What is your technique for taking good boolit pictures?

[prickett]

I want to post pictures of my all powders paint "super durable wet black" boolits to post in the definitive powders list, but my pictures always end up looking like rubbish. How do you guys who have gorgeous boolit pictures do it? My big problems are blurred pictures and problems getting the lighting right.

For example:

[kryogen]

Use a decent camera... With good light.

An slr with a dedicated macro lens would be good

That picture looks like it was taken with a cellphone. Forget that

[Beagle333]

I use an old (prolly 8 years old) Sony DSC T-50 pocket cam. It's about as big as a pack of 100s cigarettes and has a sliding panel on the front that reveals a lens. But it has a "macro" setting and that seems to work okay for boolits.

[VHoward]

The Nikon Coolpix I have has a macro setting and that is what I use to take close up in focus shot of my bullets

[RP]

maybe your bullets are blurred and you do not notice until you see the pictures. Try taking the pic not so near the target then blow it up and crop out what you want to highlight.

[Beagle333]

I agree with using the macro setting, back up a bit, and crop out the pic so the boolits are the nice shiny things in crisp focus and the slightly blurred background just accents the boolits. I crop most of my pictures, as it seems I always get extra stuff in the pic that just makes everything look farther away and smaller.

[prickett]

I use an old (prolly 8 years old) Sony DSC T-50 pocket cam. It's about as big as a pack of 100s cigarettes and has a sliding panel on the front that reveals a lens. But it has a "macro" setting and that seems to work okay for boolits. Here's some 405 gr. Lyman 457193s I made and coated today.

Beagle,
What sort of lighting arrangement do you have? Your pictures are always very well done.


All,
My photo above is from a cell phone, but I also have a Panasonic Lumix with a macro setting that doesn't give me very good results either. I know the camera is capable, its just me that is lacking.

When you say use macro but back up, how far are you backing up? Inches? A foot? Six feet?

[bangerjim]

A "light ring" is the trick. It gives you surround fill lighting behind and around the lens. A cell phone is the worst thing you can use, especially with a flash!!!!!! NEVER use a flash.

If that is all you have, turn off the flash, take them OUTSIDE, put a white sheet over you and the boolits and take the picture with diffused sun lighting. You may need to rig some kind of support for the white sheet.

That is how you do macro detailed photography without expensive lighting.

bangerjim

[Beagle333]

Pictures like this... mebbe 3-4 inches away.


And ones like this, perhaps 8 inches and crop back down to this.


And I do use the flash (but it's not a cell phone).
But I'm just lucky I guess, I'm not even an amateur photographer. I just take the pictures with the macro setting and then crop out the area I want, using the MS Office picture manager, or sometimes use the editor in Photobucket after I upload em. I think the key is to get enough picture outside the target to work with, with enough pixels (my cam is 7.4 mp, which is on the low end these days), and then you can trim down and blow up until you get the size/clarity combo that you can live with. I almost never adjust color and sometimes mine come out yellow (from that desk lamp), but I'm not good at color at all. I always shoot on that same granite pattern desktop and you'll notice it changes color in different pics that I post.
One thing I can say... take more than one pic and choose the best. I usually take 4, sometimes 6-7, but vary the aim and the distance just a little. Move back and forth 2-4 inches on your distance, and don't necessarily shoot at the center of the boolits, sometime shoot just over them or just to the right, etc. That lets you see the varying effect of where your flash is firing.
I don't think my pics are great, but they do show enough to tell if the boolits are tumble or ES, just by looking. Have fun with it and Happy Shooting!

[dragon813gt]

Diffused lighting. You can build a light box on the cheap out of a cardboard box and tissue paper. Especially one for bullets because it wouldn't have to be very big.

The no cell phone camera thing holds no weight anymore. Most of them are more powerful then the point and shoots from five years ago. They take pics in high enough resolution for bullets. You just need to know how to use it and what apps to use to clean up the pics.

[Garyshome]

Plenty of light and the correct angle. Oh and lots of pics so you can pick out the good ones!

[popper]

Good lighting and an Ipad.

[AverageJoe]

I have a hard time getting the purples to show up, but the iPad takes pretty good pics as long as the lighting is right.

[Beagle333]

Now that's an impressive picture, AverageJoe!!! Both quality and content!

[bangerjim]

Diffused lighting. You can build a light box on the cheap out of a cardboard box and tissue paper. Especially one for bullets because it wouldn't have to be very big.

The no cell phone camera thing holds no weight anymore. Most of them are more powerful then the point and shoots from five years ago. They take pics in high enough resolution for bullets. You just need to know how to use it and what apps to use to clean up the pics.

A phone may have 5MP+ optical array, but it is behind the cheepest lousiest pinhole optics they can make! That is why phone pix suck. A REAL camera (even with 5MP) has a large lens to gather light and NOT distort the picture. Plus you have total control over the exposure, depth of field, and many other things you cannot do with a phone/iPad pinhole camera.

Phones are good for naked texting and selfies of idiots. If that is all you have/can afford, it will take pix. But do not expect pro-quality closeups and macro detailed pictures! And do not expect them to look real good on a large format monitor.

I have been doing this for over 40 years! Diffused lighting is one of the keys. If you want to do it on the cheeeeeep, use my sheet technique above. If it is cold outside, buy one of those make-up mirrors at a second hand store, one with a fluorescent tube around it. Tale the mirror out and you now have a "light ring". Shoot pix through the center with diffused/front surround lightning.

Or you can use bounce diffused lighting if the situation is there. The flash points up and you bounce if off a reflector. Why do you think pro photographers use all those funky looking gray umbrellas all around the shoot????

Good luck with your adventures in photography! It is a lot of fun, especially in this day of GOOD digital cameras and excellent photo-manipulation software on your computer/iPad.

banger

[RogerDat]

Color that shows is controlled by White Balance, flash, sunlight, incandescent, fluorescent lights all produce different color spectrum so the items in the picture reflect back slightly different colors. Most people use camera AWB or average white balance but that has trouble getting it "right" if it has nothing white/black to adjust itself with. Prev. post on granite desk looking different due to desk lamp or purple not showing up might be examples of that.

Lumix and most cameras have a minimum focal distance for macro setting you will probably find it in the manual. Can't really focus closer than that. Will tend to focus on what the camera sees at that distance, table behind the bullets etc. Don't macro mode and zoom, bring the lens in to no zoom and get closer or further away (foot zoom)

Good non-directional light is best, sunny room without bullets in direct sunlight. Switch WB to sunlight. Or use bright light bounced off of white ceiling, white wall or even white piece of paper. Reflected light spreads out so less glare. Set WB to the type of light being used incandescent etc.

If you do use your camera pop up flash for fill light you might try wrapping a piece of Kleenex or toilet paper across the front, maybe held in place with a rubber band. Cheap diffuser that helps keep the light from flash being harsh and reflective.

One other thing that might work is to get back and zoom in, set camera to spot focus and put focus spot on bullets.

Blurry pictures are caused by two things not being in focus OR camera shake. If your camera has to slow down the shutter speed due to having too little light it's that much longer the camera has to be perfectly still to get a sharp picture. More light = faster shutter = sharper picture. So take a look at the photo data, see if you can get the shutter speed up.

Aside from the difference in size and quality between the lenses of a cell phone and your Lumix it's harder to hold a phone as steady as one can a camera when one squeezes off a shot. Phone and tablet cameras use software more than a regular camera to "fix" the data collected by the camera sensor.

+1 on shoot highest resolution of camera, bigger area than you need then crop to the detail of the bullets.

[RogerDat]

bangerjim sounds like we might have more than one hobby in common.

We both forgot to mention Google digital camera sensor size. Yes you can stuff 5 million pixel sensors into the array but if that array is tiny enough to work with the pinhole and pinky nail sized lens of a phone it's not able to record images nearly as well as an inexpensive digital camera with twice the sensor size.

Used to own a Lumix FZ 1xx super zoom, OP does not mention his Lumix model but the one I had got decent images except for low light action (dancers on stage), suffered from yellow splotches in the dark areas, a common issue I guess with some Panasonic models. And those shots are tough for even a 3/4 sensor SLR to do well. But other than that a very capable camera that offered most of the settings of an SLR to control the picture. Just have to play and learn. Passed it on to daughter for her photography and Photoshop class after I upgraded.

Still have (and use) a pocket Canon Powershot A75 that has to be 7 years old and only 3.2 mp but compact, easy to carry and takes better pictures than my 4 mp phone by far.

[DeanWinchester]

I wanna know what Ben uses. That fellar can take some good pictures. I look forward to his target shootin' posts like a kid with a magazine….skip to the pictures.

[Walter Laich]

a cloudy day is good as there are no harsh shadows. If the sun is out I take pics in the shade. Watch your surface/background, depending on color it can fool auto aperture cameras. Try with and without flash. Light from over you head or shoulder does wonders to get rid of shadows. Remember today we only inconvenience electrons. In the old days we had to wait for the developing or do it ourselves. Ask me how I know stop bath gives me diarrhea.

[shooterbob]

I learned this trick from Orca guys on reels. Take a barcode off a box and place it beside your item to be photographed. It helps the camera with something to focus on. Then crop the photo or leave it in depending on what you need. This works very well on cell phone cameras. I use it for all of my EBay and GB photos. I can get 4-6 inches closer than normal.
Stacy