# Tuning my pics



## Linarestribe (Apr 9, 2012)

Hi,
Here are some of my latest picture and I'm looking for some positive criticism. I'm really wondering about composition in the first three with the book and any thing else I didn't think of. I used an iPhone for these. Here they are:


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## 76winger (Apr 9, 2012)

Just some thoughts to help you improve pen and photos:

I personally like the journal open with the pen laying on it, like you're ready write or just finished, rather than simply using it as a prop. Alternatively, if you want to experiment with the journal closed, you might try different poses on top of it to see what you come up with. This may just be my tastes though, just experiment and find shots that end up looking pleasing to you. 

The bottom two photos create a very distorted view of the pen. If you want to try that view of the pen, you will probably want to raise the camera up a ways so it doesn't the distort the length to width ratio so much. 

Notice also on the last photo how the photo gives away that your body is slightly larger than lower section. You may want to use a set of calipers to compare the final turning size with the diameter of the metal part that will be adjoining it. 

Try some more shots and lets see what you come up with. The nice thing about digital photos is that there is no film or developing costs!


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## frank123 (Apr 9, 2012)

I find myself somewhat distracted and looking at the Journal instead of the pen. More like the pen in emphasizing the Journal than the Journal emphasizing the pen.

But maybe that's just me, not necessarily anything that someone else would notice.


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## JohnGreco (Apr 9, 2012)

My personal taste is that a pen with props like a journal makes for a nice picture that a photographer might want. But as somebody selling pens, the only thing I want my shoppers looking at is the pen, so I keep them free of distractions. I also think the 2nd to last shot is just a bit blown out, the edges of the rear of the pen sort of vanish into the white background.


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## Linarestribe (Apr 9, 2012)

Thanks for the tips. I noticed that under turning and when I checked, the nib needed to be pushed further into the rest of the pen.

I've been reading stuff about product photography and a major theme seems to be that you should always try for an action shot. Cloths on a person, necklace on a neck, pen in in its environment etc...

The last two are my attempts to play with "depth of field" I think its called. It's to highlight the blank.


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## 76winger (Apr 9, 2012)

Linarestribe said:


> Thanks for the tips. I noticed that under turning and when I checked, the nib needed to be pushed further into the rest of the pen.
> 
> I've been reading stuff about product photography and a major theme seems to be that you should always try for an action shot. Cloths on a person, necklace on a neck, pen in in its environment etc...
> 
> The last two are my attempts to play with "depth of field" I think its called. It's to highlight the blank.



I agree with the premise of showing an "action shot" of the pen. Here's an example of what I was describing for one: 


 


 
By opening up the journal and writing something out on a page, you can give the impression of what the pen can do. In this particular example I wrote out a page full of writing with this pen before cleaning it back up for the pose.  There's some other pages written with rollerball pens to pose them against and even a ballpoint written page or two. Hopefully this will give you an idea or two. :wink:

As for _*depth of field*_, if you're wanting to show off your pen, you really want to have the depth of field set to all of the pen is in focus and any distracting background becomes blurred and obscured so it doesn't distract from the main subject (your pen). I don't have any really good example already uploaded this sort of expresses it. Notice the pens are both up front and clearly in focus, while the flower in the back is somewhat blurred out, thus it adds some color to the photo to make it pop overall, but the main attraction are still the two pens up front. 


 

If you're trying to highlight the material in the body, your best bet is going to be a side view, maybe angled slightly to show depth, and then getting your lighting adjusted to where you get the glow of the wood grain or glimmer of the acrylic, without the brighter metal parts washing out. This is a hard thing to accomplish and where you'll see a lot of talk about HDR photography which helps out for those circumstances. You can pull it off without HDR, but you'll have to experiment and play around with your lighting and camera settings until you find just the right mix for your setup.

Keep up with the thinking, questioning and evaluating and trying different things. That's how you'll figure it out and be creating some AWESOME photos before you know it!


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## azamiryou (Apr 10, 2012)

My feeling on props or "action shots" is that they have to be "realistic". I've never seen a pen left propped up on a book at an angle like that. On the desk beside a book? Sure. On top of a journal open to the page someone was writing on when they got called away? Sure. But not "displayed" propped up on a book like that.

For the depth-of-field shots where part of the pen will be out of focus, I find it distracting that the nearest part of the subject is out of focus. If the front of the subject is in focus and the back is out of focus, that's fine. Or if some foreground object that is not the subject is out of focus, that can be good (very rare in product photography). In other words, I'd use end-on shots like that to show off (and focus on) nibs and finials; to focus on the blank, I'd shoot it square-on.


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