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Thread: Lifestyle Photography Grrrr!

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
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    Romsey
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    Quote Originally Posted by ShinyLauren View Post
    Carole, I bought something called Prop Wax to stop pices moving - it's clear and you only need a tiny bit to hold somethibg still.
    I have some of that too; it's good, you hardly need any - but it's a pig to clean off surfaces.

    I also slways use a shutter release cable and manual focus whilst using the screen (zoomed in) to view rather than looking through the viewfinder.
    Yup. Shutter release/remote or timer delay, live view (on Nikon anyway - mirror up is useful if you aren't using live view), zoom as far in as possible, manual focus, *image stabilisation OFF if it's on a tripod*; I usually check DOF at the same time and invariably use about f16. And/or focus stack.

    I can go to about f64(depending upon focal distance) on my macro lens, BUT once you get down to the really tiny apertures the thing becomes a diffraction grating - so while the DOF is theoretically wonderful, everything gets fuzzed as a result. Oh, and it focus breathes which is sometimes a PITA.

    Pieces of white card are also useful to reflect the light where you want it.
    Silver card is good too.

    Dust blowers, anti static cloths to keep dust down, polishing cloths, only handling pieces with gloves on... And so on. Macro photography is unforgiving.
    Last edited by ps_bond; 04-04-2015 at 09:58 AM.

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
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    Quote Originally Posted by caroleallen View Post
    Wish I'd asked you for help in the first place Liz. I didn't know you were so knowledgeable about photography. I could have had a one to one with you - damn!
    I'm married to a photographer (though I do my own images usually, he works with film) so the technicalities are ingrained and the same, whether it's film or digital. I am however pretty rubbish at it.

    Vos is right about the law of thirds, the other thing in terms of actual composition is direction. You need to be sure that the eyes are drawn to where you want them. Eyes also tend to go in diagonals, often right to left, so a chain in the top right hand corner could direct the eye down to a pendant that is filling the bottom left hand third of the image: so the first image is better on the eye than the second one:https://flic.kr/p/8Nqd1x compared with https://flic.kr/p/8G2pxm

    Generally, if you have a creative eye, you do these things naturally I think, but sometimes the tension between showing detail and producing something pleasing to the eye means one to the other is trashed.

    Quote Originally Posted by ps_bond View Post

    Dust blowers, anti static cloths to keep dust down, polishing cloths, only handling pieces with gloves on... And so on. Macro photography is unforgiving.



    Too right! A rocket blower is an awesome tool for the camera and the objects being photographed.

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Cornwall
    Posts
    3,172

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    Thanks everyone. All good advice. I can see when someone else's image looks good, I just don't at the moment seem to be able to apply it to my own work. I think it's definitely about camera settings, as I'm OK'ish with the composition. As you say Liz, I think if you're creative, you generally have an eye for these things.

    Painting the kitchen today, so feeling frustrated that I can't get on with the photography. Oh for a nice quiet day to myself! Running a small business has got to be one of the hardest things. You have to be jack of all trades - photographer, stylist, jeweller, accountant, PR person, HR person, IT person, stock control person, designer, as well as running a house and garden!

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Location
    Bristol
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    216

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    Will work for beer... Just sayin'
    All the gear and no idea

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    Scotland
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    My OH understands all of the above, whereas I take all my pics on the intelligence setting on my Lumix and then tweak them a bit on windows photo thingy. I thought I would look at the idiots guide to changing the settings to manual and didn't understand a word and neither did he. It's not all there in front of you like an ordinary camera, it's fiddly little buttons and settings on a wee screen that you can't read without a magnifying glass. I think I'll stick with what I get the way I do it now, they seemed to be ok for the OS website tesized down to 500 pix as requested. It takes such a long time on top of everything else:/

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