DIY Dave wrote:Those pictures are awesome. Great photography skills (and picking skills) What type of camera/lighting do you use?
Hey, thanks!
Some of them are kind of quick snapshots (the disk lock and schlage for example).
Currently I'm shooting with a Canon t2i (550D for our Euro friends) just using room lighting. The Brinks 527 was in a room with a CFL bulb (really don't like those), and the ABUS was actually in my bedroom where I'm using a carbon filament bulb (I like the dull orange glow).
They're pretty hasty setups though. I do have speedlights and umbrella stands that I intend to dig out to do a proper shoot at some point though.
I mostly tend to do a quick set up with a contrasting backdrop (black cloth for a silver lock) and the camera on a tripod. Then I use a low iso setting and a long exposure with a middle of the road aperture and a remote shutter release, which helps to get a decent depth of field and keep the grain down. Sometimes I'll use a sheet of paper or foil off to the side to help bounce light back into certain areas and kill reflections on polished surfaces.
About the best advice I can give on lighting is to set a custom white balance if you can, and don't mix lighting types (ie: natural sunlight coming in a window and an incandescent bulb in the room). Even though the lighting looks relatively even to our eyes (the human eye is a wonderfully complex instrument), cameras aren't able to adjust in the same manner, which will lead to weird color casts and make it impossible to faithfully duplicate what you see. A lot of folks like to think they can just fix everything in post, but honestly, it makes life a lot easier to take the time to get it as close to right as possible in the camera.
Sat Sep 14, 2013 12:47 am 
