. Here's directions:
Karen used a clear Sterilite bin and draped a white lacy cloth over it to diffuse the lights on either side.
Background paper was also important. Most of us liked the grey to black gradated paper that you can get from this link:
