# Photo Critique



## winpooh498 (Jan 30, 2008)

I received the Wal-mart photo tent for Christmas, the first thing I did was replaced the light bulbs with the 50 watt bulbs.  Here are my first pictures with the new set up. The only Photoshop I did on them is resize to post. Any advice on what changes I should make would be wonderful. 

Thank you

Asian Ebony





Amboyna Burl




This the first bowl I have turned. It isn't a deep sided bowl, but deeper then the picture shows.


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## SuperDave (Jan 30, 2008)

> _Originally posted by winpooh498_
> 
> I received the Wal-mart photo tent for Christmas, the first thing I did was replaced the light bulbs with the 50 watt bulbs.  Here are my first pictures with the new set up. The only Photoshop I did on them is resize to post. Any advice on what changes I should make would be wonderful.
> 
> Thank you



What camera are you using? Is it a point and shoot or a DSLR? Can you adjust the settings or is it all automatic?

Dave


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## winpooh498 (Jan 31, 2008)

Dave,
Sorry I thought that I had that in my original post. I am using a Panasonic Lumix  DMC-TZ1.  I can adjust settings but I'm not exactly sure what ones I need to adjust. I'm not sure which one is the F/Stop, well I think I might know which on it is, I can choose 1/8-, 1/4-,1/2- and 1-. I can change the white balance to several different pre-programmed settings as well as user defined.  I always shot with the ISO @200.

See I really am lost, any help is greatly welcomed.


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## gketell (Jan 31, 2008)

Boy that light tent isn't doing much diffusing.  See if you can arrange the lights to get rid of more of the harsh shadows.  I usually set my left light a little forward of the pen pointing towards the rear and the right light a little back of the pen pointing towards the front.  You might also want to add a third light from the front near the camera.  That will fight the shadows and and the highlights.

'nuff about the lighting. Now that you can get wonderfully clear close up shots of your object, you need to clean it more.  There are fingerprints all over the metal parts of your pens.

The last thing I'm seeing is that your software really beat up on your photos when it reduced them for upload.  You might try a different resizing software.

Great pens and NICE bowl!!

GK


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## SuperDave (Jan 31, 2008)

Dawn,

Here is a link to a discussion with "Russianwolf" talking about the same issues. I have posted my settings and a couple of photos of the results. See if it answers any questions and let me know.

A friend that is a photog for Reuters, helped me a lot, as did Gerry Rhoades and others on IAP. I want to improve my lighting but it is light-years  ahead of where it was a few weeks ago.

http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=32949

Dave


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## toolcrazy (Jan 31, 2008)

It looks like your lights are too far forward of your pen. But the depth and color looks correct. Need to slow down the shutter speed a bit to lighten the pic.


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## R2 (Jan 31, 2008)

The photos aren't too bad, just a tad too dark.


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