Guitar Photography

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zaphod B
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TelePaul said:
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Also, with regards to a previous point, remember when taking shots outside that midday sun usually creates the most contrast.
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Your other option is overcast days outdoors with the sun high in the sky.
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Remember the objective here is to elimanate glare and shine from complex highly reflective surfaces. The sun low in the sky is going to cast big shadows and make decent even exposure very difficult. A good high cloud cover is a fantastic diffuser and the sun high in the sky casts a very even and well balanced colour temperature for this task. I still prefer shooting indoors using a good large window as the main source and bouncing when needed. We are not trying to capture a landscape or a "trick of the light" with this rather trying to evenly and flatly light a single object.
 
TelePaul said:
Flash is bounced light - you can tilt a flash gun head in a variety of directions. Buy one of these and bounce off a low roof, or better yet, use it outside to cut way down on that pesky contrast (though I'm not ENTIRELY sure why you'd want to)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31-v7puGQzL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
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Seriously, try both methods and see which gives you the best results.

As I said nothing wrong with flash but even an angled head or a off shoe sync from way back across the room floods the rest of the subject with leaked light. With high reflective surfaces thats not good and the light bounces around far too much. Sure the pro's use it but they have far better gear and studios than were talking of here.
 
muttley600 said:
Remember the objective here is to elimanate glare and shine from complex highly reflective surfaces. The sun low in the sky is going to cast big shadows and make decent even exposure very difficult. A good high cloud cover is a fantastic diffuser and the sun high in the sky casts a very even and well balanced colour temperature for this task. I still prefer shooting indoors using a good large window as the main source and bouncing when needed. We are not trying to capture a landscape of a "trick of the light" with this rather trying to evenly and flatly light a single object.
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You're going to have to choose between deep shadows and soft contrast versus few shadows and harsh contrast. That's the way the sun works for nine months of the year.
 
muttley600 said:
Seriously, try both methods and see which gives you the best results.

As I said nothing wrong with flash but even an angled head or a off shoe sync from way back across the room floods the rest of the subject with leaked light. With high reflective surfaces thats not good and the light bounces around far too much. Sure the pro's use it but they have far better gear and studios than were talking of here.
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If you're bored, use a buld exposure - and a tripod, obviously - in a dark room. Manually trigger flashes in a 180* arc around the subject.That can look really cool.
 
Here is a picture of my Epiphone Sheraton 2 that I snapped last year in the yard with the landscaping as background. Not all that great but better than most guitar pictures I've attempted.

Reverend-crop.jpg
 
Muttley, thanks for digging up your setup shots, and for the accompanying info. :) The recommendation for polystyrene sheets is great. They're cheap and easy to store.

Telepaul and others, thanks for your input as well.

I do have a large, mostly unobstructed bay window in my front room that gets very good sun in the mornings (it faces east). That's probably going to be my best bet for location. I'll mess around with some backdrops and reflective panels to see what I can some up with over the next few weeks.

I don't even have a hot-shoe flash (just the one that's integral with the camera) so I can't bounce light with the flash.
 
Oh, by the way, Muttley - I had missed those pictures of your instruments.

You do drop-dead-gorgeous work, my friend.
 
The one big and un avoidable problem with flash unless you really have a good idea of what you are doing and good gear is that it is very difficult to control the direction and intensity. Also with a hot shoe you are limited to the way you can bounce the light and you can't judge the shot until the shutter goes. To use flash correctly for this type of thing I'd want remote sync and more than one gun. I'm not saying it can't be done just that you can get better control of the light and see whats happening with simple available light methods and a little back lighting with a spot.

Sure play around with it but I kind of guarantee that you will get better results with available light and a few white boards. How do I know this? Well I've been down that road. I'm no photography expert but have a keen interest and have taken lots of instrument pics over the years, and I mean lots. Unless you have good gear and a lot of experience it is a hell of a lot easier to get good results with the KISS approach and that means no flash. I'd love to have the gear and the time to learn how to use flash properly on a studio type shot but it's not for us part time dabblers

YMMV.:) Lets have some instrument shots with a setup guide and details done with flash that right and I'll give it another go.
 
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