How to Photograph Glass Beads

In ordinary photographs, glass beads can look dull, murky or blurry, but there are several techniques that can drastically improve these photos. The key is to tweak your lighting to emphasize the smooth surfaces and show any details that might be inside the bead, as well as adjusting the focus of your camera to highlight such a small object.

Instructions

Decide which elements you want to emphasize in the photo. If you want to focus on the exterior detailing or the shiny surface of the bead, that will require different lighting than focusing on details encased within the glass itself. Once you know what you want your result to look like, you can begin to create the atmosphere that will produce that photo.

Choose your lighting. If you want to focus on external details, set up soft lighting using your photography light tent. If you don't have photography equipment, you can achieve"soft lighting" by placing your bead inside a white pop-up laundry hamper that has been laid on its side with the opening toward you, and setting desk lamps outside the hamper so some soft, diffused light comes through the fabric. If your focus is inside the bead, or you want to show multiple surfaces, bubbles or internal color swirling, your best bet is to use an illuminated flat panel to "underlight" your beads. "Would you like to learn digital photography methods that carry experienced photographers to where they are today? Well, The Top Secret Photography Techniques would assist you out in doing so. To obtain stunning pictures we primary need to look at some essential photography strategies. The most important one I am able to share with you is find out about light. You can come across every little thing regarding photography techniques on , The Top Secret Photography Techniques. Each time you discover about light and in what technique it interacts with the direct environment then your images will get much better..". If you're going for the latter effect, you will want some soft lighting as well, so your beads don't look too dark in the pictures; to do this, set your illuminated flat panel inside the light tent or laundry hamper.

Adjust your camera's focus. Set your camera to "spot focus" mode (you may need to look in your camera's manual to find this setting). Spot focus allows you to have more control over what your camera focuses on, which is important for close-up photography. The camera will still auto-focus, but you will need to point the lens toward the bead and "set" the focus, usually by holding down the capture button halfway.

Set up your tripod. When photographing an object as small as a glass bead, a tripod is crucial to eliminate blurriness from movement while the photo is taken.

Take some test shots, and readjust if necessary. See how your photos look with the setup you have, and adjust factors that aren't working. If the surface of your glass looks too matte, you can accent shine by cutting a square out of a sheet of black paper and shining a bright light through the square onto your bead. This "shine spot" will reflect off the surface of the bead, making the shiny finish obvious in the photo. You can achieve the same effect by turning on an ordinary overhead light, but in some cases this will create too much shine and overwhelm the details of the bead.

Retouch your photos using digital photography software. Adjusting the contrast, color concentration and brightness of your photos will help emphasize the details and contours of your glass beads.

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