Firearm Photography

[C-dub]

Good morning everyone.

I'm back from a short vacation and am sure you all missed me terribly.

I wanted to show my dad the grips I found and put on my Colt GC Trophy, but didn't want to take the gun with me on the trip. I had taken it last time I visited, so he'd seen the gun already. I just wanted to show him the new grips. Right before heading up I snapped a quick picture with the Colt on a piece of black satin I found and the picture was GREAT. The trophy model is stainless steel and the grip are rosewood I think. They look like rosewood and I don't actually remember if they really are or not.

However, it got me to thinking that, while I have some okay pictures of many of my firearms, the ones I have are not GREAT. The background on most of those were hastily done using a beige piece of berber carpet for the background. After taking that picture of the Colt with that black satin background it got me to thinking that I need to get better photos of the rest of my collection, arsenal, cache. The black satin will be great for the stainless ones, but probably not so good for the evil black ones. And maybe not so well for the older ones with wooden furniture.

I was thinking that a grey or silver satin might work better for the black ones. What about the wood ones? Is there an other color that would work for all of them? Maybe a red or maroon or some other shade? Or would it better to just get a piece of black and silver/grey and reddish for the various types? That would be okay. I was also thinking about satin versus a texture like felt that would have less chance of creating a glare.

What do ya'll think?

[Jusme]

I'm no photographer by anyone's standards, but I just play around with different backgrounds, textures, etc. I like to try to use background pieces, that show off, the "type" of gun, as much as the color, or finish. i.e. camo background, with hunting/tactical, as long as it doesn't detract, or cause the subject to "get lost". Antique guns, look good, with period style backgrounds, wagon wheels, barn board, etc. I don't know that any "one" color is best, but like anything else, it comes down to personal preference, and it gives you the chance to do more than just shoot your guns, when you can "shoot" them. JMHO

p.s. Even if no one else did, I missed you C-dub!!

[parabelum]

Darn it C-dub, every time you mention your GC it reminds me how I miss mine and I begin to kick myself in the tail for selling it all over.

[flechero]

Right before heading up I snapped a quick picture with the Colt on a piece of black satin I found and the picture was GREAT.

Without posting the pic in question, we'll all think you are embellishing!

Please post it so I can remember how much I used to like my rosewood stocks!

[Archery1]

The method of taking pictures of jewelry and other shiny objects is to use diffused light. This keeps the light refraction from coming back into the picture, which distorts clarity. With diffused, all the tiny details, colors, and contours will look more magazine quality. Look up how to build a simple light tent from a sheet with lamps giving light from the outside. It's a trick collectors use to get the most defined and quality pics of items.

[C-dub]

These pictures will be only or mostly for documentation purposes. I'm not really interested in other period things to have in the picture that would make for a cool picture, but not what I'm going for at this time.

I haven't posted one of my own pictures on here yet, because I don't have a picture hosting thing yet. And because I take crummy pictures. If I get some good ones in this project I might break down and figure out how to do that and put one or two up here for you folks.

Parabelum, I can't promise that I won't put one of the "you know what" up, but it won't be to antagonize you. I will promise you that. It would only be because it turned out to be an awesome photo.

[C-dub]

The method of taking pictures of jewelry and other shiny objects is to use diffused light. This keeps the light refraction from coming back into the picture, which distorts clarity. With diffused, all the tiny details, colors, and contours will look more magazine quality. Look up how to build a simple light tent from a sheet with lamps giving light from the outside. It's a trick collectors use to get the most defined and quality pics of items.

I was thinking a little about this due to shadows and had not considered "diffused" lighting. I'll check into that a bit to see if it something I can do without too much trouble.

[Pariah3j]

For black and darkly colored items, I have used red and blue backgrounds in the past when taking pictures of models I painted and it always seemed to work. Not sure if you are just using ambient lighting or some sort of lightbox - but the more even and/or diffused lighting, along with multi-directional lighting you can use will help.

[puma guy]

Right before heading up I snapped a quick picture with the Colt on a piece of black satin I found and the picture was GREAT.

Without posting the pic in question, we'll all think you are embellishing!

[C-dub]

Right before heading up I snapped a quick picture with the Colt on a piece of black satin I found and the picture was GREAT.

Without posting the pic in question, we'll all think you are embellishing!

Please post it so I can remember how much I used to like my rosewood stocks!

Excellent point. The photo in question was taken with an iPhone 5 on a whim without much thought into anything more than a background I could find quickly that wouldn't detract from the gun itself before leaving the house on the trip.

If I can get the process figured our about how to post any of my own pictures here I might just post that one with the next one to see if there is any significant or noticeable difference.

[C-dub]

Right before heading up I snapped a quick picture with the Colt on a piece of black satin I found and the picture was GREAT.

Without posting the pic in question, we'll all think you are embellishing!

Ya'll are killing me.

Now I'm going to have to try and figure out how to do that. How long have I been here? And I still haven't figured out how to do that yet?

[Archery1]

The method of taking pictures of jewelry and other shiny objects is to use diffused light. This keeps the light refraction from coming back into the picture, which distorts clarity. With diffused, all the tiny details, colors, and contours will look more magazine quality. Look up how to build a simple light tent from a sheet with lamps giving light from the outside. It's a trick collectors use to get the most defined and quality pics of items.

I was thinking a little about this due to shadows and had not considered "diffused" lighting. I'll check into that a bit to see if it something I can do without too much trouble.

Nothing fancy needed. You can prop up some white sheet cloth and use flood lights from behind and make it as small as needed. Turn off flash! Set your picture stage inside. All those bright spots and shadows will be gone. It makes an ordinary picture look more professional and magazine quality. Shiny objects just throw too much light back at the camera, which greatly distorts.

[mot7981]

For me, I usually try to get the background at least similar to what I'm taking a picture of. Some contrasting difference is good but not too much. Cameras are not as sensitive as our eyes so if you put a black gun on a white background the camera will expose for the overall image and there will probably not be very much detail in the gun. This is because the camera sees all the white and exposes for that and the under exposes the gun. The opposite would be true with a stainless gun on a black background, possibly over exposing much of the gun. All this assumes automatic exposure cameras and can be overcome to a large extent by setting the exposure manually (if your camera has that capability) for the item you wish to highlight. I also normally don't use a flash if the pic is taken with a phone or camera with a built in flash as this often causes reflections directly back into the lens. Don't know if I'm explaining this right but I've found it works best for me. I'm anxious to hear what others have to say on this topic so I can pick up some new ideas.

[puma guy]

Right before heading up I snapped a quick picture with the Colt on a piece of black satin I found and the picture was GREAT.

Without posting the pic in question, we'll all think you are embellishing!

Ya'll are killing me.

Now I'm going to have to try and figure out how to do that. How long have I been here? And I still haven't figured out how to do that yet?

I use a free website http://www.tinypic.com. Once you have an account you just choose to browse your PC for photos and upload them. Once it's uploaded just choose which code (Grab Your Code) and choose IMG Code for Forums & Message Boards by clicking to highlight and right click to copy it. Then you just paste it on your post.

[C-dub]

My thread, so here comes a slight drift, but not really.

After perusing several threads around here it seems like the predominantly used photo sharing site is photobucket. I also looked at a few others, well mostly just checked out the reviews on them. What are a couple pros and cons on some of the obvious ones like photobucket, flicker, tinypic, or others I'm not aware of yet? It doesn't seem like they get freaked over firearms pictures. Or do ya'll have to give them innocuous names or call them a toaster instead of a gun?