Scofield "Cabra"

[bscofield]

Here's a new one that's been on the bench for a while... 2 questions:

What do you think of it?

&

Are the pictures too dark? I have a laptop so I see a different degree of brightness depending on how the screen is tilted. What does it look like on a normal monitor?

[magruder]

Hi Ben,
Looks like an interesting pipe.
I'd like a photo showing the whole pipe. It's ( IMHO) hard to answer you first question w/out seeing the total piece at once.
Re: image quality- That quarter is perfectly exposed on my monitor. That said, I think raising the values of all the tones would better illustrate the grain. Sort of like bright daylight. In bright daylight a shiny new quarter exceeds the eyes' ability to distinguish tone, but grain comes out great.
Nice looking shank work.

More pix coming I hope?

[Nick]

I agree, the pics are too dark. The pipe looks cool. I like how the shank sneaks between the two smooth panels. Although, I think I would have called it my "butt crack" pipe.

[bscofield]

The pics seem way too dark to me. That's just opinion, I'm certainly in no position to preach about photo quality. Anyway on my screen (Sony Vaio laptop) they're so dark it's hard to make out what's grain and what's rustication.

I have a Vaio laptop as well... all you need to do is to tilt your screen until you see it clearly...

I'll mod the pics...

[bscofield]

And so nobody get's TO'd because I haven't sent a full body shot yet, here you go:

[Tyler]

And so nobody get's TO'd because I haven't sent a full body shot yet, here you go:

It took me a second, but...good one.

:thumb:

[bscofield]

And so nobody get's TO'd because I haven't sent a full body shot yet, here you go:

It took me a second, but...good one.

:thumb:

Oh yeah... I mean to put in there that it was a movie quote (sort of)

[Nick]

LOL! You're a nut Ben.

[souljer]

Hi,

I'm new here, and still working on my first three pipes, so I don't feel too qualified to judge your pipe-craft. I can say that I like the overall pipe, and I like what I can see of the rustication.

I'm and artist and have done some photography work. That said I have to confess that many pipe pictures I see are pretty bad. Yours are actually relatively good, but they could be better with a few simple tricks and an understanding of how an auto-everything camera works. What does not apply to you may help someone else reading this.

My first question is: Are you using an auto-everything camera? If you are, and if it's on the cheaper end of the scale, it's just a basic camera that's made for basic, average work. Pipe photography is close-up work. Your camera may not allow you to get close enough, etc. Your camera uses a tiny preprogramed computer brain to take the best picture it can based on very little information. The information it has is: the distance to the subject and the overall intensity of light. It does not know what you are shooting or why. It just knows the distance and the lighting. If you are not using an auto camera, you will have to do some of the thinking, but the principals below are the same.

As long as you are not closer than the camera can focus, auto-focus should handle things okay.

The challenge with pipe photos is that the pipes are usually much darker and smaller than the backgrounds. The camera sees a lot of light area and a little dark and tries to expose for the average between the two extremes, as it has been programed to do. You then end up with a decently exposed background and a silhouette of a pipe! Or at least a very dark pipe. The two elements are too far apart in light intensity and the pipe gets underexposed.

To avoid some of this, it might help if the background was not so close to the pipe, and there was a soft light supplementing the available light. Flash light can be a little harsh sometimes with big highlights that obliterate graining, etc. You can soften the light by having it bounce off a white reflector, like a piece of paper, white card stock or a light colored wall. A light coming from the side would also help; more light and the hard highlight is not facing the camera.

If you want to really make sure it's going to be good, you could set up the shot so that the light colored background does not get as much light as the pipe. Again, having it farther back might help this. This will help balance the elements and make things easier for the camera's little brain.

An example of controlling the light like this can be seen on the home page of my website shown in the signature line. The picture is of a light grey shirt and a black shirt. The day was sunny and the two extremes were too much for the camera to handle. I placed the grey shirt in shade and the black shirt in the sun. The light balance was better and it came out fine.

I hope that was clear and is helpful to you.

[alexanderfrese]

Souljer made it clear, so I don't have to throw in too much about picture composition.

Besides all the finetuning, the pics are surely underexposed to some extent. The highlights in there are pure white, but they are rather small and clear, so raising the exposure while taking the photo will help without having no more detail in the brighter areas. Same could be done in some postprocessing if you know how to lighten it up without producing grey instead of dark areas.

I allowed to download the pics to give them a short tuning in Photoshop. Hope you don't mind. There is one other thing: The pictures seem to be a little greenish in the neutral areas (background). Did you have any neon lights on in the room when you took the pics? Avoid them, if you can. Anyway try to make a white balance with the cam (if it's digital) before you shoot. This is a must, when shooting detail. All the auto-white-balancing is pure crap when it comes to stills like these.



Lightened and neutralized the greenish tones. It lacks a bit of light on the bowl. Maybe you want to experiment with a simple white cardboard used just to reflect some light on areas where it doesn't want to go on it's own. It doesn't always need more flashlights. Although they sometimes help.
My avatar shows a pipe I restored. The highlight there is only relfection from a white carboard standing on the right from the pipe. It's been flashed by a flashlight standing on the left behind the pipe. I admit I used two flashes, and I wanted it to look more dramatic than documenting every detail. But just to give an Idea of using reflective material.
Note that the rusticated areas arre still too dark. Manipulating it on that end of tonal values would lead to the greyish dark areas.













BTW: Nice pipe anyway.

Alex

[bscofield]

Dang guys! Thanks for all the great info! Unfortunatley these weren't even taken with my normal camera. Normaly I use a real nice Olympus E20 5.0 mp (<$3000 when it was new). I do manual zoom for when I'm in too close for the auto zoom. I try to normaly do my pics outside in the natural lighting but have been experimenting with the indoor "studio" feel. I know I don't have enough lighting and such. I'll re-ask what you guys think when I take pictures with my normal setup next.

[souljer]

Sorry to go on like that. After I posted I was thinking, that seems a little long... lol Oh well, and I was really trying to keep it short by not including some of what Alexander mentioned. I guess I got excited about knowing the answer to something here. Usually I'm wondering what the answer is myself.

Maguder's post, probably told you all you needed to know. All you need to do is understand why that happened; why this is true.

Re: image quality- That quarter is perfectly exposed on my monitor. That said, I think raising the values of all the tones would better illustrate the grain. Sort of like bright daylight. In bright daylight a shiny new quarter exceeds the eyes' ability to distinguish tone, but grain comes out great.

Next time you might use a penny to match the values better and not torment the camera so much.

I didn't want to get into color temperature because I thought it was too advanced and not that necessary, but Alex did mention neon light.

In the states neon is usually a colored, bent, glass tube used for signage. In offices and department stores, etc (and garage/workshops across the country) we use florescent lights (long straight white tubes, usually with a two prong plug at each end). Florescent light registers as greenish if not compensated for in some way, a yellow filter for example. Regular interior lighting (a plain ol' light bulb) is tungsten based and looks rather yellow-amberish, requiring a blue filter. Daylight and very bright artificial light, like flashes, register as white or blue-white light. If your key light, or main light source, is daylight or a flash you are probably fine and don't need to worry about it. You are not shooting a movie or a car or a model. It's a pipe. Pipes are small; your coverage need not be that complicated.

He also mentioned something I hinted at; using a flash and a bounce card. A very good and easy technique that gets a lot done with little set up. Since pipes are small, you might also try curving a larger card so the light bounces around the pipe better rather than just from one angle/side.

Don't give up on the studio idea. Most of what Alexander and I mentioned are ideas best suited to a studio. You have more control and can take your time. A situation that is probably better for close-up pipe photography.

[alexanderfrese]

I knew there was something wrogn about the term »neon light«. It's easy to run into something like that, when a term in your mother tongue seems to be the same like in another language. I thought about that difference for a moment and I just didn't remember the term »luorescent light«, which is of course, what I meant. Soulje rset it right, thanks.

Don't be too worried about the feeling you have to set up a professional photo studio. The ones I toook were not made on something studiolike. No transparent still shooting table. Just a plain table, some black tissue, two flashes (helping, but no must) and some white cards as bounces. I admit I am familiar with photo studio setups a bit, since from my job I work with photographers from time to time, but the main idea was simple to let some pipes look good. And they are even defifnitely not worth the effort. Just a bucnh of estates I got from ebay to experiment simple restauration processes with. Now that I am gonna resell them, I want them to look as good as possible. That idea and putting some effort into photographing a real pipemaker’s products makes sense. In my work (graphic advertisement and communication) many clients are not willing to spend some money (or even some time) on letting their products simply look good. And I believe pipes are really depending on this. A photo of a pipe should whisper to everyone in an smooth voice »touch me, let your fingers feel my subtle design, etc.«. And this voice should not only rise in the heads of other pipemakers who will see a special quality of pipe even on real bad pictures, just because they are familiar with the subject. Every pipesmoker at least should be licking his fingers when seeing a photo of a pipemaker’s work.
So we – I should better say you, since I am only at the very beginning – should consider some time to sepnd with displaying and phtographing the goods we want to earn money or at least some recognition for.

Alex

[souljer]

I knew there was something wrogn about the term »neon light«. It's easy to run into something like that, when a term in your mother tongue seems to be the same like in another language. I thought about that difference for a moment and I just didn't remember the term »luorescent light«, which is of course, what I meant.

And I knew that is what was happening as soon as I saw that you are from Germany. Half my family is from Colombia, South America so I am used to that phenomena. You got the idea right just not the english. That's why I described florescent lights to you. No big deal.

Nice work on your pictures, by the way.

I fully agree with the rest of what Alexander said. After spending hours on a pipe, making it as beautiful and functional as possible it seems a little silly to rush the picture that speaks for it to everyone on the web. What's an extra 30 or so minutes to do a simple but good job there too?