How to: photograph your teaware. A beginner's guide.

[Geekgirl]

Hey Trent! I love trent's images, his and SpaceSamurai's were some of the ones that inspired me to start playing with still-life photography. I still aspire to the quality and simplicity of the above images.

Although there's something to be said for just plain ol' fun:


Is it okay yet? ~ No, still a little too warm!


(Note I chopped off the pitcher handle. )

[GreenwoodStudio]

I'm having problems uploading photos on here. I would just like to have the pics appear in full on the post and not in a separate box where you have to use the sidebars to scroll the image. Please help!!...lol

[Chip]

GREENWOODS, you will need to if you have not already, to open up a photobucket account or similiar 'photo-hoster'.

I use photobucket it is easy and quick to set up. But some on TC prefer flickr instead. Let me know what you decide and I can further help you!

[LauraW]

Took a few pictures this weekend, need to get them uploaded so I can play with them a bit, but not too hopeful. No tripod + cloudy Saturday = not-so-hot in-kitchen pics with minimal exterior light. I'll see what I can do about editing, but no promises. Might just get a couple favorites up in the next couple days and try shooting again this weekend assuming the weather's better.

But now... back to work.

[Victoria]

Looking forward to them Laura!

[Seeker]

+1

[Jasmin]

I have a question about sizing pics for the avatar here. I just can't get it right. Either the MB is right but it's too tiny pixel wise or I get the minimum pixel size right but the MB is too big.... It's so frustrating` Can anyone get me any advice? I'm usually using photoshop elements.

[Chip]

Hmm, I never had a problem and I have done a lot of them. I just crop/resize whatever photo from "my pictures" on my computer to 100X100 and it has always worked.

[Geekgirl]

100x100, but also make sure your quality is set to 72ppi.

[Seeker]

Frustrated with this shot, and my camera, but realize it's most likely the photographer who's the prob.
Wanted to share a look at the leaves today - so attempted a close up shot.
f5, .6s, V, Macro setting, camera about 8 or 9 inches from subject.
I'm frustrated as the center of the leaves is out of focus, while the perimeter seems to be in focus. I want to blame it on the macro capabilities of the S2IS as I've never had good results with any kind of macro shot. But there's a REALLY good chance it's me. Here's the shot:

(click for full size)

[Geekgirl]

Yep. Macro shots are hard with a point and shoot, because the camera chooses the focal point. So if it likes the edges of the shot better, your center will be OOF. The frustrating thing is that P&S cameras are often better for full-on macro than SLR because you can get right down within a few inches of your subject without having to purchase special lenses.

You need to make sure you set your focal point/metering to "spot" for a macro, so you can select your focus point better. I can demo later. Alternately, you can set the focus to "manual" (the S2 does that I believe,) and just move back and forth until you get the focus you want.

A third option is to use your tripod, so you can set your depth of field to very deep, so the most of your subject possible is in focus.

Give me a few minutes to set up an example.

[shyrabbit]

Seeker,
I think there is ultimately a depth of field (DOF) problem. Maybe the following link will help, better than I can:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

I'm impressed with your passion to get it right.
Michael

[Geekgirl]

Well, the P&S is dead, and no batteries. So I have attempted to replicate using my big cam with a macro lens. Heh.

The way I see it, the camera is selecting what it thinks might be the best point to focus on. Without getting into the complexities of how it selects, and high/low contrast, lines, color, etc (which I don't really understand, but I know that's part of the selection algorithm,) let's just say that sometimes the camera picks the wrong part. Poppet will help demonstrate:

In the first image, I have a shallow DOF (F2.8 at 100mm,) and I've used my spot focus, which I can half-depress the shutter to get the focus directly on her face, then recompose. You can see that very little other than her face is in focus.


In this image, I've let the camera choose the focal point for me. For some reason, the camera liked her wing, not so good.


While a shallow DOF has its artistic merits, as important as knowing HOW to use it, is knowing when NOT to use it. In this case, I wanted to get more than just her face in focus, and the only way to do that is to use a smaller aperture (larger f#.) In this case I used F5.6, which was enough for such a small object. At this DOF, even the tip of her little magic wand is now in reasonably good focus, while her skirts have just a little bit of bokeh (blur) to keep it from looking like an ebay shot.


Let's see it with tea:

Here, the camera liked the leaf in the front, the pile is in poor focus.


Now the camera auto selected the back of the pile. Hmmm... Do Not Like.


In this one, I used spot focus to choose where I wanted the focus: front middle of the pile. Better.


Last, I used more DOF to get more detail of more leaves, which seems to work the best for this kind of example.

[shyrabbit]

Geekgirl,
Thanks for your post...so ultimately, it's a DOF issue, is this correct from your point of view?
Michael

[silverneedles]

f5, .6s, V, Macro setting, camera about 8 or 9 inches from subject.
center of the leaves is out of focus, while the perimeter seems to be in focus.

if focus was correctly achieved (and S2is usually seems to get the right spot in focus when it does finally focus) ...maybe the camera moved towards the leaf in the time between setting the focus and actually pressing on the shutter button... so like was said, use tripod if not enough light... 0.6 sec seems kinda slow for handheld (tho cant see any motion blur at least in the posted resized pic)
s2is only has 1 focus point, default - centered, so for focus theres no multiple points to choose, its either in focus or not (the focus point can be manually moved around, also in the macro setting but not supermacro)