John Lucas - Your Opinion Please

Re: John Lucas - Your Opinion Please

Bill Howatt

>I obviously am not John but if you want a comment I would say the picture/lighting displays the pen quite nicely with a slight glare.

I could live with the postcard background clutter if I had to, but lose whatever the pen is resting against. It draws your eye from the pen and then your brain tries to figure out what it is rather than examine the pen.

Very nice pens and just my opinion FWIW.

Bill

Re: John Lucas - Your Opinion Please

John Lucas

>Tom

Excellent. Just enough reflective highlights to show off the gloss. The pen details show well. Good depth of field, everything is sharp. Probably my only complaint would be the background. I like it and don't like it at the same time. It gives interest and depth to the photo but it also makes me want to look at the background and not the pen. Perhaps it's the writing. I keep wanting to read it. Perhaps you can find something that has interest but doesn't distract. Possibly something with texture. I like the idea of the background you've used. If you can get a copy of American Handgunner look at the photos in the middle of the magazine. They are done by Ichiro Nagata. He always has the gun or knife on a background but it never seems to overpower the gun. It's awsome photography.

Re: John Lucas - Your Opinion Please

Barry Turner

>Well, I'm not John, but those are some very beautiful pens. Although the postcard background provides interest.........it also distracts the eye from the pen. Maybe if the background was more out of focus.............

Re: John Lucas - Your Opinion Please

Pete in Holland MI

>With an old fashion SLR camera, with a fast shutter speed and a large aperature, you can focus on your item, but have the background out of focus. Not sure how to achieve this with your digital camera, as I'm relatively new to that field also. Suggest taking a slightly out of focus photo of your post cards, print it out, then simply use it as a back drop. Decoration in the background is fine, so long as your eye is drawn to the desired target.

Re: John Lucas - Your Opinion Please

Earl

>As a former "semi" graphic designer (I owned a print shop and had a graphic designer who did the real work!) I would say if you want to keep the background and know your way around Photoshop-- take the great picture of the pen you took with a clean background. Take another shot of the background. Then use a 20% -30% screen on the background and import the pen in (dropping out the clean background of the pen) and you would have a spectacular photo. Really, a very easy fix if you or a friend has a full Photoshop or similar program where you can do layers. No fuzziness, all very clear, but the background would be much lighter and would let the pen shine!

Earl

Re: John Lucas - Your Opinion Please

Jim D.

>Tom

The photos of the pen are great, but as mentioned the background has to go. I mught try a contrasting color or a pece of bark to rest the pens on.

Jim D.

Re: John Lucas - Your Opinion Please

John Lucas

>Pete

Depth of field is the same with a digital camera it's just harder to pick the f stop on some models. The problem with shooting something like a pen is that it is very close to the background. You probably can't get it out of focus. This can be done with a view camera using your swings and tilts but most people don't own one of these.

I shoot things on a pane of glass when I need an out of focus background on small objects like rings but then you introduce more problems such as reflection on the glass of both the light source and the ring itself. It takes a fair amount of work to do this but looks great.