How do you take good pictures of guitars?

[thebigz]

I finally got my new camera (Sony SLT-A65) and set out to take some pictures of my new 89 soloist custom.

I have seen some great pictures of people's guitars with metal flake paint jobs, but I can't seem to capture it. I think I did an ok job, but what kind of settings do you photographers use when doing this?

I have it in direct sunlight, would an overcast day be better?

[Shawn Lutz]

I wish I knew the answer lol. What I do is I take an ass load of pictures knowing I'll only use one or two. Try flash vs no flash, different angles and different levels of light. Take about 30 pictures of 1 guitar, transfer them to you computer ans delete the ones that don't make the grade.

[Ward]

I wish I knew too. Just got a red sparkle soloist and all the pics I took look pretty similar to yours above.

I took about 20 pics, but none of them look even close to what it looks like in person. I tried indoors and out, direct sunlight, not in direct sunlight, indoors with and without flash. Just couldn't get the sparkle to show up. I have a boat with the same paintjob, and it always looks close to plain red in pictures, but in real life it could blind a man when the sun hits it

Congrats, awesome looking guitar even if it doesn't sparkle much in the pics!

[Hellbat]

You want to avoid direct sunlight unless you are using an off-camera fill light to reduce shadows and glare. Best thing if you are taking pictures when it's outside the 'golden hours' (the hour after dawn, before sunset. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hour_(photography) ) is to shoot in the shade near direct sunlight while avoiding getting any direct sunlight in the shot.

Overcast days will give second best results to cloudless day in the golden hours. Essentially you are looking for the softest, most even light. DIrect sunlight will usually make a digital camera make a compromise on the exposure because the highlights will be extreme. This causes what is called 'blow out' where you lose detail in bright areas because all the sensor sees is "holy crap it's bright!"

[Chad]

Good advice here. Also, red is just a tough color to capture for whatever reasons. Further keep in mind that red is really prone to showing compression artifacts. For that reason, I try to use very little compression when taking pics of a red guitar.

[thebigz]

Cool, thanks. I wonder if doing a long exposure in low light and doing a quick flash in the middle will catch the sparkle, but be able maintain the rest of the shot

[DonP]

Someone was telling me to do a "white adjust" but I'm camera stupid.

[Jack Napalm]

I get my wife to take them.

[Hellbat]

Cool, thanks. I wonder if doing a long exposure in low light and doing a quick flash in the middle will catch the sparkle, but be able maintain the rest of the shot

Yes, you would want the flash to be hitting the guitar from a 45 degree angle or so. That way the flakes pointing more in that direction will light up more. If you hit it from bang on you will just get a carpet bomb of light back.

This of course would require off camera flash/lighting. If you have a modern digital slr with the manufacturers speedlight this is easy-peasy to do. If you don't, get a daylight color temperature light (5500K-6500K color temp) and hit the guitar from around 45 degrees and try to baffle off the light in such a way that it highlights the body and gives it a little extra pop.

[thebigz]

I'll give that a shot. I'd love to be able to get this looking right.

I guess I at least followed rule number 1 of guitar photography and I GTWGITS'd!

[Hellbat]

Oh yeah. More shit...

If your camera will take images in RAW mode you will want to do that to limit the compression artifacts. Since human eyes are more sensitive to blue and green light, JPG compression gives up extra detail in the red channel to save space. Of course this means extra steps getting to a final JPG but the quality tradeoff is more than worth it. At the very least you want to be on the highest resolution and quality jpg settings your camera has. (Picture size large, jpeg fine or better).

[jacksonkellyfreak]

try turning on macro, or closeup mode. that worked for me. brings out alot more detail

[JACKSONFREAK]

Ive takensome really sharp picks of my old Kelly pro in green sparkle, I did it laying down on its case. Case open and standing at about a 45 degree angle with a flash. (indoors) The contrast of the black lining in the case seemed ot make the green flakes jump. Try that in the daylight outside if you wish. I used an older Hewlett packard digital camera.
Gil

[RacerX]

I guess I at least followed rule number 1 of guitar photography and I GTWGITS'd!

[xenophobe]

Your original image is quite a bit underexposed and has lost a bit of detail, but you're going the right direction...

I adjusted it slightly, it's a bit oversharpened... and jpg compression looks bad, but this edit took about 10 seconds in lightroom... the original image file would adjust much better....