Sunlight Shaded Photography

As I’ve been making instructables I’ve been trying to improve on the quality of the pictures I take. What you’ll read here is what I’ve learned over the past year about taking photos and how to make my “light box”.

The pictures you see are random items photographed in my “light box”. Each picture is also shown with the brightness increased a little through adobe photo shop. All other pictures on this instuctable are "as is" without any modification. My camera is a Cannon Power Shot. It cost me about $200.00.

Step 1: Natural pictures

What I mean by natural photos are pictures that are taken without any effort to filter light. All these pictures are taken in direct sunlight. Because of that the shadows are very prominent. This could be a good thing especially if you want an out door’sy feel to it.

Taking pictures of small items in direct sunlight doesn’t do so well. The shadow is often as big as the piece you’re photographing and distracts from what you’re trying to capture. So what to do? Stay outdoors but get to some shade.

Comments

[Kryptonite]

I've recently put a few electronic goods on eBay, and this Instructable has helped so much. I'm always striving for better looking photos, and my normal approach is a light box with four desk lamps surrounding it. This time I thought I'd try your approach for outdoor lighting, and it worked a charm! The pictures came up great, I used Gimp to either auto colour correct or manually change the brightness and contrast to polish up each shot and they look so much better than anything I could have done inside.

Thank you!

[Mrballeng]

I love to hear it. I'm glad this worked out for you. Maybe you could post a photo? Thanks for commenting.

[Kryptonite]

There are two iPods here, the one with the crack that I managed to get some nice macro shots out of.

Sorry that there are so many :P

Thanks again!

[Mrballeng]

Awesome! Good luck on the sale.

[Kryptonite]

Thanks again, you've helped to no end.

[Kryptonite]

These are all taken outdoors against a sheet of white paper.

They were all colour corrected with Gimp.

[action pig]

Nice 'ible! I'm taking notes, I take terrible photos.

[frisbeechamp1983]

Brilliant! Good Job! Great Idea! Thanks!

[andreq]

Great instructables as always! Been a while since I've looked at your work.

I never had time to thank you for that butterfly pendant... so Thanks! It's really a master piece.

I've been thinking about posting an instructable about photo shooting for some weeks now, you gave me the drive to do it.

It's will be about Flash photography and making something from design to reality :).

[Mrballeng]

Thanks. Glad you like the butterfly. And I'll keep posted for your instructable.

[canucksgirl]

Some very good tips here. Thanks for sharing. We could all benefit from taking better photos! ;)

[tinker234]

wow these look golden quality think i might try to take some portraits with this

[ehudwill]

Thanks for writing this one. I am always working on my pictures. Have you ever tried using an old milk jug? The plastic is supposed to diffuse the light evenly.

[Mrballeng]

Never though of it but that would probably work. Thanks for the idea.

[black hole]

5* and faved. I've always wondered how you take such magnificent pictures.