Product Photography...

I picked up three AUTHENTIC Venetian masks recently at a "fleamarket" sale - used to be a restaurant, but someone's pretty much holding a garage sale out of this building.

I haven't finished editing the other two, but wondered what people think of this image:

featherweb.jpg
 
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The specifics:

Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30th
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 400

Lighting consists of two Smith-Victor hot lights with 5000k daylight-balanced 35w bulbs, and one (much more yellow) modeling light from my Interfit strobe unit, set up at 60 watts.
Positioning: Mask was positioned on a table in a portrait format with the two lights left and right of the mask, below the "bottom" of the portrait orientation. The modeling light was positioned to give more of an "overhead" look and light the feathers. It had the side effect of giving a warm cast to the feathers as well, so I kept that look.

The camera was mounted to my Bogen-Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod with the neck pulled out to the horizontal position to be directly above the mask. A ten lb. counterweight was added to the rear leg of the tripod in order to avoid tipping.
My wife has a picture of the setup - just gotta get it from her.

The other two masks:

goldmaskweb.jpg


silvermaskweb.jpg
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
Nice work, EoI.

I'm gonna nitpick on this one. I think the lighting on the first mask is questionable for product photography. Creatively, I like it. But if these masks were featured in a Christie's auction, I would want something better lit. The second mask is spot-on. I like the B&W conversion on the 3rd, but again, not something I would want for product photography.
 

premc44

Senior Member
I would agree with the previous comment about the first mask, where the feathers could have been lit up a little more to get some details. The second mask is just right,showing good details.
 
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