Very long time without posting - Need help fast

[Garry Edwards]

Are you just being obtuse or just trying to cover up your stupidity?

The subject is DSLR, you foolishly claimed that any DSLR is somehow superior to any non-DSLR (and thereafter claimed you didn’t have any actual knowledge relating to the alternatives).



I could have talked about the Canon 10D, the Canon 300D, the Canon 450D, the Nikon D1, the Sony A100 or any number of other mediocre IQ and performance DSLR’s.


The point is that there are a number of non-DSLR cameras that will give better IQ than a number of DSLR’s and only an ignorant gear snob would think otherwise.

For you to even try and argue otherwise just shows your ignorance with regard to cameras (have you even had a look at the specs of a Sony A9 yet?), in all honesty, you really should stick to your area of expertise...

I didn't say that I have no knowledge of the alternatives to a DSLR, I must have used just about every type of camera designed for studio photography during my working life. And there is no single 'best' type of camera for use in the studio.

I suppose that my personal favourite for high end product photography must be a monorail, I've had a few and my Sinar P2, with both 10" x 8" and 5" x 4" beats the rest for ease of use. It's about both image quality and movements and no, no DSLR or mirrorless camera can produce that level of IQ and no, Photoshop can't replicate movements and all that a tilt / shift lens can do, in a limited way, is to replicate front standard movements and Scheimpflug involves the movements of both standards.

That may be well outside of your camera knowledge. Another thing that you may not have heard about is a drott. We've got one on the farm and I've got a photo of it on my smartphone but, being both stupid and obtuse I can't post it on here because I don't know how to download it from the phone. . .

Anyway, you probably wouldn't like the drot - no fancy electronics, just 20 tons of heavy duty steel and hydraulics but it could be useful to you. It's a tracked vehicle, a bit like a tank but without the armour plating and the gun, and it's fitted with a big 5-way bucket that pushes things and digs big holes - not that you seem to need it to dig holes

Yes, I did take a look at the specs of the Sony A9, this should be obvious from what I wrote

Whatever you are doing, whatever you are shooting and whatever you are buying: You are still going to need time to learn how to use it all to be able to take anything even remotely decent. It doesn't just come out the box and setup, done.

Its not going to be fast, and it doesn't really sound like you know what you are doing.

But, Riddell is a pro photographer who has turned out some good product shots, he knows what he's doing and he's right.
It seems to me that you are the person who has taken this thread more off course than anyone else - although there are a couple of others - and you seem to me to write like a lawyer, concerned far more about your own interpretation of semantics than anything else. Well, if you really are a lawyer then you will understand the phrase "With the greatest possible respect" and, with the greatest possible respect, I feel that you are the cause of the problems in this thread and that people like you are the cause of most of the problems that now spoil many of the threads in this forum.

This is a forum that has a lot of expert knowledge about both lighting and lighting equipment and until fairly recently it could always be relied upon to provide good answers to those who need help without slanging matches, willy waving and people with ego problems, and it needs to get back to that situation.

 

[Garry Edwards]

The post above has gone a bit wrong, obviously I'm too stupid and obtuse to get the quotes right, but I'll leave it as it is, life's too short . . .

 

[DemiLion]

That’s twice you’ve acted like you think you’ve got some form of authority to tell others what to do.


I must have missed the announcement when you were made a mod, when did that happen?

No claim of authority. Just expressing my opinion of someone who wanders into a reasonable discussion to needlessly create an argument.

 

[Ulfric M Douglas]

Dammit this thread went all "DPR" when all I'm here for is to find out the O.P's mystifying setup for constant lighting and phones ...

 

[simonbarker]

Dammit this thread went all "DPR" when all I'm here for is to find out the O.P's mystifying setup for constant lighting and phones ...

Only guess which made sense was that it's intended for others to use but probably best not to worry too much about it if the op isn't fussed either.

 

[L.Culley]

Only guess which made sense was that it's intended for others to use but probably best not to worry too much about it if the op isn't fussed either.

Wow…… first time logging back in after my original post got a little crazy so I’ve only just read through all the replies. I’ll be honest, if someone had have just asked what it was I was doing at the start I’d have happily explained, but the immediate turn for the fact I was using a phone rather than a DSLR kinda put me off. For the last few years I just ended up using an A3 paper backdrop with a couple of small lights. It’s not been ideal but it’s got me through.

As many of you guessed, the set up was for photos of stone and terracotta items for an e-commerce site that’s just going to compress my files anyway, the use of a phone was due to the simplicity of being able to immediately upload my photos to said website without the need for a computer handy, I’m also working with a really tiny space so big diffusers are no help for me.

As it happens I’m back to looking for a more professional set up, this time though, rather than asking for help, I’m just going to lurk on others posts .

Thank you to everyone who did try to provide useful feedback, and my apologies for such a delayed response.

 

[Bobsyeruncle]

Wow…… first time logging back in after my original post got a little crazy so I’ve only just read through all the replies. I’ll be honest, if someone had have just asked what it was I was doing at the start I’d have happily explained, but the immediate turn for the fact I was using a phone rather than a DSLR kinda put me off. For the last few years I just ended up using an A3 paper backdrop with a couple of small lights. It’s not been ideal but it’s got me through.

As many of you guessed, the set up was for photos of stone and terracotta items for an e-commerce site that’s just going to compress my files anyway, the use of a phone was due to the simplicity of being able to immediately upload my photos to said website without the need for a computer handy, I’m also working with a really tiny space so big diffusers are no help for me.

As it happens I’m back to looking for a more professional set up, this time though, rather than asking for help, I’m just going to lurk on others posts .

Thank you to everyone who did try to provide useful feedback, and my apologies for such a delayed response.

Welcome back....

 

[Phil V]

Wow…… first time logging back in after my original post got a little crazy so I’ve only just read through all the replies. I’ll be honest, if someone had have just asked what it was I was doing at the start I’d have happily explained, but the immediate turn for the fact I was using a phone rather than a DSLR kinda put me off. For the last few years I just ended up using an A3 paper backdrop with a couple of small lights. It’s not been ideal but it’s got me through.

As many of you guessed, the set up was for photos of stone and terracotta items for an e-commerce site that’s just going to compress my files anyway, the use of a phone was due to the simplicity of being able to immediately upload my photos to said website without the need for a computer handy, I’m also working with a really tiny space so big diffusers are no help for me.

As it happens I’m back to looking for a more professional set up, this time though, rather than asking for help, I’m just going to lurk on others posts .

Thank you to everyone who did try to provide useful feedback, and my apologies for such a delayed response.

Firstly welcome back.
Resurrecting this thread has reminded me of some ‘characters’ we no longer see.

But can I ask a question please?
In 2019 you had an ‘urgent’ need for advice. A need so urgent you couldn’t even be bothered to ask a specific question or provide any clarification.

What did you decide? Can you show us some before and after shots that might help others?

Forums at their best are collaborative spaces, at their worst… well this thread was a great example of that. Let’s try and make amends for what happened before and deliver something genuinely useful.

 

[Faldrax]

...

As many of you guessed, the set up was for photos of stone and terracotta items for an e-commerce site that’s just going to compress my files anyway ...

As a general rule, you are better off resizing images yourself (from the full size original) to the size the site wants, rather than uploading a larger image and letting the site resize it.
This applies to things like Facebook as well as e-comerce sites.

 

[swanseamale47]

Sadly it's the nature of the internet that sometimes a simple question on a forum can go downhill faster than a rubbish skydiver.
I stopped posting for a long time a while back after seeing too many arguments developing.
I'm glad you got it sorted in the end.

 

[L.Culley]

Firstly welcome back.
Resurrecting this thread has reminded me of some ‘characters’ we no longer see.

But can I ask a question please?
In 2019 you had an ‘urgent’ need for advice. A need so urgent you couldn’t even be bothered to ask a specific question or provide any clarification.

What did you decide? Can you show us some before and after shots that might help others?

Forums at their best are collaborative spaces, at their worst… well this thread was a great example of that. Let’s try and make amends for what happened before and deliver something genuinely useful.

It wasn’t that I ‘couldn’t be bothered’, it just was clear from the go that I wasn’t getting help with lighting set ups, just getting told I was wrong for using a phone. I don’t think there was anyone asking for clarification until after I’d already decided I wasn’t going to get the advice I needed here.
I’m not really the type to get into online arguments so just left and didn’t give it a second thought until I came back yesterday.

The set up I ended up with was honestly the most basic of basics, completely inappropriate for its purpose but I got used to it. I’ve since reevaluated and decided I really need to get something that’s going to make my life easier (mainly providing a truer colour balance with less editing required). I have to set everting up on something the size of a small kitchen table so I’m very limited on what I can use. To give an example of the sort of thing I’ve been considering upgrading to, this looks about the right ‘size’ for my space - https://www.essentialphoto.co.uk/pr...-kit-matte-black?_pos=69&_sid=e5df2ba85&_ss=r

Ultimately I’m just looking for something that’s going to be quick to set up / take down and will provide a quicker turnaround with getting the photos ready for upload.

 

[Faldrax]

...

I really need to get something that’s going to make my life easier (mainly providing a truer colour balance with less editing required). ...

There are others with more expertise in these areas than me, but the main problem I see with this is that using your phone limits you to using continuous lights - and practicality then limits you to LED lights - which in turn have a limited colour spectrum - IE they do not emit light at all visible frequencies.
This is measured by the lights CRI - which in the set you've linked to is advertised as >93%
Which means that ~7% of the spectrum is 'missing' - which could be OK, or a total disaster, depending on how those 'gaps' match up to the colour of the things you are trying to photograph.
Hence advice to switch from the phone to a 'traditional' camera which could use a flashgun as the light source - avoiding the LED / CRI issues.

 

[Phil V]

It wasn’t that I ‘couldn’t be bothered’, it just was clear from the go that I wasn’t getting help with lighting set ups, just getting told I was wrong for using a phone. I don’t think there was anyone asking for clarification until after I’d already decided I wasn’t going to get the advice I needed here.
I’m not really the type to get into online arguments so just left and didn’t give it a second thought until I came back yesterday.

The set up I ended up with was honestly the most basic of basics, completely inappropriate for its purpose but I got used to it. I’ve since reevaluated and decided I really need to get something that’s going to make my life easier (mainly providing a truer colour balance with less editing required). I have to set everting up on something the size of a small kitchen table so I’m very limited on what I can use. To give an example of the sort of thing I’ve been considering upgrading to, this looks about the right ‘size’ for my space - https://www.essentialphoto.co.uk/pr...-kit-matte-black?_pos=69&_sid=e5df2ba85&_ss=r

Ultimately I’m just looking for something that’s going to be quick to set up / take down and will provide a quicker turnaround with getting the photos ready for upload.

Honestly; if you’d said all that initially I’d like to bet the conversation would have moved on in a better direction.

However c’est la vie, that was then etc.

As above, cheap continuous light will have a limited cri, which is what’s currently costing you time. So that kit isn’t an answer to your current problem.

I’ll reiterate what I said in a similar post recently.

You can get an ‘OK’ photo with window light and a phone. But as soon as you want better than just OK, the learning curve and expense goes up exponentially.

If the items aren’t large, then you can light with cheap flashguns in smallish modifiers. That’ll give you repeatable, controllable lighting that’s relatively easy to set up and gives you 100% accurate colour. But you need a camera with a hot shoe and manual exposure mode to use flash (which doesn’t necessarily mean a dslr, many older high end compacts would do).

The kit you’ve linked gives you cheap repeatable and easy to set up, but still leaves you with the same problem you currently have with colour reproduction.

In life; there are always compromises. You can easily shoot with your phone and be 90% there, but that last 10% is the difficult bit.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

Ultimately I’m just looking for something that’s going to be quick to set up / take down and will provide a quicker turnaround with getting the photos ready for upload.

Have you come across "light tents"?

The one I use is a cube about 18 inches on a side, came with half a dozen backdrops from black to white and cost well under £20 from Amazon. It was the smallest they offered at the time and I think the sizes went up to about 36 inches. It has a spring steel frame and folds into a small bag. You can set it up and put it away in a minute or so.

Because the material diffuses the light you can use almost any lighting and still get a fairly good image.

 

[Garry Edwards]

I can't believe that so many of us wasted so much time on genuinely trying to help the OP with this, and here I am posting again

It wasn’t that I ‘couldn’t be bothered’, it just was clear from the go that I wasn’t getting help with lighting set ups, just getting told I was wrong for using a phone. I don’t think there was anyone asking for clarification until after I’d already decided I wasn’t going to get the advice I needed here.
I’m not really the type to get into online arguments so just left and didn’t give it a second thought until I came back yesterday.

The set up I ended up with was honestly the most basic of basics, completely inappropriate for its purpose but I got used to it. I’ve since reevaluated and decided I really need to get something that’s going to make my life easier (mainly providing a truer colour balance with less editing required). I have to set everting up on something the size of a small kitchen table so I’m very limited on what I can use. To give an example of the sort of thing I’ve been considering upgrading to, this looks about the right ‘size’ for my space - https://www.essentialphoto.co.uk/pr...-kit-matte-black?_pos=69&_sid=e5df2ba85&_ss=r

Ultimately I’m just looking for something that’s going to be quick to set up / take down and will provide a quicker turnaround with getting the photos ready for upload.

Your post #1 provided no useful info at all. You may have known what you wanted, but didn't tell us
Your post #2 consisted of "Na", and you then disappeared for several years.
Nobody said that you shouldn't be using a mobile phone until long after you had failed to provide any useful info, and left.

This is measured by the lights CRI - which in the set you've linked to is advertised as >93%
Which means that ~7% of the spectrum is 'missing' - which could be OK, or a total disaster, depending on how those 'gaps' match up to the colour of the things you are trying to photograph.

and that deficiency assumes that the figure quoted is actually correct . . . I don't know whether it's right or not, but I do know that nearly all LED products that I've personally tested fall far short of the claims made for them.

 

[L.Culley]

There are others with more expertise in these areas than me, but the main problem I see with this is that using your phone limits you to using continuous lights - and practicality then limits you to LED lights - which in turn have a limited colour spectrum - IE they do not emit light at all visible frequencies.
This is measured by the lights CRI - which in the set you've linked to is advertised as >93%
Which means that ~7% of the spectrum is 'missing' - which could be OK, or a total disaster, depending on how those 'gaps' match up to the colour of the things you are trying to photograph.
Hence advice to switch from the phone to a 'traditional' camera which could use a flashgun as the light source - avoiding the LED / CRI issues.

Thank you for your reply, I may have no choice but to accept the loss of spectrum, it’s not ideal and may mean my ‘upgrade’ isn’t much of an upgrade but I do need to renew my current set up.

 

[L.Culley]

Honestly; if you’d said all that initially I’d like to bet the conversation would have moved on in a better direction.

However c’est la vie, that was then etc.

As above, cheap continuous light will have a limited cri, which is what’s currently costing you time. So that kit isn’t an answer to your current problem.

I’ll reiterate what I said in a similar post recently.

You can get an ‘OK’ photo with window light and a phone. But as soon as you want better than just OK, the learning curve and expense goes up exponentially.

If the items aren’t large, then you can light with cheap flashguns in smallish modifiers. That’ll give you repeatable, controllable lighting that’s relatively easy to set up and gives you 100% accurate colour. But you need a camera with a hot shoe and manual exposure mode to use flash (which doesn’t necessarily mean a dslr, many older high end compacts would do).

The kit you’ve linked gives you cheap repeatable and easy to set up, but still leaves you with the same problem you currently have with colour reproduction.

In life; there are always compromises. You can easily shoot with your phone and be 90% there, but that last 10% is the difficult bit.

I agree that using a camera would provide the answer to my missing 10% but it would mean significant expense rather than just the lighting set up (the camera I had has died so I would need to replace). That and the fact that using a phone just adds so much simplicity when it comes to uploading photos on the go.

 

[L.Culley]

Have you come across "light tents"?

The one I use is a cube about 18 inches on a side, came with half a dozen backdrops from black to white and cost well under £20 from Amazon. It was the smallest they offered at the time and I think the sizes went up to about 36 inches. It has a spring steel frame and folds into a small bag. You can set it up and put it away in a minute or so.

Because the material diffuses the light you can use almost any lighting and still get a fairly good image.

View attachment 397328
View attachment 397329

I had considered a light box but as I’m using continuous lighting I’ve found the background looks grey rather than white and requires so much more editing.

 

[L.Culley]

I can't believe that so many of us wasted so much time on genuinely trying to help the OP with this, and here I am posting again

Your post #1 provided no useful info at all. You may have known what you wanted, but didn't tell us
Your post #2 consisted of "Na", and you then disappeared for several years.
Nobody said that you shouldn't be using a mobile phone until long after you had failed to provide any useful info, and left.

and that deficiency assumes that the figure quoted is actually correct . . . I don't know whether it's right or not, but I do know that nearly all LED products that I've personally tested fall far short of the claims made for them.

This is exactly the type of reply that made me leave the last time. You start off with ‘I can’t believe so many of us wasted our time’ then continue that I didn’t provide any useful information until now and even though you acknowledge I’ve now provided the required information, you haven’t actually provided any help at all in this reply, you’ve just criticised me.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

I had considered a light box but as I’m using continuous lighting I’ve found the background looks grey rather than white and requires so much more editing.

Have you tried using the exposure offset adjustment to force it to lighten the overall scene? Also: have you set your ISO speed to a fixed value? If the ISO is floating, that can lead to underexposed whites (so they show as grey).

 

[Faldrax]

I had considered a light box but as I’m using continuous lighting I’ve found the background looks grey rather than white and requires so much more editing.

Actually it's more likely due to the auto processing done by your phone - while I agree that using a phone makes upload an image very easy, it's making the process of getting a good image to upload a lot harder - because phones take the majority of the control on how the image appears away from you.

Note that you do not need the latest and greatest camera for the sort of photographs you want to take.

A second hand 10 year old camera, a 50 mm prime lens, and a simple flash - you should be able to pick that up for a similar total to the LED kit you linked to, but the potential results will be far superior.

 

[Garry Edwards]

This is exactly the type of reply that made me leave the last time. You start off with ‘I can’t believe so many of us wasted our time’ then continue that I didn’t provide any useful information until now and even though you acknowledge I’ve now provided the required information, you haven’t actually provided any help at all in this reply, you’ve just criticised me.

Could the criticism be because you have been unfairly critical of everyone who tried to help you?

I had considered a light box but as I’m using continuous lighting I’ve found the background looks grey rather than white and requires so much more editing.

A light tent consists of a box or pyramid/tent-shaped enclosure that has translucent walls, you put the subject inside it and you shine the lights through the walls, which diffuses the light. The results are far from outstanding but can be adequate. I'm guessing that what you've tried isn't a light tent at all, but a light cube, which is basically a solid plastic monstrosity, usually with one of more LED lights built in. These are far less usable than light tents because, inevitably, the background always photographs as grey because less light falls on the background than on the subject.
Now, whether you accept it or not, this reply is intended to be helpful.

I had considered a light box but as I’m using continuous lighting I’ve found the background looks grey rather than white and requires so much more editing.

Actually it's more likely due to the auto processing done by your phone

This too. Mobile phones have extremely dumb hardware, very largely but not completely offset by extremely smart software. Sometimes (often) the software makes an intelligent guess but gets it wrong.

 

[L.Culley]

Could the criticism be because you have been unfairly critical of everyone who tried to help you?

A light tent consists of a box or pyramid/tent-shaped enclosure that has translucent walls, you put the subject inside it and you shine the lights through the walls, which diffuses the light. The results are far from outstanding but can be adequate. I'm guessing that what you've tried isn't a light tent at all, but a light cube, which is basically a solid plastic monstrosity, usually with one of more LED lights built in. These are far less usable than light tents because, inevitably, the background always photographs as grey because less light falls on the background than on the subject.
Now, whether you accept it or not, this reply is intended to be helpful.


This too. Mobile phones have extremely dumb hardware, very largely but not completely offset by extremely smart software. Sometimes (often) the software makes an intelligent guess but gets it wrong.

If I’m forced to use a mobile phone, and having a small space to photograph, using a black/grey background (as long as the background colour is consistent and not washed out I’m not worried). I’m photographing small terracotta/stone objects, the occasional silver objects. I will have to set up and pack away the gear after each shoot.

What lighting would be my best option to provide the best images given my restrictions. This could be a light tent, light box, continuous lighting, strobe lighting, ring lights, anything.

Budget is anything up to about £600.

If you can answer that without providing additional criticism, that would be helpful.

 

[Garry Edwards]

You can't use any kind of flash (which gives the most accurate colour rendition) with a mobile phone.
That leaves you with daylight, which provides perfect colour rendition but which is extremely difficult to control, or some other type of continuous lighting.
Of the various types of continuous lighting, LED is by far the best choice.

Avoid anything cheap, and that isn't specifically designed for photography, because the colour rendition will be way off, with the light designed for efficiency rather than colour accuracy.

And even the cheap ones, sold specifically for photography, are usually not actually designed for photography, so avoid most online selling platforms such as Amazon and eBay.

You haven't posted any example shots, but guessing that these are small subjects that have a textured finish, in order to show that textured finish you'll need physically small lights that produce fairly hard lighting. Any kind of diffused lighting source, or a ringlight, is the worst possible choice.

I really can't recommend any specific products, because this isn't something that I've used myself, but maybe something like this? https://www.lencarta.com/hakutatz-led-panel-light-rgb-pocket-video-light

It seems to tick the boxes, small, easily manouverable, fully adjustable for power as well as for colour temperature (although you won't need the colour temperature adjustment) and you can easily make a light smaller with a bit of sticky tape or card, if you need a smaller, harder light source, skimming across the surface to emphasise the texture.

But I haven't tested this product personally and haven't even seen it, so I can't do more than suggest that it seems OK for your purpose.

 

[DemiLion]

This thread is a work of poetic beauty.