Photographing Musical Instuments

I'm currently taking a college course in photography. One of my projects is going to be photographing musical instruments, which I have a lot of. I don't have studio lighting at home, so other than natural light my main source will be my canon speedlite - any ideas for getting good results with the speedlite? I'm a total novice!

Defusion with any instrument is key imho, I sometimes take pictures of instruments for a friend who owns a music store and reflections can be a killer. I have a scrim about 3 foot by 6 foot that helps massively if nothing more than to get rid of unwanted reflections. A small soft-box of some description would also be a great help.

Glass and shiny metal objects are some of the most difficult to light well, as reflections and lack of reflections play a very major role in depicting the form and relationship of curved surfaces and flat surfaces. Throw in the INABILITY to pre-visualize light placement due to the use of speedlights, and you make a difficult job even harder!!! Metal and glass are best lit most effectively when using studio lights with integral modelling lights, which permit you to use your EYES to see good vs. bad placement of lights and reflective surfaces and black surfaces.

This library of tutorials is an excellent source. If you scroll down to episode 15, he demonstrates shooting shiney objects.

http://www.prophotolif​e.com/video-library/

Strip boxes are great for highlighting the contours of the instrument. I don't have any so for the shot below, I got by with a 53" octabox and 2'x3' softbox. If I were you I'd make a stripbox out of a cardboard box for your speedlite

since JDub showed us one with reflections of the light source, here's an example where we moved the softboxes off to an angle to eliminate the reflections.

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ryanlikealion wrote in post #13372769
I'm currently taking a college course in photography. One of my projects is going to be photographing musical instruments, which I have a lot of. I don't have studio lighting at home, so other than natural light my main source will be my canon speedlite - any ideas for getting good results with the speedlite? I'm a total novice!

As others here have said, you need to make the apparent size of your Speedlite as large as possible (small light sources reflect off the instrument as tiny hot spots). This can be done by using a large softbox or, better yet, a stripbox. Diffusion panels can be used also but controlling the stray light which would show up as reflections off the surface of the instrument would be more difficult.

george m w wrote in post #13375171
since JDub showed us one with reflections of the light source, here's an example where we moved the softboxes off to an angle to eliminate the reflections.

And here are my examples demonstrating both.