Photo Challenged

[Rich121]

OK. Give me a guitar, I can play it. Give me a camera and I can shoot a preety girl or a mountain or even a concrete block. Give me a guitar and a camera and I Stink!

After blowing a stick shooting with flash and getting glare, color changes and such; I decided to take old Green Girty out for a morning natural light session. No go. So I set up a late afternoon shoot. Focus is good but grain and detail are still not there. It looks like those pictures people do for ebay when they really don't want you to see the guitar.

I figured maybe she is just photo shy (although I'm sure Sarah has dozens of green celebs in her archive - so it must be possible to do). So I turned the camera on an Anderson DropTop, the results proving that I am Photographically Challenged. I shot a gold top without problems, so I think it has to do with transparent finishes.

With a forum full of beautiful guitar porn, I'm sure you guys and gals can give me a tip or two. It would be appreciated before I have to embarrass myself and ask the 12 year old across the street to photograph the old girl.

Thanx
Rich

[Sarah93003]

Hey, 12 year olds make the best techs! It sounds to me like the settings on your camera are reduced to something like 72 dpi hence a pixalated image that you can't zoom in on. I'd suggest raising the resolution to something like 300 dpi and take a few in natural light if you can. Guitars are tricky with flashes because it always leaves a "flashspot" somewhere. Please keep trying! I only have three others in my archive of Celebrity Porn Stars. Wait a second, that didn't sound right!

[Veenture]

It would be appreciated before I have to embarrass myself and ask the 12 year old across the street to photograph the old girl.

Rich, no need to be embarrassed. And I agree with Sarah about the young ones...and we need 'em! I'm a hack myself at it, so I get my son to take photos' for me to post on the forum!

[oipunkguy]

Rich, I have a pretty nice kodak digital camera, and I probably don't know how to use half the features on it, and that's being generous to my abilities. but here's a few tricks I've learned that has helped me. if you are getting too much glare, back up from the guitar 5 feet or so, and zoom in to compensate. this will soften the glare shot. you may need to play around a little with your positioning until you find a good distance. good luck!

[eltuce]

Oh good, I'm not the only one. It seems I have to take 100 pics to get a couple of good ones. I generally have the best luck with no flash and LOTS of lights on. Then I try to stand where the light glare doesn't show on the guitar. I have a Canon Digital Elph and a cheapo Casio. Oddly enough the Casio is great for close ups of the routing and pots.

[Sarah93003]

I've found that it's easy to fall into the habit of trying to get too close to the subject. It is much better practice to take a high resolution shot and then crop it later to focus on what you want. In the old days of film we were taught to try for a full frame. In the digital age that isn't necessarily the way to go, especially with the less expensive digitals that most folks use. When I have issues with the flash leaving a "sun spot" I then go outside and that usually works perfectly. Oh, and of course a steady hand is a good asset.