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Tips on Watch Photography
As more and more fine reviews appear on TimeZone, the photos of the watches are one of the most important elements of the reviews. Excellent photos can describe the watches better than any words. Photos themselves can be present as art forms or technical information to tell the audiences more about their specifications or, more importantly, to express inner beauties of the watches. Also, more and more people are buying digital cameras nowadays as the technology is matured and the manufactories offer many selections with different price ranges. It is fun to use your digital camera as for landscape, but I think it is cool to experiment macro photography with your watches. Hey the film is FREE and you don't have to wait to see the results!
In here, I would like to share my humble experiences so that people can avoid some mistakes that I had made. Okay, here we go.
A. Read the damn manual! -- As a person who how to operate the grand-daddy of all cameras, Large Format cameras, I think I am good enough to operate the auto-everything "point-and-shoot" digital cameras. Boy! Am I wrong! I don't know there is a setting for black and white photos and I really don't know there is something call "white balance" setting on the digital cameras, as I *assumed* that this function is only for the video camera. I guess this is some sort of build in filters huh? I now realize that this is the most important function in the digital camera. It can change the photos from hell to heaven.
As you can see on the example A and B. The example A was taken after I got my camera for my Lange 1815's review and tried to fool around with it. The white balance setting was in "Auto" mode. You can see that it is kinda dark and unnatural. The example B was taken after I read all lines on the manual. I changed the white balance setting every time when I take photos and I adjusted the setting to "Incandescent" light setting as I use an incandescent table lamp for my watch photos. As you can see, the color of the picture is more accurate. This lesson had taught me that technology is still can't compare to human's brain, and auto-everything camera actually is a stupid-junk.
Sample A
Sample B
For the newbie, make sure that you know where is your "Macro" mode setting on the camera. You need to switch from auto to "macro" mode or your camera won't have the ability to focus close enough.
B. Preparation -- The easy one is you need to find a table where you have a table lamp, and a watch. The hardest part is you need to CLEAN up the damn watches when you take some photos with them! I always clean up the watches everytime before I shoot some photos but then I always forget to clean it up again and again when I move the watches to different positions for different sets of photos. Boy! Try to imagine after shooting tons of pictures, uploading to the computer and find out that there are lots of fingerprints and dirt on some of the the best photos you just took...that feeling can make you scream like hell. Sorry, yes, you need to dismiss those excellent photos and retake them....
C. Manual everything is the ONLY way to go!! Let's admit it. The gazillion mega-ultra-state-of-the-art digital camera, you just got, is dumber than your coffee marker. The meter reading is always wrong. The depth of field is always too sallow to see the entire movement. The build-in flash is always make your watches appear like criminal photos in your local police station. The damn thing is just not smart enough to take right stuff!! Most of the point-and-shoot cameras don't have the manual overwriting features as on the SLR cameras. (But the latest ones have some manual overwriting features such as aperture mode, shutter mode, manual mode.Plus some Very useful manual functions!) You can only manually set up some parameters such as the white balance, the exposure value (EV), compression quality, photo modes, metering, and some extra functions (like black-and-white), but these are good enough!! You can just change the white balance for the correct lighting condition. You can change the exposure value if the meter reading was incorrect. You can just use different meter settings to make it right. Even if the pictures are not right, you still can adjust it on the software-based dark-room. At least with the correctly-adjusted photos, you can change from bad to good, not from terrible to not-so-good.
D. NEVER ever think about the flash! -- Always use a stable platform to hold you camera, like a tripod with a ballhead or some sort. Most of the build-in flash on the digital cameras are total useless for the macro photograph as it will only make your photos look dull, harsh, dumb, and unattractive. You can overwrite it by using a softbox, indirect flash technique, or some other methods to solve the problem, but these are useless as the flash is so closed to the camera' lens that there is no way to adjust or modify the flash like the add-on flash we use on the SLR system. Let's admit it. If we don't want to spend megabuck professional studio lighting equipment, then our best friend is tripod, with natural sun light or table lamp for an extensive long exposure. If you don't have a tripod, you might want to use several thick books and stack it up together and hold the camera against the books to make the camera more stable. The reason to have a stable platform is because macro photography take extensive time for exposure, and there is no way that a human being can hold the camera so stable that he can take a sharp photo without tripod. Also, macro photography is a technique that requires to take a tiny subject or a small portion of the subject, and magnify it to several times larger than life, hence if you don't have a stable platform, the final results will be shaky and crazy. Again, you must gotta have a tripod and never use the flash!
E. Take as many pictures as you can! -- Remember this, if you have only several excellent pictures within some sloppy, terrible, stupid pictures in a roll of film (or flash card), you are still an excellent photographer! Don't give up after you see some stunning pictures on the latest issue of National Geographic as those are taken by the best of the best photographers worldwide with thousands of thousands of pictures selected from. I still remember I took about 130 pictures of the Rolex's Cal.3135 when I went to see Jack Freedman. I took 5 pictures in EACH position and select only the best. It is the ONLY way to take good photos, by trial-and-error, experience, and hard work. There is no way that you can take some good photos after you just bought a camera from your favorite dealer. No way! Anyway, the digital film is free and it is nice to experiment more and more. If you hate the pictures you just took, then try it tomorrow as I am sure that you learn from your mistake and you will have build your own method for some excellent photos in short future.
F. Try Improvisation -- Remember that a good watch review is not just try to show the watch in unbiased, documentary way, but you also need to "bring out " the inner beauties of your watches and present your wonderful watch in special ways. Let your photos do the talk to impress people by themselves.
You need to show their beautiful curves, their elegant,and their class and presenting them as an art form. After all, watches are pieces of arts and the pictures shall reflect their "inner" beauties. Like the portrait photography, you need to bring out the "soul" of your watch and you need to show the underlying beauties of your watch by different creative ways. Have you realize why those terrible pictures on the Sales Corner look like the criminal photos? That's because the sellers don't have love toward the watches they are trying to sell. If there is no love, then there is no way to understand and discover the underlying beauties of the watches, hence, the photographers will not able to show their souls and inner beauties and, therefore, the pictures are reflecting only as products, but not the souls of the watches as an art form. As many of you understand the specifications of your watches very well, you also need to understand how you want to express those characters on the photos for your watch reviews. Try to use different angles, positions and try to experience with different techniques, or try to use black and white photos to express the "good" sides of your watches. On the sample C, I was trying to show the masculine side of Rolex Submariner. On the sample D, I was trying to present the Lange One in its elegant way and use black and white to show its class.
Sample C
Sample D
G. Some Tips:
a. Try to us a white paper or better yet an 18% gray card as the background. It can give you a reference point to see if the lighting and colors are accurate. It will make you easier to adjust the photos when you are editing them in PhotoShop. An 18% gray card is the best since it is the exact middle position from extreme black to extreme white. Your camera build-in meter will have a higher chance to get the exposure right. Have you wonder why the white wall, or snow turn out to be gray color on your vocation photos? That's because camera's meter is stupid and it will think that the majority of the composition is in gray color, not in white. You might also try to adjust the EV to bring it closer to the optimal color.
b. Wondering why some people can take a HUGE 2x-4x macro pictures (Sample A and B) in a specific section and your camera is not capable of doing that? The reason is very simple. Not too many cameras' lenses focusing mechanisms are designed capable of 2x or greater macro photos. To eliminate the limitation, I use a photographic loupe 4x or 6x (shown on the bottom) and stack it up in front of the camera for much greater macro ability. By this way, I can take some 2x and more macro pictures with excellent results.
Loupes
c. It is rare that someone can take some excellent photos without adjusting and editing it on the software, such as, PhotoShop. I am a newbie on PhotoShop and only know how to use several tricks to edit the photos. I usually edit the light curve (image->adjust->curve). I found that it is much more neutral to use it then editing by "Auto Levels" or editing other parameters. The meter reading is ALWAYS wrong and I always adjust the curve to make the lighting and color more accurate. Other than adjusting the curve, I do not use other adjustments at all as I think they make the photos look more unnatural, hence, look worse. Sometimes, I will use "sharpen" function on the "filter" section of PhotoShop, but it is in rare case since I always use stable platform to take picture so that the original photos are sharp already. It is really hard to adjust the sharpness by PhotoShop if your original picture is not sharp enough. In other word, try to make it "prefect" in the first place when you take the pictures, and don't rely on the PhotoShop later on. Well, I guess I just don't know PhotoShop enough to discover the full potential of this software and I am still wondering how Paul Schliesser edited this picture on PhotoShop. (Did you use double-exposure on the film or you edit it on PhotoShop, Paul?) Paul wrote an excellent advanced PhotoShop tips and here is the answer!!!
d. Watches, such as, JLC MM and JLC RDM have highly reflective black dials and these watches are the hardest thing to shoot from my experiences. I tried to eliminate the reflections of the background (my room) by blocking the light in front of the watches, but it will make the dials look so dark that people hardly can see what's going on within the dials. I guess, without the proper studio lighting equipment, I can only take the pictures with face up (on the table) to eliminate the unnecessary reflections without blocking the light source to show the beautiful dial (JLC MM and RDM). I also think that putting a polarizer filter in front of the lens will be a better idea for taking pictures with black dial watches, but I have never try it before and I cannot comment on it.
JLC MM
JLC RDM
Photography should be treated as recreational activity. Try to be relax, but focus on the subjects. You might want to brainstorming on how you are going to present your watches on the review. You need to have a good understanding and perspectives before taking some pictures. Try to organize your thought and express your idea as much as you can on the photographs themselves. The photos you present must be accurate to represent the facts, specifications and information. Also you need to present them in understandable way to make the audiences understand your perspectives, and yet you got to present them as art forms to bring out the souls of the watches closer to audiences. Make the audiences scream and love the watches when they see your photos. If you able to do it, then I should say congratulation! You did it!
For more advanced professional PhotoShop tips, please visit Paul Schliesser's wonderful PhotoShop's guide. If you want to see more about his stunning professional-quality watch photos, please visit his Zenith Class 4 review and Ventura v-matic auto's review.
Danny
