Alright, then. I noticed in another thread, someone mentioned how the groove shoppe supplies such amazing pictures of their gear. I would like to help you all out, and get you some really great looking pics of your wooden children (pirates need not apply -- call a professional.). I will make this easy for everyone to understand, and compose it as though none of you have *any* previous photography skill or experience.
I will write this piece briefly, updating it over the next few days or so, because I'm a bit short on time for right now. This will not be the end-all thread for shooting frame-quality pics, but rather a good way for you to provide excellent shots for classified listings, or even just for general eye candy. Ready? Here goes.
1. Buy a tripod. This will allow you to have the camera steady and level at all times. this is especially important, because this brings us to our next point....
2. Turn off your flash! I cannot stress this enough. A flash will highlight a small area, and generally leave the rest dark. It also gives a great margin of error for reflection directly into the lens, causing a "burst" or lens flare effect. This is bad.
Example:
See how awful that looks? Trying to convince someone how beautiful that is in person is a stretch, at best.
if you are unsure of how to turn the flash off on your camera, consult your user's manual. It's generally VERY easy to do, and the results are extremely rewarding.
3. Now that you have a tripod, and the flash is off, mount the camera. When your flash is off, the camera will become subject to blurring, even from minor vibrations. Make sure the tripod is anchored flat, and won't move. from here, locate the "self-timer" setting. This allows you to set up a shot, press the button, and step back. Even so much as pressing the button to take the pic may blur your shot, so anything that can be done to avoid this is certainly your friend.
4. As is, you're pretty much set to start taking some pictures! But wait -- what about lighting? Snap a few shots to determine if the ambient lighting is sufficient to bring out detail in your shots. if it is, snap away. you will have plenty of opportunities later on to adjust lighting positions and intensity. If your pictures look good, you're very lucky.
5. Lighting -- this gets tricky. Typically, normal household incandescent lighting (read: lightbulbs) will tend to soften your colors, and give a somewhat yellowish tinge to your subject. I use GE Reveal bulbs, and the color is very good. I won't delve into buying bulbs with different color temperatures, because this really isn't necessary for joe blow taking guitar pictures. If you have previous experience, go ahead and experiment. I prefer using 5300k lighting from the front and sides, and occasionally a 6000k bulb out back. Ignore this if you don't have a clue what I'm talking about.
Cliff notes: GE Reveal bulbs are a great, inexpensive way to enhance detail and provide true color replication in your photos.
6. The "Hobo Light Tent" -- Light tents are used to diffuse direct lighting onto reflective, or even semi-reflective surfaces, and can (and are) still be useful for shooting matte surfaces. The easiest way to do this is find some white sheets. You can probably find some cheapo-ones from Kmart/target/WalMart, etc. Hang them around your instrument in a back/left side/right side orientation. Position some lighting on the outside of the sheets, and voila! You've got a cheap, effective light tent. you may choose to go to other lengths to build one, and the MAKE online blog has some great tutorials. (
http://makezine.com/blog/)
Play with the distance of the lighting from the sheets, and make sure you are getting good light diffucion, but not TOO much. You don't want dark pictures. Those of you without Photoshop or other image editing programs, take note of how important this is, and how much your results may vary.
7. After all this nonsense, play around with the number of lights, distancing lights from the "tent", and distancing your "tent" from your instrument. Every setting will be different, so don't be afraid to move things around.
For right now, this should be good enough to get you on your way. In my next installment, I will provide you all with some instruction about other camera functions such as White Balance and Exposure Time. Without touching on these subjects right now, feel free to play around a bit with some settings on your camera, just to see what it can do. Your manual will provide a "Master Reset" command if you get stuck in a position where you don't know how to return to all of your normal settings.
And, as a quickie bonus, here's a quick pic I took. this is using NO TENT, with 8 GE Reveal bulbs (3 shaded) in my bedroom with a TV on. I performed a quick black+white level adjustment in Photoshop CS2, and made a quickie clipping path to edit out the background. It is by no means a great picture, but it is a LOT better than just some hack flash picture. I was able to setup lighting, take the pic, edit, save and upload in less than 10 minutes. It was taken using a Nikon Coolpix 7600 (no need for a $1200 DSLR, see?), with only the flash off and using the self-timer.
Any questions can be PM'ed to me, and I will do my best to respond to you very quickly.
Happy shooting!
--Phil
Edit: Per SuperDuck's suggestion,
WIPE YOUR FINGERPRINTS OFF! It may seem like common sense, but it's pretty darn important. Imagine walking into Guitar Center and seeing 2 identical basses, but one is smudged -- which would you be more inclined to pick up first?
