# First Attempts At Watch Photography



## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Spent the day playing at taking photos. Here's one of my Cartier Tank Divan, I was trying to get the gold "Cartier" script in the lid of the watch box reflected on the case.










What I don't seem to be ablt to get right is to have all of the watch face in focus, so I am doing something wrong - is this depth of field and if so how do I correct it? I'm using an old Canon EOS300D.


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## Tom Radford (Apr 28, 2009)

Do you have the settings you used? Auto/manual focus?

Its unlikley to be down to DOF, because you are more or less flat onto the face and none of it looks particulary in focus.

Its more likely either mis focus, or too slow a shutter speed. What lens are you using? If the kit lens, it looks like you are too close for the lens to focus. You'll need to come back a bit and maybe crop if you cant get the composition you want.


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## Dazzer (Dec 7, 2011)

I'd also say you're probably a bit too close to the watch at a guess. It's only just out of focus. Try moving back about 2 feet, then at least try to get the watch in focus. Then once you determine the minimum focal distance to the watch. You can then play with the other settings.

I doubt the shutter speed was too slow as the second hand has no movement blur. Good luck and keep playing, I'm learning too.


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Tom Radford said:


> Do you have the settings you used? Auto/manual focus?
> 
> Its unlikley to be down to DOF, because you are more or less flat onto the face and none of it looks particulary in focus.
> 
> Its more likely either mis focus, or too slow a shutter speed. What lens are you using? If the kit lens, it looks like you are too close for the lens to focus. You'll need to come back a bit and maybe crop if you cant get the composition you want.


Thanks. It is the kit lens, and I was using auto-focus. I'll try moving out a little and perhaps manual focus too. I'll post the results again.


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Dazzer said:


> I'd also say you're probably a bit too close to the watch at a guess. It's only just out of focus. Try moving back about 2 feet, then at least try to get the watch in focus. Then once you determine the minimum focal distance to the watch. You can then play with the other settings.
> 
> I doubt the shutter speed was too slow as the second hand has no movement blur. Good luck and keep playing, I'm learning too.


Cheers, I'll try to find the minimum focus distance for the lens (that's a new term for me, so thanks).


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

fatboyflyer said:


> Tom Radford said:
> 
> 
> > Do you have the settings you used? Auto/manual focus?
> ...


A quick Google shows the minimum focus distance for the 18-55 kit lens is 25cm, and I was closer than that - great stuff!


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## andyclient (Aug 1, 2009)

Dazzer said:


> I doubt the shutter speed was too slow as the second hand has no movement blur. Good luck and keep playing, I'm learning too.


It could possibly as a shutter speed of a 30th of a second is enough to cause blur when handheld with a long lense but wouldn't be slow enough to show any movement of the second hand. Try shooting at a minimum of 60th of a second. But like already said guess is you need to move back a bit.

Good luck

Andy


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

I tried again, many times. Manually focusing improved things, and I spent a fair bit of time on the lighting, but the watch still looks rather flat, not an interesting photo at all. Frustrating!


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Oh, and I moved back a couple of feet as suggested (forgot to say). Not sure what to try next.


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## Tom Radford (Apr 28, 2009)

Well, its in focus now, so you are getting there. What lighting are you using?

The thing is with photography lighting is you need a lot more than you might think.

Also, the light appears to be coming straight down, so the light is very flat and casting no shadows. Its shadows that give depth and dimension.

I'd try two things..

Angle the camera slightly, to get a more dynamic view, and play around with the lighting position to give a more interesting light.

Straight down shots can work well, but you need to get the lighting right to create the interest and depth.


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## Roger the Dodger (Oct 5, 2009)

As has been said above, try taking some shots from an angle...this can create some nice 'arty' sots, and also helps to avoid reflections of the camera lens in the watch crystal. A useful prop is a clear acrylic watch stand (eBay). This allows you to pose the watch in a more upright position, rather than laying flat on its back. Outdoor shots work well because the lighting is good..try nestling a watch in among some plant life! Also, use props around the house...drape a watch over an interesting bottle, or use a magazine picture as a backdrop. For really close shots, try putting the camera on a tripod...a mini one will do...even use the timer facility to minimise camera shake. Have a look through some of the previous posts for tips on lighting...there are plenty of them, and consider using a light tent (either a ready made one for about Â£40, or try one of the home made versions eg. a translucent waste bin, for considerably cheaper) Unwanted reflections on the crystal can sometimes be blocked by strategically placed pieces of card either to the side or above the watch. Hope some of these tips help......Great first attempts! :thumbsup:


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Tom Radford said:


> Well, its in focus now, so you are getting there. What lighting are you using?
> 
> The thing is with photography lighting is you need a lot more than you might think.
> 
> ...


Thanks Tom. It's in a small light tent. I bought the tent and a couple of lights some years ago with the idea of some product photography for a website, but never used them, this is my first attempt. I have it set up in a bay window with light from three sides, and above to a certain extent, then the two lamps on each side of the tent.

I'll try it at an angle, and moving the lamps to create some shadows.

The other thing I am missing is some detail, the watch face has some amazing engravings (can't remember the correct word for it now!) that I would like to capture - could this be the jpeg compression at work, once when the photo is taken and once when I resize it? I'll try it from raw and further away, so that I can crop rather than compress, does that sound a workable approach?


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Roger the Dodger said:


> As has been said above, try taking some shots from an angle...this can create some nice 'arty' sots, and also helps to avoid reflections of the camera lens in the watch crystal. A useful prop is a clear acrylic watch stand (eBay). This allows you to pose the watch in a more upright position, rather than laying flat on its back. Outdoor shots work well because the lighting is good..try nestling a watch in among some plant life! Also, use props around the house...drape a watch over an interesting bottle, or use a magazine picture as a backdrop. For really close shots, try putting the camera on a tripod...a mini one will do...even use the timer facility to minimise camera shake. Have a look through some of the previous posts for tips on lighting...there are plenty of them, and consider using a light tent (either a ready made one for about Â£40, or try one of the home made versions eg. a translucent waste bin, for considerably cheaper) Unwanted reflections on the crystal can sometimes be blocked by strategically placed pieces of card either to the side or above the watch. Hope some of these tips help......Great first attempts! :thumbsup:


Thanks Roger, it's great to receive some encouragement!


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## Tom Radford (Apr 28, 2009)

fatboyflyer said:


> Tom Radford said:
> 
> 
> > Well, its in focus now, so you are getting there. What lighting are you using?
> ...


The thing is with your camera and the lens you are using is it will have a maximum amount of resolving detail, until you start to loose small things like engravings.

The further away you are, the more resolving power you loose.

What you want to do, is get as close as your lens allows and shoot in the highest quality possible ( RAW). You then give yourself the maximum amount of data to work with.

It maybe that your lens simply cant resolve detail that fine, in which case you'd want to replace it with a better quality one.

Also coming back to the previous post, as there are no shadows, the engravings will be very hard to spot.

You shouldnt need to resize if you shoot in RAW and then crop to the desired composition. You will still keep all the detail and data you want. Once you resize it starts to corrupt the data for want of a better word, by either upscaling or downscaling. Once you have the RAW shot cropped how you want it, export it as the highest quality JPG you can.

If you want to rework the image, dont use the JPG, use the RAW again, and create a new JPG. Every time you open and save a JPG, you actually loose data through the compression it performs.

Theoreticly, if you opened and resaved a JPG enough times, eventually you wouldnt have anything left!


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Tom Radford said:


> fatboyflyer said:
> 
> 
> > Tom Radford said:
> ...


Excellent, thanks Tom. I'll try some shots in RAW at the minimum focal distance and report again.


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Thanks to some helpful pointers I think I'm getting somewhere. This shot was taken at the minimum focal distance, at an angle, with the light source only on one side of the tent. I used autofocus (think I can improve the focus a little) but saved in raw. Taking at an angle made it harder to eliminate the reflections using paper (you can see a black item lower right of the case) but I think I can improve that again.

Viewing the actual raw file in PS you can see the engravings on the face, yay! By the time I resample to shrink it down to 600px wide you lose a bit but not all. Importantly I think the photo is not quite as dull as the last one. Getting there..


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## Tom Radford (Apr 28, 2009)

Getting there!.

It looks a bit underexposed, which is why its still quite flat. Hope you dont mind, but I tweaked it a little. I only had the tiny JPG to work with, with the RAW file, you should get much better results.



cartier16 by TCR4x4, on Flickr


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Tom Radford said:


> Getting there!.
> 
> It looks a bit underexposed, which is why its still quite flat. Hope you dont mind, but I tweaked it a little. I only had the tiny JPG to work with, with the RAW file, you should get much better results.


Looks much better, thanks! So how do I either a. correct the under exposure when taking the photo, or b. tweak it in PS? Hope you don't mind me asking..


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Found it in PS (though probably done rather crudely) and saved it as a higher quality jpg - though the file size seems to be getting quite big. Latest:


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## Tom Radford (Apr 28, 2009)

My full res jpgs often hit 10mb, so I think you are ok!

In camera, adjust the shutter speed slightly slower, or lower the aperture. In Adobe camera raw, you can adjust up to 4 stops of exposure either way.


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## fatboyflyer (Mar 2, 2010)

Thought I would give it a go with another subject. I think I'm improving, but still seem to be underexposing (this has been adjusted in PS). I really need to get a clear watch stand to position the watches better.


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## andyclient (Aug 1, 2009)

Thats better , if it is overexposing try using spot metering so the light meter is reading the light from the watch face instead of all around , that should help.

good luck

Andy


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