Thanks Greg P, if my budget ever allows for another hobby, I definitely like it though. It is a ton of fun. So far I have yo-yos, gaming, and music equipment I try to keep up with. I have a cube collection, and doing some leather work, so I’d better not spread myself too thin with hobbies right now. Thanks to you guys, I have a bunch of photos I’m happy with, more than I could have expected to achieve with what little I have.
What you say is right though, because I’ve already have the two lights and the box, and things can accumulate pretty quickly. I have to admit that while I was out shopping today, I stopped in the camera aisle, and took a look, but I behaved myself. In time, I will upgrade I’m sure, but I want to keep up with the other stuff first. Thanks again for all the input.
Here’s a simple one I made. Picture should show you how.
Just a curved piece of poster board from the bottom/front curving up the back side which gives you a depth of field. I had a light in the top to carry it around at 1st but with chrome or mirror polished items it really left a glare. Now I just use a slight curve of poster board for the top so even a top down shot on chrome has just white. Tracing paper over the lamps with 60 or 75 watt bulbs.
I use a old (2002) 4-mb CanonG3, I think they’re on G15 now. If you have a white balance setting it definitely helps the sensor from under-exposing due to so much white. The same as a snow scene as the camera sensor is trying to ‘average’ the gray scale which really throws off a lot of white in a scene.
With the G3 you can meter a scene and use that setting for a custom white balance. Works well for a light box or other bright scenes. Also setting it to overexpose can help but will wash out colors quickly too. If you have an exposure bracket setting it can help. Shooting a lower ISO will saturate a bit better and have the least grainy pics. As mentioned shooting in RAW over a compressed format will be better for software adjustments but I haven’t gotten that serious yet and just use .jpeg as its worked ok for me so far. I’m not blowing anything up for print or high-def online though.
The fastest and easiest I found for myself on spinning pics I start around 1/500th where it ‘freezes’ all motion at that speed. Then I start dialing back the shutter speed for the amount of blur I want.
Taking pics of yoyo’s has been as fun for me as playing them.
Don’t forget to try a black light.
And learn your camera. With some camera settings like ‘Vivid’ (over-saturation of colors) and ‘dither’ you can make some neat photos. Usually these settings are with your black & white, sepia, etc. Crop in, slap a border on there and it doesn’t look like a standard light box photo anymore.
Or try using candle light with the white light. On nickel the candle light gave many colors.
Yeah, beherenow, thanks for sharing that. I love the Burnside with the other one in the background out of focus…I love that look. Lots of cool ideas, not sure I’d get that creative in a million years, but I see how far things can go in the future. I notice you are working the two lights at angles…very nice. I have tried a few different backgrounds and prefer the posterboard also. But, important to use the non-shiny side to get the best results with less reflection. I had cloth type backgrounds that did not give me as white a background as I wanted. Great tips all around, very helpful. I will revisit the spinning yo-yos to see what kinds of shots I can get. This is a general picture I took recently and really like, the shots are getting better light-wise I think:
Thanks Greg P, very nice coming from you. I agree…it’s a photogenic little throw. I appreciate the look and shape of yo-yos more after taking so many photos, strange how that happens, something just clicks.
Whatz up Bro! I’ve actually got a bit of knowledge on something here instead of a pile of ignorance ;D.
Thanks all, for the kind words on the photos. This says it best imho.
“The state of mind of the photographer while creating is blank… But… It is a very active state of mind really, a very receptive state of mind, ready at an instant to grasp an image, yet with no image pre-formed in it at any time.” - Minor White
I give the credit to the yoyos for the inspiration/ideas. I’m sure all your yoyos’ have their own ideas they’re just waiting to tell you about! All you have to do is listen! Be one with yoyo, see for yourself you will.
You’ve got the white balance going TotalArtist! Nice shots for sure, same as the spinning ones. Like you said, the intimacy gained through such photography brings much of a yoyo somehow overlooked or missed into focus which brings those ‘now-seen’ parts into your heart. This is where photography really begins imho.
The aperture settings will give you a fade quickly around 4.0 and very minimal focus depth at 2.0, but this will really lower your shutter speed needing to capture that much light. Zoom settings will affect your depth of field also.
If you have focus bracketing you can use it to try stuff quicker! Exposure and focus bracket modes just shoots 3 (or more per camera) photos in a row quickly, but at different exposure or focus settings you define. Basically giving you 3 photos at different settings with one shutter press.
I was thinking if a camera has a ‘snow’ setting for white balance it would help light box shots too? Also a polarizing filter will cut the glare and saturate colors better. The glare on the bloodstone on my last pic would disappear with one. Same with water shots, instead of seeing a top layer glare, you will see down into the water.
Another cool skull shot Logi! I wanted a yoyo pic with some grrrrr… the skull seemed to do it for me.
There was a chart on depth of field I found helpful.
“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” Pablo Picasso
^ That’s a great shot. I’m going to start playing around with some effects and see if I can come up with some interesting things. I’ll post here if I come up with something descent. Also, the depth of field information is great, I can see how that would make a difference, takes practice, but I will work that stuff in too. I always wondered how your BST pics looked so nice. Good to know there are a bunch of us into this. I’m having fun with it. Very informative post there. Oh, and I’m digging the quotes too. Thanks again.
Wow, great job Totalartist! By the way, I noticed you have a Cerberus. How do you like it? I’m thinking about getting one to dye, then learning some 5A on it.
Thanks Mr.Squirrel. I bought a bunch of YYJ throws all at once earlier this year. Cerberus was one of my favorite of the bunch, although I liked the DM2, and SR-71 better. I enjoy the Cerberus (kinda big), and the Fever as well. I think it’s a great choice for your collection.
Having fun with it! Exactly. It’s the ‘fun’ feeling you want to share. Same with landing a trick. You’re just happy to see your practice has dividends. Then, as long as you’re having fun, practice doesn’t really exist, only the fun.
Glad the chart was helpful. I was trying to type it out and that wasn’t working very well. A good thing to use for composition is the ‘rule of thirds’. Like they mentioned, learn it to better break it!
I know one book I liked (but is nature photography) was this one: (ISBN:0517880342)
The dual critiques of Art and Martha on the same photos was useful insight. Learning to ‘see’ and adjust your settings from the pros was educational and inspirational for me.
Post any of it! Be cool to see.
Glad you like quotes. I do to… so much in a little thing. Like Dogen said, “If you have understood the dew drop, you have understood the ocean.”
Or R. Feynman on the double slit experiment, “all of quantum mechanics can be gleaned from carefully thinking through the implications of this single experiment.”
^^^^^ I think someone paid attention in school… HAHA Nice work my friend…
I have to thank both Totalartist and Beherenow… Seeing what you have both done has really inspired me to bring out the best of my throws!!! For so long I always took “bland” pics that I was “ok” with but not thrilled… Well I got a few pieces of white paper and a picture frame and have a HUGE flourescent light in my basement and went to town… I do not own a nice camera so I just use my phone… I think they look great so far… The more I learn about this the better they will get. Eventually I will get a professional setup but for now this works!! Here is my Cascade. I fine example of my current setup…
That looks great mgiroux77. I’m amazed the results you are getting while improvising. It goes to show you, that if you start with a half descent backdrop and enough light, you can still get some great photos. That is some camera in that phone. I worked with mgiroux77 and assembled some of his recent photos in this slideshow. His collection is looking great, and he will be updating this soon:
I’m still playing with effects, trying to come up with something to impress beherenow in my next post. This thread is fun!
Yes that is some good work. Just shows you don’t need an expensive camera to get some decent results. You just need to pay attention to the details and learn a few tricks.
Thanks Abby. Funny you mentioned them. My new avatar is part of my practicing with photographing them. I am working on coming up with the right poses for them and such. There will be a slideshow of the holsters soon too.
If you have a white balance setting it definitely helps the sensor from under-exposing due to so much white. The same as a snow scene as the camera sensor is trying to ‘average’ the gray scale which really throws off a lot of white in a scene.
A good thing to use for composition is the 
