Taking photos of astro equipment - help needed.

[snowyskiesau]

With a view to selling some astro gear, I started to take some photos of it.
The results were less than stunning :mad2:
I looked at some photography sites but don't have the necessary equipment (or budget) to do things their way.

My camera is a 40D, lenses are 50mm, 17-85mm, inbuilt flash only.

I'm not expecting prize winners but would like any pointers from the experts about how to take decent, flash pictures of fairly small objects (eyepiece size).

[Octane]

Geoff,

Set up on a tripod, use the 85mm end of your 17-85mm lens, and see if you can't use a curled business card or train ticket tucked under the flash, to bounce light upwards, onto some foam core board or something similar, that will bounce diffused light back down on to your subjects.

Another option might be a make-shift lightbox. Use an upside-down cardboard box, cut one side out (so that you can you see your subjects) wrap the inside with white butchers paper or a clean white sheet, cut a hole in the top and put some diffusing material such as perspex or even several sheets of baking paper, and point a lamp down into the hole. You'll probably end up with a tungsten orange colour cast, but, this should easily be fixed in post processing.

An off-camera flash would work best, though.

Just a few ideas.

H

[Dennis]

Have a look here for a few ideas:

http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html

Cheers

Dennis

[RickS]

Thanks, Dennis. That'll be a handy site next time my wife wants me to photograph some of her jewellery.

Cheers,
Rick.