Cue photo's

cutter

cutter

Steve Klein Custom Cues
Silver Member
Maybe not exactly a cue making question, but wanted to see how some of the other cue makers, or dealers were doing their photo's. Any lighting or software help would be appreciated. Right now my photo skills suck and I want to upgrade my website, but am not happy with the photo's.
I have Olympus E-10 4MB camera, and no photo editing software except what came with it.
Thanks in advance for all the good info I'll get.
 
I do them without apostrophes. :D

The trick is to find the brightest light you can with no real source. Outdoors on a cloudy day is almost perfect. Duplicating this indoors is difficult. Unless you have some kind of a shroud setup, you just have to find a place with mimimal glare. Software can help a little, but the main thing is lighting.
 
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I looked at your site. The pictures are not bad, a better camera would help of course, but a different solid background that doesn't take away from the cue would help more. Better lighting would soften them a lot.
 
Sorry Sheldon, I went to a trade school. English was limited to Yes sir or No sir! I'm working on it, but starting to get to old to worry about it.
Thanks for the info on the lighting. Seems like nature won't cooperate when I need to shoot, so am trying to go artificial.
 
Try a pretty bright bulb, but hang a white sheet (fully spread out, not bunched up) in front of the light to diffuse the source a little. Play with the distance of the sheet from the light and the thickness of the sheet to get the right amount of light. This should take some of the harshness of the bulb away and still give you a good illumination.
 
I'm still learning my set-up Steve. I got professional advisement before buying indoor studio equipment. I have a studio light with elongated "soft box" light diffuser on a tripod-boom. I have a black ripstop nylon case that everything fits into for portability. The flash is sycronized to my camera (Nikin D50). I use a zoom lens with macro capabilities. The portable studio stuff cost me about 1K altogether including several cheap microfiber backdrops (from fabric store). One thing I badly need is a different lens filter to minimize light bounce. I get too much glare when shooting the rear of cues. I use JASC Photo Album 5 software that came with my Dell computer. It is fairly basic but gets the job done. PM if I can be of any help.

Martin




cutter said:
Maybe not exactly a cue making question, but wanted to see how some of the other cue makers, or dealers were doing their photo's. Any lighting or software help would be appreciated. Right now my photo skills suck and I want to upgrade my website, but am not happy with the photo's.
I have Olympus E-10 4MB camera, and no photo editing software except what came with it.
Thanks in advance for all the good info I'll get.
Click to expand...
 

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Do a search in the cue gallery section. There is some good info in that forum on cue photography and digital cameras.
 
buddha162 said:
I can only point you to Dakota Cues, who imo takes the best pictures I've seen.


-Roger
Click to expand...

Yea he does take good pictures.

And a good way to see what the other guy uses is read the EXIF data

I took the first picture off that page and looked at the data

Filename : sig.jpg
JFIF_APP1 : Exif
Main Information
ImageDescription :
Make : SONY
Model : CYBERSHOT
Orientation : left-hand side
XResolution : 72/1
YResolution : 72/1
ResolutionUnit : Inch
DateTime : 2006:12:22 13:44:41
YCbCrPositioning : co-sited
ExifInfoOffset : 232
Sub Information
ExposureTime : 1/125Sec
FNumber : F2.8
ExposureProgram : Program Normal
ISOSpeedRatings : 100
ExifVersion : 0220
DateTimeOriginal : 2006:12:22 14:34:23
DateTimeDigitized : 2006:12:22 13:44:41
ComponentConfiguration : YCbCr
CompressedBitsPerPixel : 2/1 (bit/pixel)
ExposureBiasValue : EV0.0
MaxApertureValue : F2.0
MeteringMode : Division
LightSource : Unidentified
Flash : Not fired
FocalLength : 9.70(mm)
MakerNote : Unknown Format : 0Bytes (Offset:452)
FlashPixVersion : 0100
ColorSpace : sRGB
ExifImageWidth : 1280
ExifImageHeight : 960
ExifInteroperabilityOffset : 650
FileSource : DSC
SceneType : A directly photographed image
CustomRendered : Normal process
ExposureMode : Auto
WhiteBalance : Auto
SceneCaptureType : Standard
ExifR98
ExifR : R98
Version : 0100
Thumbnail Information
Compression : OLDJPEG
Make : SONY
Model : CYBERSHOT
Orientation : left-hand side
XResolution : 72/1
YResolution : 72/1
ResolutionUnit : Inch
DateTime : 2006:12:22 14:34:23
JPEGInterchangeFormat : 873
JPEGInterchangeFormatLength : 3266
 
cutter said:
Maybe not exactly a cue making question, but wanted to see how some of the other cue makers, or dealers were doing their photo's. Any lighting or software help would be appreciated. Right now my photo skills suck and I want to upgrade my website, but am not happy with the photo's.
I have Olympus E-10 4MB camera, and no photo editing software except what came with it.
Thanks in advance for all the good info I'll get.
Click to expand...

Steve
Sheldon had it - bright light. And its just like cue building - lots of practice with different lights, camera settings, backgrounds, angles etc. Your camera and its settings, your space for picture taking, your lighting -its all different than the next guys - just like your shop and equipment are different than mine or Sheldon's. Just spend some time with it. Good luck.
Jack
www.johnmaddencues.com
 
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