Photographing Watches.

[thegamekeeper]

Has anyone any good tips for photographing watches. This may sound like a very lame question but if you have tried you will realise how difficult it is to get good photos without getting reflections, flash illuminating parts of the watch, shadows and so on. I spent a long time a couple of years ago trying to photograph a pre moon speedy that a friend in Germany was interested in. In the end I used an opaque tupperware container with a whit cloth in the bottom illuminated from outside with 3 cheap table lamps from Ikea to give a diffuse light with no flash or shadows to form a kind of crude light box. The results were quite good but nothing compared to the photos on some of the watch specialists websites.
Looking at the posts in this watch section lots of people seem to used catalogue photos. I have noticed that Stovey has a good attempt at photographing watches "live" so perhaps he could tell his tecnique. Before you all laugh at my question try and photograph a watch yourself and show us the results, its not as easy as you think----or is it??

[tertius]

thegamekeeper said:

Has anyone any good tips for photographing watches. This may sound like a very lame question but if you have tried you will realise how difficult it is to get good photos without getting reflections, flash illuminating parts of the watch, shadows and so on. I spent a long time a couple of years ago trying to photograph a pre moon speedy that a friend in Germany was interested in. In the end I used an opaque tupperware container with a whit cloth in the bottom illuminated from outside with 3 cheap table lamps from Ikea to give a diffuse light with no flash or shadows to form a kind of crude light box. The results were quite good but nothing compared to the photos on some of the watch specialists websites.
Looking at the posts in this watch section lots of people seem to used catalogue photos. I have noticed that Stovey has a good attempt at photographing watches "live" so perhaps he could tell his tecnique. Before you all laugh at my question try and photograph a watch yourself and show us the results, its not as easy as you think----or is it??

You are right it is effing difficult.

As you say a lightbox is what you really need. A tripod is absolutely essential. A macro lens would probably help a lot, but I don't have one, probably about 135mm (effective length, ie about 85mm on a 1.6 crop sensor)

Taken in daylight, but one of my better efforts:



also:

[anonymous-user]

Macro on Flash off and try making one of these

[treacle]

i produced a watch magazine a few years ago. The photographer (who specialises in this field) also used a lightbox. You need to add some other objects in there to get reflections in the metal. Other tips include removing the glass (obviously not an option) as most of the watch makers have models with the glass removed for photography and the hands set at 10 past 10.

Another good tip is take a photo of the watch at two angles. One straight shot (solider shot) straight on if you like (this is where you get the reflections of you and the camera in the glass), then you take another shot a few degrees off centre allowing you to get the detail of the dial. You then need to be a dab hand at photoshop at superimposing the angled dial onto the straight shot.

I could bore you for hours about what level these companies retouch their imagery too..... let me know if you need more tips.

Edited by treacle on Saturday 19th May 00:31