Official Luthiers Forum!

Thanks for the reply Bob and John! Makes perfect sense now.

I really appreciate these posts.....and I'm learning lots.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Very well done John - thanks for doing this!

I have pretty good recall of past threads on the OLF and I don't ever recall a thread like this one where a pro photographer shares with us all how to take decent pics of guitars. Needless to say this is very much appreciated.

Any suggestions for a digital camera in the $100 range that would do closeups in the workshop but I could also use to do adequate photographs of guitars.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I have been pretty happy with my little Panasonic, Lumix camera. It was a bit over $100, but it has a 10X optical zoom which has been handy. When I want to take real close up's, I shoot through one of those fluorescent magnifiers. It works great.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks Waddy, I'll check that one out.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

The Nikon I shot the demo shots with does movies, big screen, pretty good rendition and sharpness. The "digital delay" that cheap cameras suffered with is one of the things that has gone away finally. Very little or no delay.
That said. I don't know that many cameras well. I loath updating my gear lol
This is a fantastic place to get side by side comparisons amature through pro. There are forums, test results, images, street price, flaws........
http://www.dpreview.com/

Distortion or What you are doing to your art; You measure with .0000 accuracy to build your guitar. Then you hassle it outside for a picture. You get as close as you can.... and you turn your work of art into a distortion of itself. Rather than address magic focal lengths I will just say "put your lens on max Optical Telephoto then move back to fill the frame. If it blurs because you are doing a detail shot of a bridge, hit the close filter (a flower on a button usually) to achieve tele close.
Here are samples of wide to telephoto at roughly the same crop (my distance changed to create the same scene).




For you folks with more than 6x tele, you pretty much have to use a tripod to not shake. All images will benefit from a tripod, at 10x its pretty mandatory.
BTW 6x will usually hit a nice straight lined shot.
10x will start to "compact" the image. Backgrounds artistically blur. Warning, the depth of sharpness can become short. Called "Depth of field" I will cover that one further.
More chat and blabber.........
As you guys reply please mention what gear you have.
Next I will start to cover indoor and artificial lighting. If you have a shop light, 4' of bubble packing and aluminum foil you are good for the class. Either have or make a tripod.
I do really recommend a Digital SLR or SLR clone/hybrid auto fancy thing. If you have 35mm AF Nikon lens's you can use them on your Nikon or Fuji SLR's. Canon makes probably my favorite digital stuff but they changed their mounts a few times. Hard to keep up. I stay Nikon for versatility, for years I have used Fuji SLR's built on a Nikon frame. Fuji S2's were and are a favorite you can sometimes find cheap. They are hitting 7 years old which is ancient for digital so be careful buying. But S2’s are still a daily user for me.
BTW I currently shoot Fuji S2 and S5. My primary flash is a Nikon SB900 with a Model 17 or 28 connecting cord so I can move my light around. My next camera will be a Nikon D700. I am waiting for it to be last years model. Cool tripod to score; Slick U212

John...great info and I thank you for taking the time to spill your guts to those of us who can benefit from your experience!

Keep it coming. BTW...I'm using a Nikon Coolpix L10. Lately I've been using a tripod and timer with either artificial or natural lighting...hardly ever flash anymore. I really appreciated your examples of lens distortion and plan to put the info to good use.

Erik over at the Luthier Community did an extensive tutorial over several weeks some time ago at http://www.luthiercom.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=875 which was also beneficial. So far, you have covered new techniques and ideas that are more complimentary rather than repetitive. For anyone serious about improving their photo skills, both John's and Erik's threads are a must!

Thanks again!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Thanks again for the info John!

As for equipment, I have a Cannon AS-400 Digital Elph which just started having problems so we will replace it soon (and it's old enough it meets your requirements for replacement so no use spending money to get it fixed). We bought a Cannon PowerShot SX100 IS for my daughter for her birthday last summer and we love it......so I'm considering replacing our AS-400 with the same/similar model. The SX100 is 8.0 mega pixel and and has 10x x IS zoom lens. I'm not a camera expert but it seems this a good bang-for-the-buck camera.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Cool! I had no idea. Dang I even swiped his post title! He seems more organized than I, but I'll stick with it. Next chapter hasn't been written, not sure where we are going, but its fun.

I have the Canon EOS 10D SLR (A little old, but still a great camera).

I saw you said that the mounts have changed several times on Canon. I was thinking of upgrading to the 40D or 50D one of these days, but want to make sure all of my lenses would work. Do you know off hand if the mount on the 10D is the same as the 40D and 50D?

Great thread!

Oh and I second the opinion that dpreview.com is a great place to go to get digital camera comparisons, in depth reviews, etc.

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Thanks,
Blain

http://www.ullrichguitar.com

"89.67% of all statistics are made up on the spot."

I am not sure. I would contact Canon on compatibility or type the question at DPR's search engine. In addition to "will it mount" will it read" It seems Strobe/flash technology has changed in the past few years. Make sure your old flash is compatible and or new flash will work if you are keeping the old body. I have to carry different flash units for my S2 than I do for my S5 Pain in the butt.

I've got a Canon S110. I'd guess I've had it 7 years or so. I've looked off and on at a bunch of $100 cameras for the last year or so.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

Hey John...This thread is one of the best going lately. Any idea or plans for adding to the already great info. I'm on the edge of my golf cart waiting for the next installment!

TIA!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com