Photography Tips from the Expert
by Steve Meltzer
he little stuff is what helps you not to sweat. Even in the digital age it's the small things that make 21st-century life just a wee bit better and easier for the artist or craftsperson faced with photographing their work. This column is dedicated to a potpourri of my favorite little things.
Don't throw out that gray card
Photo by Steve Meltzer |
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| Using props such as risers can make images more visually appealing, as with these vases by Patricia Mullins. |
I've written about neutral gray cards for a long time. These 8x10-inch cardboard cards are white on one side and calibrated 50 percent neutral gray on the other. Long a studio staple, the gray side helps you get the correct exposure under complex lighting situations. And the cards even work in the digital age. Digital camera metering systems can be fooled just as easily as those of nondigital cameras. Getting an exposure reading off of a gray card can help get the digital exposure perfect.
Okay, I am sure that someone out there is thinking, "What's the big deal? If there's a problem I can fix it in Photoshop." Sure you can. But whenever you manipulate a large digital image file you're going to lose bytes of information and corrupt the file. Too much "Photoshopping" can ruin your file. So your goal should be to produce the best digital file that needs the least manipulation.
The 98 percent pure white side of the card can be used for getting correct white balance. Although digital cameras have automatic white balance (AWB) programs and often a setting for tungsten lights or fluorescent lights, these settings are approximations and not always accurate. Tweaking the color in Photoshop can be a difficult process that can result in other colors being thrown off. With pro-level digitals, you can tweak the white balance settings. For example, you can shift the tungsten color balance from the household lamp setting of 2800°K to the 3200°K of studio tungsten floodlights.
Cheap lights for digital?
You bet. Small gooseneck and tabletop halogen lamps can be found new or used for less than $20. They can be used as spotlights or floodlights for jewelry and small-object photography. If your digital camera has an adjustable ISO rating, you can set it to ISO 200 or 400 and get decent shots with these small lights. In film photography, try a fast 320 ISO tungsten color film with these small lamps.
Hold that tape!
I use miles of gaffer tape in my studio. I tape down AC power cords so I don't trip on them and blow up my studio. I use it to hold cardboard and foam core reflectors in place and to help my subjects stand up. When shooting a smooth-surfaced round object, like a highly glazed pot, I'll place a piece of gaffer tape on the front surface to give me a point to focus on. Since gaffer tape (unlike duct tape) leaves no sticky stuff behind, it's safe to use on delicate objects.
Stickum and Silly Putty too
When I was a kid, I loved to use Silly Putty™ to make comic book transfers. Little did I know that as a grown-up photographer I'd still be playing with it. Whenever I have to stand up a ring or a watch bracelet or a pendant, I make a little ball of putty and stick it on the back of an object to hold the piece in place. Naturally, when I focus and frame the shot, I make sure that the putty is hidden.
KIMAC forever
KIMACs™ are little plastic sleeves that fit directly over mounted 35-mm slides. They cost a few cents apiece and are worth their weight in platinum. As soon as I get slides back from the lab, I put every one I want to keep in a KIMAC sleeve. When I put the slide into both a KIMAC and a slide page, it's protected from the thousand slings and arrows of our dirty old world. If you value your slides and are a bit paranoid like me, KIMACs are the thing.
Set a standard
I have half a dozen 30-year-old slides that have faded to purple. And I also have some five-year-old images in which my gray background seems blue. Things change. Over time floodlights change color, background papers fade and film can get old and shift color. Even lens coatings can introduce color variations in photographs. So every time I get a new strobe, new background or try a new film, I take a minute and shoot a "standard" or "reference" photograph. I label the photo by date and subject and put it away to serve as a reference standard. Then I can compare a shot I've just made to the standard shot to see if my lights are "warming" up or if the background has faded.
Studio furnishings
I haunt the Web, hardware stores and junk shops for things to help in the studio. I look for things that will add interest to a photograph or that will help objects stand up. I look for odds and ends that can support — unobtrusively — two- and three-dimensional work like plates and platters. These stands and supports are called studio "furniture" and among my favorite pieces of studio furniture are the black and clear acrylic risers I found on line at www.tabletopstudio.com. When I'm shooting craftwork for ads or postcards, I use risers to add visual interest to the image. I've done this in the photo of the two ceramic pieces by Flagler Beach (Fla.) artist Patricia Mullins. Lifting up the piece so it fits into the curve of the tall piece makes a more balanced and interesting image than if they were simply sitting next to each other.
Even digitals need support
I have an astonishing pro digital camera that has a built-in anti-shake capability. Hit the anti-shake button and, as one photo magazine recently gushed, you become a "human tripod." But even digital cameras need support and an investment in a tripod is an investment in your photographic future. Besides providing a stable support that eliminates camera shake and helps make your photos sharper, a tripod allows you to take multiple images from exactly the same position.
The new twist that digitals have added to the tripod mix is that most are much lighter and smaller than film cameras and many manufacturers are producing cheaper (under $50), lightweight (under 2 lb.) tripods stable enough to safely use with a digital camera. Slik and Impact are two brands to look into.
Save it first!
While we're talking about digital cameras — whenever you've taken a ton of images and you're ready to load them on your computer, copy these files directly to a CD.
Photo files are huge and every single time you change them, you corrupt them. Pro cameras can save information as uncompressed RAW or TIFF files or slightly compressed JPEG files. No matter how your camera saves the files, I strongly suggest that you take the images from the memory device and save them to a CD-R or CD-RW first. Then you can manipulate them to your heart's content without fear because you'll have the original files safely stored.
Steve Meltzer is a Florida-based photographer. He can be reached at stevefoto@compuserve.com.