taking pictures of pipes

[Josh B.]

I fjnally broke down and got a smart phone. Mostly to get involved with the instagram pipe community and i see lots of really nice pictures being added. Are yku using better cameras to take the picturea and then put them up or am i doing something wrong. i dony own a good camera at the momment. If i want to sell my pipes is that something i need or is a smartphone acceptable

[Sasquatch]

Eventually you'll need a camera. For 150 bucks, you can get a camera that will have all kinds of options that a smart phone won't, and will allow you to take much finer and more controlled pictures. It's one thing to show people a pipe, it's another to make it look like something they want to buy.

[LatakiaLover]

One of these should do it:

http://www.amazon.com/Hasselblad-H5D-60 ... V1RQDPWYSS

[sandahlpipe]

It's all about the lenses and lighting. Most phone cameras do well for social media, especially under natural light conditions. Indoors, you need good light bulbs and a good flash. Get the brightest lens you can afford. A fixed length lens is usually better than a zoom lens for this reason.

[Massis]

I got myself a few large sheets of 5mm thick foam core cardboard, made a box about 40x40x40cm with one open side, and made windows covered with tracing paper on both sides behind which I've put a 9W LED bulb at 850 lumens each. Add a little spot on the front for accent lighting and you've got a cheap ass light box.

With that, my phone (a new iPhone 6 I have to admit) takes better pictures than I can get out of my old Canon S5 IS bridgecam. I would dare say: pictures that are decent enough for me.

This is basicly the level of pictures I made before (with my bridgecam and very crappy pipe):


And this is what I have now (made with my Iphone and a slightly less crappy pipe) :


By no means am I stating my pictures are perfect, but I'd say it's a heck of an improvement for 40$ in material spent. And no, ofcourse you don't get the same level of detail and focus depth as you would get out of a decent DSLR camera, but like with powertools I would dare say the operator of the equipment plays quite a large part in the result. But if you have a decent smartphone, chances are it'll take pictures that match a cheap digital camera easily. (Most cheap camera's don't have a manual mode either last time I checked...)

[RDPowell]

Photoshop works wonders also if you know how to use it but, it doesn't take long to learn the basics
like lighting, cropping, and sharpness. You can really clean up a sad photo but, nothing really can be done with a bad one.
So a decent camera is a must. This was taken with an old Sony CD1000 and a little help from Photoshop to brighten.

[Literaryworkshop]

To answer directly, yes, I generally take photos with a better camera, clean them up a little on my computer, and then synch them with my smartphone for posting to social media. The difference in quality is worth the trouble.

[oklahoma red]

Get the best camera you can afford, whatever the brand may be. Just make sure it will take pics in the RAW format. The files created are huge but they are easily re-sized down and saved as .jpg.
The RAW format captures EVERYTHING including things the eye will have trouble seeing. Get PhotoShop (Elements version is perfectly adequate) and learn how to use the basic tools. In some cases the software packaged with the camera will be good enough. If you're just posting pics on IG a cell phone will do the job. If you eventually get to a point where you want a web site then you want the best pics possible to showcase your work.

[Massis]

If photoshop is out of price range, GIMP can do a pretty decent job for free!