My Desktop Photo Studio

[Popperini 17,810]

A few people have asked if I’d share some notes about my watch pics. So here’s a bit of info about what I use and how I use it.

The wider question of “how to take good photos” is covered in absolutely massive detail all over the internets. And I don’t think I’m adding very much to that pool of knowledge. But I’ve included some specific watch pic points I hope might be useful.

By all means feel free to use this thread to ask any additional questions, or indeed contribute further words of wisdom on the subject.

Camera/Lens/Tripod

I use a Panasonic Lumix DC-GX8.  

Its combination of features and functionality is perfect for what I want. I’ll only upgrade when I see a camera which can match the ergonomics of the Lumix, but has significantly greater resolution and a not stupid price. Nothing’s come along yet to make me want to change.

The Lumix has an articulating touch screen, with the option to tap on the screen to pick the point of focus and/or exposure, and fire a shot. This works brilliantly. I set the self-timer, because even with the camera on a tripod you can get camera shake when firing the shutter manually. With 3 seconds between tapping the screen and the shutter firing, the chance of shake is minimised.

Often when I’m doing very close macro shots, I switch to manual focus and have “focus peaking” set, which adds a bright blue linear overlay to whatever part of the subject is in focus. This is more accurate than tapping the screen to set the focus point, which helps when the subject is entirely filling the frame.

I always shoot in Aperture Priority mode. I set the aperture; the camera chooses the corresponding shutter speed. Quite often I’ll set a wide aperture for a shallow depth of field, which puts the focus point on a specific area of the frame I want, with everything else being blurred. The shutter speed is irrelevant when shooting a still image with the camera on a tripod, and quite often – with dim lighting to get the right ambience in the shot – the shutter can be open for 2 seconds or more.

I also generally set exposure compensation to -1 stop, which counters the tendency (that digital cameras always seem to have) to over-expose images and blow out the highlights.

The lens I use most is an Olympus M. ZUIKO Digital ED 60mm f2.8 macro. It’s a lovely bit of glass. On the micro four thirds camera such as the Lumix the Olympus lens focal length is doubled, so it’s the same as using a 120mm telephoto lens on a conventional 35mm SLR.

I use a Giottos MT 8246B carbon fibre tripod, fitted with a cheap but sturdy articulating extension arm from Amazon, and a Slik AF 1100E head with a trigger grip.

Light Box/Studio Area

It’s taken me a couple of years of experimenting with different lightbox and desktop lighting arrangements to get a versatile setup that I’m happy with. I’ve experimented with various very cheap and cheerful lightbox solutions, spending a bit more money each time as I discovered how crap the cheapo ones are.

The most useful purchase I made in my desktop studio quest was a 16”/40cm square “professional photo light box portable studio box folding shooting tent kit”. It’s sold under various Chinese brand names on Amazon, and is regularly on offer, so I got it for under £50. (They do it in different sizes, and I also tried the bigger 24”/60cm version, but sent that one back because it was overkill for a watch.)

This light box worked okay… but reflections are the bane of a watch snapper’s life, and the textured silver reflective material inside the tent caused visual nastiness; I found I was constantly holding bits of white or black card inside the tent to kill the weird speckly reflections on the watch. Also, working inside the tent was cramped, and the supplied plastic backdrops were too reflective. Also also, the height of the tent was fine, but the depth was an issue; to throw the background out of focus the watch had to be placed near the front of the lightbox, which then meant that extraneous light and reflections from outside the lightbox would hit the watch. So for a time I went “full tent” with the setup, using an old bed sheet…

Panasonic also provide an app that allows the camera to be linked up to a mobile or tablet. So I used this in “full tent mode” to remotely control the camera. But the software’s not great, and the whole setup was less than ideal…

Eventually I whipped off all the coverings, and cut 2 sheets of A2 mount board down, to fit inside the metal frame, with another board laying on the top. Mount board is black on one side and white on the other, which makes it perfect for bouncing or throwing shade on your subject (see Lighting, below).

For a backdrop, I bought a big piece of black velvet which now lives on my work table. When not in use I fold it in half and lay my cutting mat on top of it. To deploy it, I drape the top half over an old PC flatscreen monitor.

So the observant among you will have noticed that effectively I paid nearly £50 for a flimsy metal frame and a couple of LED strip lights. But the frame acts as a convenient hanger for some bits of cardboard and the lights, and it does the job perfectly because it was designed to.

Plus, the silver reflective tent part could always be pressed into action in an emergency, to wrap up a small, squarish dog that was suffering from exposure.

The big sheet of black velvet makes for a versatile base on its own. I photograph larger scale scenes such as my Sub and Seamaster collections using just the velvet base with card reflectors and a couple of cheap LED light arrays on stands.

 

Lighting

My professional photo light box portable studio box folding shooting tent kit came with a pair of LED light strips that clip onto the frame, and a white nylon fabric square that also clips on and diffuses the output from the LED strips. This is pretty much perfect most of the time. Both strips are clipped to the top of the frame and positioned near the front, to keep the light on the subject and off the velvet backdrop.

The LEDs have a control box with a rotary brightness knob – I never crank it up to full strength, in fact it never gets past the 50% mark. Any brighter, and the lighting starts to illuminate the black velvet.

As well as the directional light from above which is diffused through the fabric, light is bouncing onto the subject from the white board on top of the box and the side walls too. So, there’s a good amount of ambient as well as directional light. But there are often still shadows or unwanted bright reflections to deal with, and for those I have a whole bunch of bits of black and white mount board which I’ll poke into the relevant position, out of frame but either bouncing light onto a bit of the watch, or masking light from falling on it.

I also use a piece of white card with a hole cut in it, draped over the lens, to throw light onto the watch from the direction of the camera when I want light reflecting off the hands.

 

Post Processing

Photoshop. It’s what I know – I’ve been using it since the very first incarnation, in 1990, back when it was only available for the Apple Mac. I’ve also been using digital cameras since they first became available. I always shoot in RAW + JPG mode.

Now I’ve got my little studio setup pretty much sorted, I’m finding that I can often go straight from camera to post-ready images without the need to mess about doing additional tweakage. I still have to resize and sometimes crop into images, but there’s no need to adjust colour balance or alter the exposure settings in Adobe RAW. I can now just open the JPG, reduce the size of the image, save it with a little compression (level 9), and it’s ready to post.

Although I have noticed that ClickPix seems to add further compression, because the pics always look a bit darker once they arrive in a post. Weird.

And there will always be exceptions to the “shoot ‘n’ go” approach – often dictated by the watch. For my recent Daytona article, most of the face-on pics of each watch were composites of 5 or 6 different shots, in order to achieve a flawless look. The ceramic and steel bezels were a particularly tricky element to light. For instance…

 

So that’s what I use to take my pics. I hope it might have been of some interest to someone out there. I know for a fact that there are some who find the whole thing completely irresistible…

 

 

[BravoDelta 22,440]

That is very impressive!  

 

 

 

 

I just use my phone. 

[Howitzer 1,974]

 indeed.

Most impressive mate, post bookmarked for (very far into the) future (at this rate) reference! 

 

[Bbsee 469]

This is absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much for taking the time to share this! 

Good job.

[CollieWobbles 236]

Fair play to ya Poppers, that's a great set up but I'll prob stick to using my phone.

[Simonix 8,660]

Very informative. 
 

I keep putting off buying the macro lens and light box  (I already have the camera, photoshop, etc), but every time you post your latest “shoot”, I feel the need to purchase again....

[Devil 2,890]

Great setup, wish I had the space for something like this... I always fancied having a go at photography and you make your watches look stunning!

[Glaude 1,615]

Brilliant explanation !

Having a camera much lighter than a full blown DSLR make live such easier when it come to setting up like this, I remember I had to fetch heavy duty tripod and more importantly head to cope with the combo : DSLR + Lens accordion + lens mount adapter + old school macro lens (hadn't had been a cheap fuck I would have just bought a Canon L macro and be done  )

1 hour ago, Popperini said:

Although I have noticed that ClickPix seems to add further compression, because the pics always look a bit darker once they arrive in a post. Weird.

Yes it's the price to pay to have the server not completely overloaded with high res pics, there's a bit of compression when uploading and the web browser add another one on top, you can upload in .webp format that should limit compression by at least the web browser

[OJHorology 352]

So the secret is out...the real mastermind is the cat, clearly giving you all the directions.

Both your and @TanGo's masters are very talented.

1 hour ago, BravoDelta said:

That is very impressive!  

I just use my phone. 

To be fair....I also do that. 

You can achieve great results with the 2x camera that comes with the iphone 11 pro (my lighting is just terrible, and also...I'm lazy).

[Buddhabar 4,539]

@Popperini

Not only watch passion ... but certainly also photography. My compliments ... truly at the top. 

[Intresting 21,683]

Thanks for this really good post Pops.   Fascinating reading.
 
My curiosity of why my iPhone pictures never turn out as nice as yours have been fully explained.   Mine takes 10 seconds.  Yours, just a little more involved  

Thanks for sharing.

[Cap'n 930]

This is a great article and will certainly be coming back to it - I have exactly the same lightbox by the looks of things and have also suffered with the light bouncing off the silver sides - cardboard shopping here I come! 

I have a lot of practicing to get where you are  - have been using a Nikon D5300 with a 50mm Prime 1:1.8 up to now, which works a s a Macro lens but is far better for portraits. Have just ordered a Sigma 105mm Macro lens so be interesting to see what results I can get with that (although half the time a lot of my shots are simple iPhone shots as well for speed and ease!).

Thanks for sharing.  

 

[Popperini 17,810]

Really nice article for reading. I have some questions about Nikon, can i ask you in pm?

I used to use Nikon, but I don’t any more. But sure, by all means.


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[martines 0]

Thanks for this solution. I also have the same case. This part of the methodology makes sure that all changes made to the software development team's solution are closely followed  https://mlsdev.com/services/web-development

Edited August 26, 2021 by martines

[Popperini 17,810]

22 minutes ago, martines said:

Thanks for this solution. I also have the same case.

My pleasure. 

BTW, would a nice mod kindly get shot of the spam post by NiaBrowns above please? Thanks! @rikracy @Glaude

[neelyang77 0]

On 24/08/2021 at 16:12, martines said:

Thanks for this solution. I also have the same case. This part of the methodology makes sure that all changes made to the software development team's solution are closely followed  https://www.edugeeksclub.com/do-my-assignment/ essay writing service

Thanks a lot for info!

Edited March 4, 2022 by neelyang77

[Popperini 17,810]

1 hour ago, neelyang77 said:

Thanks a lot for info!

FFS...

Anyway, the spammy bollocks getting posted at the tail end of this thread has reminded me that I was going to post an update to mention I finally decided to update my beloved Panasonic Lumix gear and got... some Panasonic Lumix gear. I've gone "full frame" (which means a sensor the same size as the traditional 35mm film camera, and a 1:1 relationship with full frame lens focal lengths). I bought the Lumix full frame mirrorless S5 with 20-60mm kit lens, a Sigma 105mm macro, and Sigma 2x extension tube. The camera is 24 MP, but can take 96 MP images using a "sensor shift" thing. 

I'm currently doing a Kermit Collection article which will feature photos taken using the new gear.

[Phoenixboy 13,355]

FFS...
Anyway, the spammy bollocks getting posted at the tail end of this thread has reminded me that I was going to post an update to mention I finally decided to update my beloved Panasonic Lumix gear and get... some Panasonic Lumix gear. I've gone "full frame" (which means a sensor the same size as the traditional 35mm film camera, and a 1:1 relationship with full frame lens focal lengths). I bought the Lumix full frame mirrorless S5 with 20-60mm kit lens, a Sigma 105mm macro, and Sigma 2x extension tube. The camera is 24 MP, but can take 96 MP images using a "sensor shift" thing. 
I'm currently doing a Kermit Collection article which will feature photos taken using the new gear.

Did someone say Kermit


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[Popperini 17,810]

14 minutes ago, Phoenixboy said:

Did someone say Kermit

Is that your Kermit puppet? I was going to buy one to use as a prop in the photo shoot - but couldn't find a decent looking one cheap!

[Phoenixboy 13,355]

2 minutes ago, Popperini said:

Is that your Kermit puppet? I was going to buy one to use as a prop in the photo shoot - but couldn't find a decent looking one cheap!

no, but i have a collection of meerkats if that helps....

[Popperini 17,810]

no, but i have a collection of meerkats if that helps....

Brilliant - when Rolex do a watch that gets known as the Meerkat, and it gets repped, and I get a collection of them, and I want to set up a photo where all the watches are on top of a hill looking the same way along with an actual Meerkat, I’ll give you a shout.


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[GingerApple 7,281]

2 hours ago, Popperini said:

I've gone "full frame" (which means I've spent thousands on even more pointless shit that I don't really need, so please don't tell my wife).

I hear you buddy! We've all been there.

[deju 1,870]

2 hours ago, TheGingerFerret said:

I hear you buddy! We've all been there.

I thought he meant the wife? 

[tribefan 6,768]

I did the Pops jr edition of this and bought a $10 pop up led lighted 2x2 box. On the kitchen table with the Samsung digital 35MM on a tripod. I already have a bunch of lenses I never use so this is a good excuse to break them out. Came with a white and black soft foam background. Works great for watches. Thanks Pops!

 

[deju 1,870]

56 minutes ago, tribefan said:

I did the Pops jr edition of this and bought a $10 pop up led lighted 2x2 box. On the kitchen table with the Samsung digital 35MM on a tripod. I already have a bunch of lenses I never use so this is a good excuse to break them out. Came with a white and black soft foam background. Works great for watches. Thanks Pops!

 

All the gear…. No idea