New Project: Bass Guitar; Electric Guitar.

So I have wanted to upgrade my bass for a long time, but until now I have not done anything about it. I finally decided I would place it on ebay and see if I could sell it for a decent price. So these are the pictures that I took for the post. All comments are welcome.


All pictures were taken with a Canon 10D and EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/...c9462b211b.jpg


1/60 f/4.5 85mm ISO 400


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1/30 f/3.5 32mm ISO 400


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2727/...e70fa7a4_o.jpg


1/60 f/3.5 24mm ISO 400


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1/60 f/3.5 24mm ISO 400





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1/60 f/4.5 68mm ISO 400





These two shots are the impromtu studio that I used to take the shots. It us just my dorm room. I used all the lights that you see in the shots. It was a great project to play with for a morning. :)


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2719/...df36301626.jpg


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4037/...ece10106_o.jpg

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White Balance looks off. Sharpness/Focus is less than desirable. Lighting is not particularly dynamic (good enough for ebay I suppose).


- Try the same shots at night (or dusk) to reduce the ambient lighting in the room and then use your lamp for key lighting. Try messing around with some pieces of cardboard (old cereal boxes work well) taped to your lamp to control the direction of light (i.e. barn doors). Also try moving the light close and far - to play with soft and hard lighting (closer will give you softer and further will give you harder) - however that lamp is pretty small so it will be tough to get soft lighting alone without it ending up in the image, so employ a piece trace paper or something relatively translucent (but not transparent) (e.g. thin white T-shirt, large clear plastic tupperware lid will sometimes work) and create a makeshift soft box (say around 12" x 12" or 8" x 16" would likely work nicely). If you have one of thosexenon or LED keychain lights you can add a little bit of accent lighting to the scene for special effect. The keychain light and lamp will have very different colour temperatures, so you'll end up with some unique colour effects potentially.


- Close down your aperture a little (e.g. f/8), few lens are at their sharpest when wide open - and macro (or semi-macro) shots like these will reveal it the worse. You'll lose some depth of field, but gain sharpness. Try manually focusing if you can - tough without live view or split focusing screen. The auto focus system on most cameras don't react well when trying to achieve focus of a shiny object.


- Should be no need to be at ISO 400, drop it down to at least 200, if not 100 (particularly with a ~6 MP APS-C sensor).


- With lowering the lighting levels, stopping down the aperture and lowering the ISO you'll be greatly decreasing the shutter speed (could be in the range of 1 to 3 second exposures) - this will for the most part be okay since you're photographing an inanimate object. You'll need a tripod or sturdy object to rest the camera on. Set the camera shutter to a 2 or 10 second delay to further reduce camera shake. If you slow the shutter speed way down (10 to 20 seconds, or even longer), and do the keychain lighting effect I mentioned above, you can "paint" light into the scene to accent elements or create interesting effects. Google "painting with light" images.


- Auto White Balance is nearly useless when photographing... well anything, but particularly poor when photographing black, white and/or shiny objects. You should do a custom white balance with either a custom white balance card - or you can swing by a professional paint supply store (e.g. General Paint, Benjamin Moore, etc...) and pick up a near neutral grey paint colour chip (they're usually free - just don't tell them what you want it for - it's not uncommon for photographers to want neutral grey paint to paint the walls in the space where they do their post-production work). A educated sales assistant should be able to help you. Don't bother with Home Depot - they're likely not going to have a sample anyway (it's not usually something that the average home owner asks for) and the staff will likely not understand what is meant by 'neutral grey' and will show you every colour grey but.


- Also, because the Bass is shiny, you should take some care to clear clutter from in front of the base (including yourself and the camera) as they are picked up in the reflection.
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I appreciate the ideas.


Samuel

well, i really can't comment alot on the pictures, i really didn't look much at the photos but at the bass.. as a bassplayer myself, i think that's a sweet instrument. I hope those 5 strings got u some good slappin ;)

The Bass is ok. It is the Ibanez GSR 205 which is the beginner line. Therefore it is not all that great. The action is really too high for slap and the electronics are a little funky and don't pickup the way I like them to. I have used more expensive basses and I used to own and Ibanez SR 300DX which was a much better bass although it is only one level up in the Ibanez lineup. Therefore I am trying to get rid of this one and find a $350 used bass or maybe a little more that is even one step up from the SR300 and is only 4 strings. I learned on four and I really prefer it although sometimes it is nice to have the extra versatility.


Samuel

Hi all again,


Having had some time to work on things I managed to shoot my sisters electric guitar along with my brother (whatsreal). Again these pictures arebasicallyfor Ebay so I did not go all out and work super hard on finding everything perfect. Still we tried to get some dispersed light from the window and to shoot in natural light. Any C&amp;C is welcome.


Rebel XTi 50mm f/1.8 @ 1/60 f/1.8 ISO 400


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4105/...48a24498_b.jpg


_MG_2716 by St. Sam, on Flickr


Rebel XTi 50mm f/1.8 @ 1/60 f/2.8 ISO 400





http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4129/...da87ed15_b.jpg


_MG_2711 by St. Sam, on Flickr




Rebel XTi 50mm f/1.8 @ 1/60 f/2.8 ISO 400



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<div>_MG_2699 by St. Sam, on Flickr</div>



Canon 10D 85 mm f/1.8 @ 1/50 f/1.8 ISO 100





http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4084/...5e346011_b.jpg


IMG_7579 by St. Sam, on Flickr
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