Two High-Contrast Knife Images - Would Do It Differently?

[Buddy Thomason]

Ignoring the layout for now - - - my challenges have been a) capturing, balancing and retaining the detail throughout the huge light/dark spectrum, b) avoiding color casts in the highlights while retaining good color saturation in the handle & sheath, and c) presenting a 'natural' (minimal processing) look. Is one image more appealing than the other? What would you do?

#1
http://www.fototime.com/40665088461D73E/orig.jpg

#2
http://www.fototime.com/F86F374BFA254A1/orig.jpg

Thanks!

[Tripod]

I like #2 beter you can see more deteal.

[kb244]

It's also helpful to cover the area except where the camera is shooting from with like white backdrop paper or something, to avoid colors/etc reflecting off the knife surface, I remeber shooting some knives for ebay, and they kept comming out like a solid black blade because it kept reflecitng the ceiling which was not lit. But yea #2 gets my vote as well, probally push the curves up in photoshop a lil get a lil more exposure while still mantaining that level of detail.