Comments on: Product Photography With A Bang: Photographing The BAR Machine Gun

By: Rajesh Aggarwal

Rajesh Aggarwal — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 05:18:00 +0000

Very good article.

By: Image Masking

Image Masking — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 06:50:00 +0000

Very good shot!

By: Mbutu Namubu

Mbutu Namubu — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 16:46:00 +0000

Except the background in the original files are blown and that’s causing a “milky” low contrast look. It’s a common mistake. For anybody that’s interested, the best place to find out about proper ratios when shooting on white is the Lighting Academy online.

By: Thomas Shue

Thomas Shue — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 06:54:00 +0000

The images are nice. I would of lit them a bit differently, to each our own. I would of used light panels and created hot spots. This hot spot helps the light to fall off and model the subjects through a term called specular edge transfer. On dark and shiny things you are basally taking pictures of reflections. If you have an even light source such as a soft box, the fall off just is not there to render the objects 3D form.

To do this on white you would need a much bigger setup, as you would light the BG separately from the subject. Try lighting one of the guns with a light panel with a strobe close creating a hot spot The shoot one with a soft box, you will see a world of difference.

All in all you made nice pictures, for this I say good job.

By: Nicholas Gore

Nicholas Gore — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:40:00 +0000

The image directly above the final shot is straight out of the camera. The background was white enough so that it only took a few seconds of the magic wand tool to make it all white. Each image took about 30 seconds.

By: Nicholas Gore

Nicholas Gore — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:39:00 +0000

Oh agree that the set up could have been tweaked to make post easier, but really I wasn’t trying to get it perfect in camera. Each image took me about 30 seconds to auto select the white background and get rid of it. If the client had wanted a reflection I would have worked with the glass, but since they didn’t I thought that a simple set up would be easier to deal with.

By: Mbutu Namubu

Mbutu Namubu — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 11:55:00 +0000

The photos are evenly lit, unpretentious in presentation, and clear in their depiction of the subject matter. Nicholas did a great job.

By: dionisius1

dionisius1 — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 05:51:00 +0000

Great final results, how do you manage to select the gun out of the background?

By: Fro

Fro — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 03:51:00 +0000

He shot on cloth, too many wrinkles for him to use the drop shadow. Even if he had shot on paper he still rotated the images in post, so any shadow wouldn’t line up as the gun lies at a slight angle.

By: harry

harry — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 03:18:00 +0000

Yeah the photographer didn’t use the facts he quoted accurately. The photographer is reminded by the curator that the BAR is worth upwards of $50K alone yet he writes and says if you have 4 white reflectors and $50K in guns you can replicate this. Uh…?!