Featured Photographing your antiques

Love the great photos in this thread!

I don't have a good space near a window with the right kind of light, so I've taken a different approach and rely almost entirely on artificial light, often shooting at night.

I use lights coming from 2-4 directions depending upon what I'm shooting. All are full-spectrum daylight bulbs... some are bulbs in a standard fixture and some are OTT lights.

I used to spend a lot of time on editing, but thanks to a good camera I bought a few years ago... and finally learning how to use its settings... I usually only need to do a very little bit of editing. I've found that the Photoshop editing options that give me the best results with the least fiddling are Levels, Brightness/Contrast, and the Unsharp Mask. As far as I know, most photo editors have similar features.

The camera, a Cannon, does a great job with color balance so the colors usually come out pretty true. It's also designed to self-correct for a little bit of camera shake, so often I don't even need to use a tripod... which never was true of my old camera.

The pairs of images below show jpegs unedited and with just a very quick level adjustment and a sharpness tweak to make the images "pop" a little more. If I'd used brightness/contrast instead of the level adjustment, the results would have been very similar.

 

Nice examples. I used to use just the same Photoshop functions. For ebay stuff the idea is not to make it look better than life but to give them a fair shot at looking as good as they are.

 

Thanks, Af. Your tips were great, as are your photos.

Yup, I always try to make my eBay items look true to life. The buttons in my examples really are as sparkly and iridescent as in the "after" shots.

A couple of my favorite eBay feedbacks were ones where the buyer said the item looked just like the photos... and they sounded happily surprised!

Despite all I wrote above, I'm in the process of changing what I sell, and will have new photography challenges. I may end up posting questions of my own in this area.

 

@Pat P those are buttons? They look fabulous.

 

The first photo is a paperweight and the other three photos are Czech glass buttons. Aren't they lovely?

I used to really enjoy selling the buttons, but stopped when prices dropped and eBay made it harder for people to buy multiple items from the same seller.

 

Oh, I meant to add a couple of tips to help combat camera shake if you're not using a tripod that I learned in a photography class years ago.

First, if you keep your elbows close to your body, like resting on your hips, the camera will be steadier.

Second, it helps to take a deep breath, let it out, and then take the shot immediately 'cause your body will be more still at that point.

 

A lot of people use props to very good effect. I'm a bit envious of them because they can create a very attractive ambiance around their product. By comparison, my photos are very plain. I think of it as taking a journalistic approach, rather than artistic.

As a general rule (there are exceptions), I like the things I photograph to be standing straight and centered. This rarely happens without editing and I can't trust simple eyeballing to achieve the end. So when I'm editing, I use Mirror, Crop and Rotate quite a bit (and frequently first). I try to get things to the point where mirroring an item only has the shadows switching sides. It can be quite surprising how much an item leaps about and leans precariously when a photograph is mirrored. Just be sure that when you're done, you're showing the correct orientation.

 

Have you all noticed that the photos on Etsy seem to be way better than the photos on eBay? Or is it just me? I wonder what they're doing differently over there.

 

Most of the photos in listings from artists and craftspeople on Etsy are well-done. For vintage items, some photos are good, some not so much, but probably a higher percentage than on eBay.

 

My Olympus Camedia C-2040 Zoom 2.1 Mega pixel , & I have been together for years and thousands of clear crisp photo's.
If I need any help Picasa2 can clean up anything that's already in focus.

 

Great thread! Don't discount using a dark background for photos. It can be used for dramatic affect. I tend to use this dark blue background more often than not.





Where I have the most problem is photographing shiny objects such as silver. I think some of this has to do with the limitations of my dinosaur of a camera. I have tried about everything and find that, if I throw enough light on it to get my auto exposure to work, I get too much glare. Shooting under natural light works best but is not always practical. I most often shoot in studio, in the wee hours.

 

I most often shoot in studio, in the wee hours.

Ha ! That's my M.O. too !!!

 

I agree that shooting against black or another dark color can be very effective.

 

Komo, that wood(?) figure and your photo of it are both stunning!

 

I often scan paper items against a black background, too, so the item's edges will be easier to make out. To get a black background, I put the item on my scanner bed and then cover it with a black sheet of paper or thin black foam sheet (available at craft stores like Michael's).

A side benefit is that by covering the whole bed, there's no need to keep opening and closing the lid. Since I often scan many items in a row, that's a plus for me.

I've also discovered that if I scan at night with no lights on in the room, I can leave the lid open and the background will be black without covering the scan bed.

 

It's the carver that did the work......I'm just showing it off !!

But thank you !!

the top one is a yellow cedar totem pole..

 

You must have a good scanner.......to get such nice results ! !!

 

It's an Epson scanner with decent quality, though not high end. It does a better job of getting the color right with minimal tweaking than scanners I had in the past.

For many items, I scan at medium or high resolution to get the best results.

 

komokwa, that last piece is wonderful - what is it?