# Photography of Your Baits



## ShutUpNFish (Apr 17, 2007)

I have seen some excellend photogrphy in this site! Although, I am an artist, I am terrible with the mechanics of a camera. I have an Olympus Stylus 720sw digital...It has all kinds of settings and "stuff" in the menu that I have NO clue what they mean, but am confident that it can take great pics. 

Wouldn't it be great if we could get some of you pros who take great pics, to offer a tutorial or tips on photography? Especially the pics of some of our work and lures; since some of us are all thumbs with the camera and our current pics don't do the work justice.

I would greatly appreciate any help or tips since I STILL feel that my photos aren't what they could be even though I've been taking pics with a digital (Ahem!! K-Gone)

Thanks!

Paul


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## Downriver Tackle (Jan 13, 2009)

Two things I use are a tripod and a polarized lens. The polarized lens is great for reducing glare. And pictures come out so much sharper using the tripod.


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## WillyB2 (Dec 28, 2008)

I could use the help too. I took pictures yesterday of some of my top water lures for everyone to look at and they came out so blurry I just deleted them. I have a Sony thats probably 6 or so years old and it used to take beautiful pictures. Not sure what happened but the pics really suck now!!


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## K gonefishin (May 4, 2004)

Learn how to use your camera and it's settings. Having a quality camera doesn't hurt either. And one of these. http://www.digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent


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## Photog (Jun 18, 2010)

Well since I have a ton of experience shooting I better throw in my two cents. First off let me explain my forte' is in shooting people not small objects but the concept is the same. 
If your camera has a white balance setting for tungsten light (will probably look like a little lightbulb) you can get some great images from a very cheap and simple lighting setup. Use a couple shoplights, the one that have the silver bowl reflectors and some pieces of card board painted white or covered with aluminum foil. 
First setup your "set". You can use a piece of poster board bent, not folded to provide a seamless background or some cloth, and old log, whatever. One word of advice, if you use a seamless white background check to see if your camera has exposure compensation. A camera's light meter will be fooled by the white background and will under expose the image. You will have to go with a +1 maybe even +2 to compensate for this.
The mainlight you will want to hang overhead. How you do it is up to you, maybe make a boom out of old boards. I dunno lol. The second light you want a little farther back and lower and a little to the side of your camera, this is the fill light.
USE A TRIPOD! Also if you have a self timer or cable release, use them. This will further reduce and blur from pushing the shutter button. 
Take a shot or two and if you see shadows you want to reduce or highlights you want to add, experiment with your cardboard reflectors. 

Again, experiment and track what you are doing. With a little effort you will get some professional looking results.
Now a little secret: You can use this same lighting setup to get some cool black and white "Hollywood" style portraits of family and friends. I used to do this a lot when I had my studio.


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## AtticaFish (Nov 23, 2008)

DITTO on the tripod and the timer!!! You won't blur the pic from motion with your hands totaly off the camera.

Photog gave some excellent info for digging into the settings of your camera.... i spent awhile trying to figure out alot of what he said in just one post. Good post Photog!

With all that said, i have opted for a much more simple method that is pretty hard to mess up.  Now i am taking close-up pics of mostly tied flies and jigs that are much smaller than a musky crank, so that may make a difference.

I have been using even a cheapy Kodak and am satisified with the resluts. Kodak has a Macro setting for close-up photos... BUT ...you may have to set your camera in postion and switch from Macro to another setting and back to Macro to get the correct focus. I did a quick search and the 720sw has an underwater macro setting in the 'shooting modes' but i have no clue if that will be the same. Take pics OUTSIDE on a sunny day, but not in direct sunlight using the tri-pod and timer and it is tough to screw it up. Just have a good contrasting background. 

Last tip..... buy PhotoShop Elements (under $100) and it has some pretty simple auto color correct features.  It also has some pretty advanced effects if you dig into it.


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## AtticaFish (Nov 23, 2008)

Oh yeah... almost forgot. 










Here's some of my pics, all these were taken outside with very little color correction needed:


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## ShutUpNFish (Apr 17, 2007)

I made myself a light box per the specs of the site which was linked....I'm getting a wierd shadow in the lower left portion of the box...I could crop most of them out...here is how the pics purned out....pretty nice I think.


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