Looking for Gun Photography Tips [pic heavy]

[MacGuns]

My wife is fond of saying that I need another hobby like I need another hole in my head. Well one of my long term hobbies has been photography. I told her that collecting guns is just an extension of that hobby since I need more subjects to photograph. I don't think she is buying that line or reasoning.

With that in mind, I wanted to see if there is a standardized way to photograph historical or C&R guns for documentation purposes. Some of the photos are obvious, but I wondering if there is one aspect that I'm missing. For example, I have been trying to get a good bore shot, but they are not coming out the way I like. My guess is that would be on the standard list. I have a 180mm macro with macro twin lights. I will try that next.

Another question I have is people's wariness of showing photos of serial numbers. I'm not quite sure why that is a concern, so maybe someone can school me on that as well. Just to be safe I have been using my clone tool to take out the last couple of numbers in my photos.

Here are some photos of my recently acquired Schmidt-Rubin 1896/11 from a local IP. This is my third rifle in the swiss family. I'm using this rifle as my test case to see if I'm missing photos I should have taken. My goal is take a standard set of photos of all my recent acquisitions and I wanted to check my shot list before I start pulling them out of the safe.

with the MDS obligatory foot and or pet included.

As part of the 1896 to 1911 rebuild process they add a pistol grip to the stock.

For those that are interested, here is my BTS shot. A pair of shoot through umbrellas fired via pocketwizards in my messy basement.

 

[dre271]

Great start, can you take pic of your camera settings to post (including aperture, etc)?

 

[somd_mustangs]

As far as what pics to take, it looks like you've got it covered, and quite nicely! I always try to capture all the markings, any special features, and anything that will document the condition. For my own and insurance purposes I'll also field strip or completely tear down to get pics of internal markings (i.e. is it all-matching?) and check for damage/wear. Bore shots are tough. I have only had success with pistols, holding bore to a white background seems to be the best way, vice using a bore light to "back-light". Hit or miss for me though, for every decent pic probably 4 or 5 get tossed. But I have (a) cheap(-ish) camera (b) zero skill or knowledge.

You appear to be missing one critical element in your photos, however: the obligatory feet (preferably bare).

 

[MacGuns]

Great start, can you take pic of your camera settings to post (including aperture, etc)?

For these photos I was shooting manual. Most of these were at 1/50th, f5.6 and ISO 100. The flashes are set at manual with 1/2 power.

 

[Mooseman]

Very nice photos. I take two of each firearm that I own. One of each side. I make sure that the serial number is clear in the photos. I do this in case, God forbid, that something happens to my collection.

 

[Dave91]

It's way better than I do with my phone...

 

[smokey]

As far as what pics to take, it looks like you've got it covered, and quite nicely! I always try to capture all the markings, any special features, and anything that will document the condition. For my own and insurance purposes I'll also field strip or completely tear down to get pics of internal markings (i.e. is it all-matching?) and check for damage/wear. Bore shots are tough. I have only had success with pistols, holding bore to a white background seems to be the best way, vice using a bore light to "back-light". Hit or miss for me though, for every decent pic probably 4 or 5 get tossed. But I have (a) cheap(-ish) camera (b) zero skill or knowledge.

You appear to be missing one critical element in your photos, however: the obligatory feet (preferably bare).

bores are difficult. To increase depth of field on an image, you increase your aperture (f) number(resulting in a smaller aperture). The downside to this is that less information is now going through the aperture, so you've got to slow down shutter speed and possibly increase your light sensitivity(ISO). Because your shutter may be open for 15 seconds or more, it's important to set up your camera and the bore in a very stationary setup that won't wobble or vibrate from anything.

It's also going to be difficult to properly focus at the correct depth, so you're going to likely have to manually focus till you get a depth you like. If properly set up, you'll be able to take multiple shots, changing depth of focus for each one, and then you'll be able to layer them in a composite image with some software like photoshop to get a more complete image of the bore. Here's some bore-shots of mine so far...
My AR-15

My browning BAR

The M&P45

Marlin 795

Walther p99AS

KelTec PF9


oh, forgot to mention....for lighting, I diffused the light a little by placing a little paper towel on one end of the bore and bounce light off of it. Direct light never really works that well, it creates a hot spot that blanks out the detail in the lower-light areas.

 

[crudmucosa]

Excellent job, @MacMoov!

I wonder if the photographer(s) at http://candrsenal.com/ or http://olegvolk.net/ could provide some tips?

--Crudmucosa

 

[somd_mustangs]

Awesome bore shots, smokey!

 

[Threeband]

Pretty impressive bore shots, Smokey!

I was hoping for a dark and pitted Mosin bore.

 

[MacGuns]

Excellent job, @MacMoov!

I wonder if the photographer(s) at http://candrsenal.com/ or http://olegvolk.net/ could provide some tips?

--Crudmucosa

Thanks for the links.

Great bore shots Smokey. I didn't think about focus stacking. I will have to give that a try.

 

[smokey]

Awesome bore shots, smokey!

Thanks, I'm somewhat limited with just having an old canon powershot sx230hs. When more funds are available I'd like to pickup something more. The sony line looks pretty appealing to me...they're damned fast. The Alpha 65 is probably the next purchase. I do like the nex line too though.

 

[MacGuns]

Well after just spending the last couple of hours trying to get a decent bore shot, I have an even greater appreciation for what you posted Smokey. I couldn't get anything decent with my macro and my normal lens was not much better. I had better luck with my phone camera. I think a small point and shoot is the way to go with these types of shots. I will need to keep experimenting.

Since I had my macro, I decided to take a few more "artistic" shots.

6 round magazine. It even has the Swiss cross on the follower.

 

[somd_mustangs]

"with the MDS obligatory foot and or pet included."

Missed that on the first pass. Good job!

 

[toolness1]

Man, I need to sit down and learn how to use the settings on my camera. These shots are awesome guys!

I always end up with a crap picture with the lighting all wrong. It's either too dark with using light from the house, or I use the flash and get a big bright spot. I don't have a real fancy camera, but I know it has tons of settings and is capable of some decent work.

Thanks for the motivation to get out the manual. Now I'll have something to read during night shift at the power house tonight

 

[smokey]

Well after just spending the last couple of hours trying to get a decent bore shot, I have an even greater appreciation for what you posted Smokey. I couldn't get anything decent with my macro and my normal lens was not much better. I had better luck with my phone camera. I think a small point and shoot is the way to go with these types of shots. I will need to keep experimenting.

Since I had my macro, I decided to take a few more "artistic" shots.

6 round magazine. It even has the Swiss cross on the follower.

here's one I made after posting in this thread today....again of the m&p45.


I set the camera to f8(highest mine goes to), ISO 100, shutter 3.5 seconds and laid the gun down on it's side on some books to elevate it to the centerline of the camera lens. I moves the camera till I had a relatively straight shot down the bore, and shined a flashlight on to the breech through the ejection-port side. Light from the witness hole at the top created a noticeable hot line down the centerline of the breech that washed away some detail.

I changed over to manual focus and took two shots, one from 2"(the closest focus setting, which put the focal plane just inside the bore) and one where the breech was in focus. The struggle was to remain still with the light on the gun and to not move the camera for the whole 3.5 seconds the shutter was open. Some techniques with breathing I learned in shooting guns transferred nicely. I still got some motion blur on the breech shot.

Here are the two shots as taken...



I opened up both pictures in photoshop, and dragged one over on top of the other. I changed the opacity of the breech image and moved it until it perfectly overlaid the rifling image. The primer hole made that pretty easy. Next, I rotated both images 90 degrees left and cropped the image down to a square frame around the muzzle. From there I created a layer mask on the breech image and masked over the out of focus rifling, leaving the more focused breech to cover the out of focus breech of the rifling image.

The image had some blue and cyan color-casting, so I went into the adjust color tab and shaded the blue and cyan tones -41. Next I adjusted the levels to remove some extra highlights and bring out more detail. Since the breech was still slightly motion-blurred, I sharpened that image a bit. There were also some small dust particles in the bore that annoyed me, so I did some spot-healing and clone stamping to remove them. Here's what that part looked like...



I saved the photoshop version so I could make changes later(like adding borders and such) and also flattened it to a jpeg to post here.

here's an example of an untouched rifle bore image. ...

 

[Pistoleros45]

Great job. See if you can sell freelance to some of the Military Surplus magazines. Keep experimenting!

 

[Machodoc]

You guys are humiliating some of us. I feel like I've accomplished something if I bother to hook my Samsung pocket camera up to a cheap table-top tripod and remember how to set it on macro. Awesome shots!!

 

[fred333]

I think if the goal for your picture-taking is for insurance verification, then you're doing exactly what you outta do. But if you want to produce a compelling image, you need to learn and practice composing and staging your photos. That is, photograph the gun in the context of a photographic story. Hopefully, that makes sense to you.

Oh, and, in the latter case, your composition, lighting and basic picture-taking skills generally trump the quality of your camera.

 

[Lostinbmore]

I found a home. Great photographs


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