Taking 1st class mando pictures

**grassrootphilosopher** · Apr-25-2007, 4:06am

Reading the posts on the message board and looking at all the pictures posted I saw excellent pictures (check out Dan Beimborn), good pictures and mediocre pictures too.

Recently I got a request from luthiers I know to send them pictures of one of my instruments. I thought, sure, no big deal, easily accomplished, hey I´ll just get it done on the weekend when I have a couple of minutes.

Yeah, sure! I started tinkering with a digital camera, fooled around with a regular mirror reflex camera (on loan from my daddy), tried out different lighting, differnt films, differnt sensitivity (in the films) and such.

To make a long and sad story short, the outcome of my picturetaking effort was simply not worth the input (so far).

The most aggravating thing is the unwanted reflection on the instrument´s finish. The subtle differences in the finish tend to be cut short by the lighting. Either the finish appears too bright or too dark. The metal parts show reflections too, so that you are unable to see any engraving and such. There are other problems too, like the closeups seem to be unfocused...

Here is where y´all come in - I hope. Mandolin pickers seem to bee quite knowlegable when it comes to portraying their instruments (like the Wiens, Kimble, Beimborn websites). Folks, help me out. How do I take good pictures of my instruments. The miror reflex camera is equiped with a regular 35mm lens. It will not focus automatically nor will it set the shutter and the shutter time automaticaly. The digital camera (4 megapixel) will do all that but will not let me tweak the setting manualy.

I could photoshop the pictures a bit but would prefer to do as little of it as possible.

Allright folks. Lay it on me. I appreciate all the input I can get.

**mishima** · Apr-25-2007, 9:32am

I have used tissue paper to decrease the glare or a filter over my lens.

**Michael Gowell** · Apr-25-2007, 10:35am

For all photography it's hard to beat diffused natural light. Shoot outside on a cloudy day.

**danb** · Apr-25-2007, 10:52am

I use an SLR digital (canon EOS 20d) + an add-on flash unit (speedlite). If I don't have my flash, I'll always use a tripod or steady on a firm surface.

An outdoor cloudy day shot is choice #1. My indoor setup is to place the instrument on a suitible background, aim my flash so it's pointing at a wall behind me, stand back a ways using my tripod and compose away any bad reflections (sometimes they actually look nice and add depth though!), then shoot. I also use this bounce-flash technique (pointing the flash at something other than your subject so the light bounces off it) in daylight.

Here are the results of a diffuse/hazy/cloudy day shot:

Not much glare there, but the instrument looks kind of "Dead" in that photo really. Here's the indoor shot of the same instrument

I like that second one a lot better, even though it shows more reflection. It shows a bit of the reality of the finish.

**danb** · Apr-25-2007, 10:53am

This is an outdoor shot that worked better:

**danb** · Apr-25-2007, 10:58am

Another good trick with a flash is the "no background" dark/flash shot. A bound instrument looks very cool against a black background. To get pure black, an easy way is to take the instrument outside after dark, bounce your flash off the house behind you.. make sure nothing is behind within about 10-15' of the instrument, and you'll get a wonderful pure black background. I don't have a shot handy of a mandolin (DOH!), but here's a nice one of a flower I did at night with this technique. No photoshopping on that image. My reflector for the bounce flash was a brick wall behind me.

**danb** · Apr-25-2007, 11:00am

The good ones there- the secret to them is that all of them have diffuse lighting. Not like a flashlight beam, or any other kind of strong light reflection in the finish. If it's universally bright outdoors, that's the easiest way to get this to work. A big room with a nice back wall to use as your light source from a bounced flash is more under your control, but is more of a pain to set up!

**sunburst** · Apr-25-2007, 11:01am

My set up is very similar to this one, described at frets.com.

As you've found, reflections in the glossy, curvy surface of a mandolin make it hard to shoot pictures without glare, or reflections of objects in the room, or outside. I get my best pictures at night, with all the lights in the shop turned off except the photo lights. I often get reflections of my tripod even then. (Draping things in the room, and the tripod, with black velvet cloth helps that.)
I can't shoot outside without reflections; cloudy, sunny, whatever, so I only do that for "artsy" pictures.
For details, I can only do that inside.

My camera (5 mega pixel), my equipment, and I are capable of getting shots good enough for the web, but not much better.
For first class pictures, start with a first class mandolin, then spend some money on a camera and some good lighting, or take the mando to a pro photographer, especially one with experience in product photography.

**danb** · Apr-25-2007, 11:03am

I should add that most of my photos are done with a a fixed-focal macro lens. I use that for all the close-ups too, which are pretty much impossible without one.

**danb** · Apr-25-2007, 11:04am

You can get photos of pretty small things with this macro.. self-portrait in a 2" frog's eye

**JEStanek** · Apr-25-2007, 12:01pm

Another thing you could consider to help reduce glare off a shiny mando is a polarizing filter that can rotate to eliminate as much glare as possible. That'll work on your SLR digital and film lenses but not so much on a PhD Digital camera (push here dummy).

Jamie

**stevem** · Apr-25-2007, 12:36pm

Dan is the man! For inside pics, I use a longer exposure with no flash on a tripod.

**mandopete** · Apr-25-2007, 5:38pm

Dan Beimborn is the god of mandolin photography.

**PCypert** · Apr-25-2007, 9:09pm

I'm coming back to the states for a couple months this summer and will gladly take pictures of anyones mandolin (of course you'll have to ship it to me so I can play it ) .

Some key points to note:

Look at the finish of your mandolin. If dark make your camera underexpose by anything from 1/3rd - 1 2/3rds if it's blonde you might want to overexpose slightly. Mix Mando I'm looking at you here on the underexposing for black

If you have to use a point and shoot digital camera DO NOT use the pop up flash. Get near a window in the afternoon. Get out of the direct light unless you want highlights (not a bad thing sometimes but make sure you're only getting them if you want them). The direct on camera flash at close distances will always give horrible results

Maybe not that bad, but nice diffused light is best.

Get in close. Don't be afraid to get in there for your shots. The biggest difference in average shots and pro shots are that pros get in there. You rarely see shots where people are tiny in the frame like regular shooters...same thing with mandos....you're shooting the mando not your living room...get up close.

If you are using any kind of flash that is off camera bounce it off the ceiling or from a side wall. Off the ceiling creates nice, even lighting. Bounced from a wall gives directional and dramatic lighting.

If you use a window look at how the light is hitting the mando and the angles the light is striking and reflecting off. Don't have your camera on the same angle as the light. This is when you get reflections and glares. So if the mandolin is lying down flat on the floor and is going across a clock at say 3 o clock...and the light is hitting it at 10 and reflecting off at around 2 you'd want to shoot around 3 or at 12-1...if that makes sense.

I would honestly love to do some high quality mando shots while I'm in the states. I live in Texas and will travel to Santa Fe once while back...otherwise you can ship to me

Paul

**pjlama** · Apr-25-2007, 11:48pm

Good info here! Paul, when your going to Santa Fe PM me and I'll be happy to have my mandos shot and played of course. I'm just down in Albuquerque.

**grassrootphilosopher** · Apr-26-2007, 3:14am

Thank you so much everybody for your input. Your photos look great. And yes, Dan yo da man!

I have found out that a tripod is indispensable pretty quickly. Just the ever so slight movement of your hand will mess up the picture.

I also dig the importance of indirect lighting. That was the first thing to find out. Man, does a direct flash make the best instrument look ugly. I have also read about bouncing the flash. I have even tried it ...:laugh: the outcome was ridiculous. I did the bouncing flash photos with the old mirror reflex camera and the problem seems to be how to determine the shutter speed. This seems to be the biggest issue for me (can read and write, but when it comes to "simple" maths, boy howdy do I flunk, ha, ha). Since the digital camera does not have any gizmos, there is no way to over- or underexpose anything. But with the mirror reflex camera I have had some really nice pictures. They are just not instruments. And instruments seem to be much more fickle than people.

Well, closeups like the ones you do, Dan, are out of the question for me, due to the lack of equipment. I guessed as much as there is a special macro lens for pictures of that caliber.

What this will mean for me: Back to the drawing board, find out about over-, underexposure, determine shutter speed and opening, and learn about indirect flash.

I´ll keep you posted of my efforts.

And Dan, that flower picture is impecable. Could you do one of an instrument? Preferably a "holy grail" picture. That would top everything of.

Thank´s again for your input.

**Hans** · Apr-26-2007, 8:01am

The only things I could add are know your camera, and use the timer with tripod. What I would like to know is how you get those "billboard" size photos on the board. I've got a mac, lightroom, and photoshop elements 4. Posting guidelines say there is a size limit of 156.3 kb. At 72 ppi how the heck can you get an 8x10 up without the "file size to large" warning coming up? Photoshop tells me that at 72ppi 156.3 k comes out to a pix of 4x2. Am I missing something?

**sunburst** · Apr-26-2007, 8:06am

Olaf, another thing to consider is a light tent. I 'googled' it and found numerous articles about building a cheap one. I have a small one that I bought, and I can use it in direct sunlight or under the glare of a halogen work light and get pretty good results, as long as I set the white balance for the light I'm using.

This was shot in the light tent, in bright sun, using the macro setting on my point-&-shoot (PhD) 5 meg. camera.

(EDIT) Hans, the computer savy among us have ways of posting images from servers other than the Cafe server, and can disregard the picture posting guidelines with impunity, in the process, causing dial-up connections like mine to almost come to a screeching halt!

**amowry** · Apr-26-2007, 10:11am

I have a little point and shoot too, 3 megapixels. I can't print much larger than 4 X 6 at that res, but for the web it's fine. Until recently I shot everything indoors and tried not to get any reflections, but after getting some advice on mimf.com I became convinced that a few reflections can be a good thing. I wouldn't say this looks professional, but it at least hints at the contours of the instruments. The blacktop has a partial reflection of the Adirondack chair I used as a tripod. Lately I've been itching for a digital SLR, but I'm waiting for the prices to drop a little more.

**sunburst** · Apr-26-2007, 10:21am

Me too.
The SLR's are gradually getting less expensive, and I'll get one eventually.

I also agree about using glare and reflections to advantage sometimes. There's no other way that I know of to show the gloss of the finish.

**amowry** · Apr-26-2007, 10:27am

That's a sweet photo and a sweet instrument.

**grassrootphilosopher** · Apr-26-2007, 11:39am

Folks, to let you know what my aim is, here is a picture - of me - that I consider quite good. I have taken it with my daddy´s mirror reflex camera without a flash, indoors with natural light coming from the left. I was sitting somewhat near a window. This is the quality that I try to recapture (since 2003 without avail).