I know a lot about photography, and have had success with it! I've been doing it for years, and I know my stuff.

But my pen photos stink.

I'm using my OTT-lamp for "daylight" source and using ambiant room lighting for fill. Stopping down to F/11 gives me an exposure in the range of 1/3 second for calibrated gray card, or 1.3 seconds to shoot for shadow detail (a black pen), at ISO 200 Tripod, no problem.

But is my depth of field still too shallow to be useful?! or can I just not trust the auto-focus? See my photo in the Exterbrook topic, please.

I'm using a Canon digital EOS 400D with the good lens option, zoomed out to 85mm. I believe that's equivalent to 135 for a 35mm camera (multiply by 1.6?)

The other problem I have is that the pens roll around. How do I position them to show the desired feature, and stay that way?

--John

Judging from the Estie photo, your problem is not depth of field... it is focus... the whole picture is out of focus.....
Take a look at some of my photos here in the Parker forum...
Those were shot hand held with my Nikon D50 at 55mm. I shoot in auto and then bracket in 1/3 stops for 3 shots in each direction...
Generally using room light and fill flash I am looking at about 1/60sec at about f5.6... you don't really need more depth of field than that to cover a pen...
The cap closeup was done on the closeup setting of the camera

Through tapioca drink straws, cos they're bigger than regular straws. I can only shoot Birdies through them, though.


Oh. I thought...


never mind.

In macro photography, depth of field is always very shallow. If you want whole pen in focus, you pretty much have to shoot it "broadside" so everything is in the same plane and you are focused on that plane (except for large format cameras with tilts, swings). In your photo, distance varies too much. OK if you only want part of pen in focus, but you'll never get it all sharp.

Autofocus may become confused unless you can focus at a crosshair and hold the focus. You may want to try manual focus.

Little pieces of modelling clay (or even wet toilet paper) discreetly hidden will keep pen from rolling. Small diameter wire makes a great "wheel chock."

I use a light tent with a studio strobe on each side of tent, and I adjust lights so exposure will be in f/5.6-f/8 range for good deoth of field. With a digital camera, shoot, evaluate, discard until you get it right.

I'm suspecting that this camera isn't showing a sharp image at pixel resolution. Using third-party tools to do RAW processing gives better results, as does simple unsharp-masking of the image. I might change the "sharpness" settings in the camera (or in the PC-based RAW importer).

--John

Personally I would not bother with RAW on this, and shoot jpeg high. Turn off all in camera sharpening, and do it all post process as the last step before saving. Also, ISO 800 is way high for what you are doing. Set it at about 200 and with decent lighting, you should be alot better. It doesn't look like you are using any diffuse light whatsoever, try bouncing flash off the ceiling if you want, or use some umbrella's. If you don't have a sofbox or umbrella than you can use a light tent, or make one pretty easily.

You stated in your Esterbrook post that you calibrated off a grey card, but yet you used the pen as your spot meter reading, this caused the camera to overexpose wildly. Your flash is at camera left and is way too powerful, as evidenced by the harsh shadow on the right side of the pen cap. Some of the blurriness is actually noise, again ISO 800, not a great choice for this. f11 should give you bags of depth for an image like yours, especially at 85mm. Any longer than that and you might be a little shallow on DOF but you should be ok. I use a 105 Sigma macro for lots of my images and usually have no trouble keeping the whole pen in focus.

Here is a shot similar to yours, mac tack used to keep the pens from rolling away BTW.

Shot at f22, but that was mostly because I had my strobes set way too high, and couldn't be arsed to change them. I can be a little lazy some times.

Check out this image

linked here exif data
and take a look at the exif data. Shot at f22 and ISO of 160. Yes I was using a SB-600 and a Vivitar 285 into softboxes, but just goes to show what some diffuse lighting can do.

Cheers,
Sean

I think I'll get much better results if the sharpening is done as part of the RAW conversion rather than running USM on the processed image. So that either means turning on or increasing sharpening in the camera, or fiddling with it during RAW conversion which means I can play with different settings after shooting.




Actually, there was no flash used. The key light was my OTT-lamp, filled with available light. I'm interested in getting correct colors. I have some 4' tubes that are meant for daylight photo, but no easy way to set them up and I want to arrange something casual and easy to use. I think I need a more powerful "desk lamp" with calibrated color viewing.



I used the histogram on the camera to get the range of blacks in the pen near the middle of the shot range. I didn't lose any detail on the pen on either end. The gray card shows up on the bright end of the histogram, also not clipped.

What lens do you like? I remember Sigma as being a good off-brand alternative. Maybe I can look at that for my Canon.

--John

Well then all the pro's I know must be wrong. Every one that I know does the sharpening on a separate layer as the very last process prior to saving.


Ok, so if you are calling the key light the one camera left, it was probably a stop brighter than your fill, and your fill did not erase shadows on the subject. My bad for not reading fully. Either way your lighting is not balanced, and you have blown out detail all the way down the highlight of the pen. Additionally, the lever is fully clipped so something is not jiving. You use a grey card, calibrate your white balance off of it, and you will get correct colors even with flash. If you are doing a RAW conversion then you can set the WB in post with the grey card background, as long as it is exposed correctly, which it is not in your example. Were it exposed correctly it would look like a grey card not a white card.


If the blacks are in the middle of the histogram then you cannot avoid blowing out the highlights. If the grey card is at the right, then what about anything further toward white from there?? You need to set the grey card closer to the middle of the histogram and adjust exposure so that it encompasses all the dynamic range possible.

Maybe I am wrong, but I do see more detail in my shots at lower ISO, with balanced lighting than I do in the image of the black Estie that you referenced. BTW the image of the red estie is a jpg, can't recall what the MB was, probably RAW but I tend not to use RAW that much in my studio. I know that I have good color representation, and my setup is repeatable. If I am out in changing light conditions then I might use RAW.

Every time I see the title of this thread, I ponder again, as I have for much of my life, How did they manage to shoot that Bic pen out of that rifle?

There is a "sharpening" step being done either in the camera or import step, whether they are fiddling with the settings or not. The raw sensor data is not a complete image, as each pixel is either R, G, or B; and there is cross-correlation between the pixels due to optical effects. Quite a bit of work is needed to turn it into a JPEG or other normal bitmap. Perhaps I have mine set to less-than-normal sharpening at this stage; perhaps the 400D is just that way; perhaps the close-up setting would set things differently and I miss out on that by using full Manual. The instructions are in Chinese, so I'm not sure.

The "raw" workflow is not yet appreciated by many pros.
They also might get more benefit working interactively in Photoshop or with familiar tools, than in specifying a bunch of numbers to a batch process! But approachable tools are becoming more available.

--John

Stuck in a styrofoam block 100 meters out, 20x scope, Grandpa's 30 30.

Sorry, but I don't agree. I have all shaprening turned off in camera and my results frankly blow away the image that you posted of the Estie. Sorry to be blunt, but you asked for help and everyone who has tried got basically an "I know better than you" response.

The Pro's I know do not do any sharpening as part of the RAW workflow, and do not do image editing batch processing at all. They are conscious of the limitations of batch process and prefer to work on each image separately as needed. The only batch process they do is to assign tags and file numbers for storage/archival reasons.

Your ISO was too high, you metered off the wrong part of the image and then manually set exposure to blow out your highlights. You did not capture full dynamic range of the image, and your lighting was harsh to say the least. You asked for help, here are the things which, in my opinion are incorrect with your setup.

I attempted in good faith to help you with techniques that I use to image pens, am I a pro at it, no. I still stand by my work and say that the things I have advised you about are the items which you need to change to end up with a good result for a pen image.

I am done with this thread.
Sean

Are you after a mere flesh wound, or do you really want to put them out of their misery?

I must confess, that when I saw the thread title, I immediately got an image of the commercial with John Cameron Swayze, firing a Bic Stic pen through a 30-06 rifle, through a wooden board, then writing with the pen, still sticking through the board. This is the same man who used to buckle a Timex watch to the propeller of an outboard motor, start the motor, dunk the spinning watch in water for 20 seconds or so, then stop the motor, zoom in on the sweep second hand still moving, and say "Timex. Takes a licking, and keeps on ticking.".

Donnie

Too bad SMG stormed off if a huff rather than continuing to discuss the matter. I can certainly work on improving the lighting while still keeping it "casual". But I still have an issue in that the macro photo seems very diffuse even when it is as focused as I can make it. At first I thought I was still out of focus, or had a bad lens. I plan on making a "star" resolution target and figuring out how to set up my camera (or importer) to maximize the real data. Perhaps some of you could take one of those test images and show me how you would sharpen it as part of your common work flow?

--John
(Formerly of Eastman Kodak Company)

Very true.

I don't own a D400, but I've used a friend's.

Try this: set the camera in manual mode and set one point light metering. Now use natural light; when you check the light on the pen you're going to shoot, put the back of your hand over the pen and point with your camera to the back of your hand (don't measure light by pointing to the pen). Check the shooting speed and save that info. I'd use some underexposition for more intense colors; a half-stop in the diaphragm should do the trick, but you can experiment.

You can use some sheets of white paper folded around the pen to get a uniform lighting with no dramatic shadows.

Juan

I can actually answer that question as I knew the guy who did it...... in fact I used to work in his gunsmith shop in Yonkers NY

The gun used was a 44/40 Winchester M92... a nice lever action....
The Bic pen was saboted with a piece of plastic that flew off almost immediately after leaving the barrel.... the load was a small charge of black powder, just enough to get it to work
The Bic pen was loaded from the breech end and then the round was loaded behind it... the loaded round was basically a low load blank charge.
When I worked for Doc, he had the rifle and one of the test shots mounted on the wall of the shop.... a great conversation piece....

When I first saw this thread, the first thing that came to mind was sticking a BIC ballpoint into a rotten fence post point down, and then step back, line up the sights of my SAA and let 'er have it.

film. manual focus. manual exposure. manual iris. manual everything.
it never fails.

Well, that's what I use; my old '82 Mamiya ZM (the last 35 mm Mamiya made). That and a 400ASA B&W film. For color I like slidefilms.

Juan

And then you would haul out the Kodak Master Photoguide and the tape measure to calculate the effective f stop...........

I have often thought that so much of the photography up to the 1950s, or so, was so good because it was so much work to set up for a good shot. When everything go point and shoot, the brain got disconected from the work.........

As always, YMMV..........

And I was thinking about the times (growing up during the space race) - we'd try to launch a pen filled with powder from a bunch of fire crackers. Our success rate wasn't any better than the pros in the beginning, but at least THEY got it right, eventually...

Thats 3 times now I have come across this post and wondered why you were mad at your pens only to open it up and realise you are talking about photography and not wanting to smash them to pieces with a big bullet!! I am not sure what that says about me - other than the obvious 'English' banner.... maybe I need to find a form of stress relief

regards

david

As someone who has been paid to do product photography for years, I can say SMG is pretty much spot on. Some pros shoot in raw, some will shoot in large superfine jpeg with all in-camera sharpening turned off. Either way, sharpening is the absolute last step in the workflow before saving. If you sharpen before then you lose detail or create artifacts elsewhere in the processing. That's a rock-solid, stone-cold, money-back guarantee. Period.

You can make a light tent for less than $5 with a cardboard box, some velum sheets, posterboard, scotch tape and a couple desk lamps.

Other suggestions:

1) Use the lowest ISO possible to reduce noise.
2) Try to use something around f/8 to f/14 for the best combination of sharpness and bokeh. Look up your lens' ISO chart.
3) Use a tripod.
4) Use a remote shutter release if possible.
5) Use diffused light.
6) Use manual focus, be in the middle of your zoom range (if it is a zoom lens) and fill the frame.
7) Ignore the light meter, it only tells you how the midtones are exposed. Use your eyes and your brain to figure out the right exposure.
8) Research sharpening techniques on the web, including unsharp and using high/low pass filters, quick masks, layer masks, etc. for sharpening.
9) Understand jpeg compression artifacts.
10) Read and learn everything on www.strobist.blogspot.com.

Give it a try and it'll work for you too. Your depth of field is enormous at 85mm f/11, even on a 1.6x sensor. Shoot with a 50mm 1.2 or a 400mm 2.8 and experience truly narrow DoF.

I understand SMG's frustration, he's giving sound advice.

Thanks SMG and booker for the very useful information - I will be working through the list. I am a complete amateur with this stuff although I absolutely love diffused light and good detail. Colour correctness matters not much for me and I would rather have a bit of mood or other interest in the shots. Avoiding burn out is always a challenge.

My standard setup is a halogen desk lamp, sometimes with a plastic drinking cup attached if my little boy doesn't mind - he is very generous. Yellow is good for a bit of warmth. I will sometimes use a sheet of paper to block or reflect some light or provide a background and I have been known to get some baking paper (tracing paper) stuck to a piece of wood to wave about in front of the lens - closer to the pen for softer diffusion, closer to the light source for sharper light. I have started using the countdown timer on the camera and it also allows time to pick up a piece of black material so that the room doesn't appear in the reflections - a bigger deal for some watches than pens. I quite like side lighting but I have no clue really. I'm avoiding getting a light box because I think it would all get a bit homogenous.

My camera is a Canon video camera that also takes stills - about 2 megapixels.


My latest efforts (my apologies if you just saw these in another thread)

Hey, those are looking pretty good. I was surprised when you said you took those with a videocamera! It appears that your white-balance is a bit off, but if you like a bit more of a color cast to your photos, then you're looking good.

Thanks. I've just had a look to see what it is called. It's a Canon MVX35i mini DV camera and it takes stills to an SD card. It's very much a family camera although I tend to take more stills than video. I'm going to need some more pixels eventually.

Those images looks far from amateurish to me! Very nice indeed, and very skillfully controlled lighting. This is a personal thing for me, but I would have prefferred a little more variation in the light reflecting off the nib (which makes it look a bit more like shiny metal). Just put something black inside the light tent at an appropriate place to reflect off the nib in the way you want.

Now, to the original poster's photograph...

The OP appears to have used the metered value taken off the black pen (f/11, 1.3s) rather than off the grey card (f/11, 0.3s) for his exposure. The pen has been rendered a very nice 18% gray, as you'd expect from this.

To meter for shadows correctly, you need to understand Zones. Each Zone corresponds to a factor of 2 in EV, and also to a final rendered tone on paper or screen. A calibrated meter gives you the exposure that corresponds to 18% gray, whatever is being metered. This is zone VI. Zone V is one stop darker, zone VII is one stop lighter, and so forth. So, if you want an object to look a particular shade of black in the final image, you measure the exposure with the meter, and compensate to put it in the correct zone. Black with some detail is zone III or IV.

The calculation goes:
Metered value (f/11 1.3s) is Zone VI: 18% grey.
I want to render this as Zone IV, (VI - IV = 2 stops less than metered value) use f/11 0.3s.
Not coincedentally, this is the value metered off the gray card! In reasonable lighting, this will usually be the case. Generally, the zone system will only give a different EV when the lighting is not reasonable.

Another point for the OP:
Pens are shiny: consider what they reflect. To illustrate:

Click to view attachment On camera direct auto metering macro flash, EOS 40D EFS 60mm macro f/16

Click to view attachment On camera direct auto metering macro flash, EOS 40D EFS 60mm macro f/16

The difference here is that I held a piece of paper behind the nib (out of shot) in the second photo to reflect light from behind. Effectively, it's a light tent. The fill provided by this also corrects the light fall-off.

My apologies to all (and DavidM1 in particular) for the relative lack of artistry in my photos. Indeed, the problem reflection on the shoulder of the nib also illustrates my point: I could improve the photograph by placing more paper in front of the pen, and to the right.