Mikes Photography

pasvorto · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:10 am Post subject: Industrial photos

I have been assigned the task of taking a number of photos around our plant. They will be used in a sales presentation. We are a bottle decorator (print on bottles, etc). Most of the pictures are close in showing the mechanisms at work. In many instances, the bottle had to be held on a prop because the machine is moving too fast for my camera to freeze it.

I am using a Nikon D80 with the Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens. That is all I have. I thought about trying to coax the owner into buying a telephoto for the project, but I thought it would be even slower.

I only have the built in pop-up flash. I am using a tripod.

I am running into 2 major issues.

1. The flash keeps reflecting off the surface of monitors on the machines. It makes it dificult to show what is on the screen, with all the glare.

2. One machine in particular has an area that the bottle goes through and gets a degreasing mist sprayed on it. The area is encased in an aluminum box and has a small spray nozzle on its interior wall. My eyes can see the "mist" just fine. But I can not capture it at all. Especially when I use a flash (with is needed in that dark area). It makes the mist invisible. I don't want to get the camera "up close and personal" or it will get sprayed as well.

Any ideas? I see that a number of you do industrial photography. I can post some of my shots, but they are too big right now. I would need to shrink them first.
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"Nothing exceeds like excess"

creators · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 2:19 pm Post subject:

Fascinating project, I've been hankering for an industrial shoot for a long time, there is a unique kind of beauty to industry. However.... have you tried lead lamps or desk lamps to light your subjects, glass, metal and monitors are not going to take kindly to the built in flash and I think you need to think about lighting by any other method. Alternatively, though I've never tried it, how about holding a mirror in front of the flash and directing the flash at a white board to one side to reflect the light?
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hil26 · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 2:48 pm Post subject:

or how about using some tissue paper over flash to diffuse it, would need wide aperture, though so loss of DOF
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Always in search of that magic moment

pasvorto · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 4:19 pm Post subject:

Thanks folks. I will try those when I am back shooting next week.

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"Nothing exceeds like excess"