Gotta love raw carbon fiber -- Need CC

I did a little shoot in my ghetto-rigged studio (which consists of my apartment, some white paper, some black cloth, and a couple of dangerously hot lamps, ha) tonight and need some feedback.

I'm interning at a local company (Dash, as you may have guessed) and am doing some graphics/web stuff for them while I'm in school. I'll actually be making these parts once summer rolls around, but for the moment my schedule is too ridiculous to spend time in the shop. Anywho, these shots were just a proof of concept, but they may make it onto the Dash Cycles website if the higher-ups like them.

So, I could use some critique on these before I send them off -- what do you think? So far I'm pretty pleased with them, but what would you do differently? Are there any small little niggles I can fix?

1.

Both spindle hubs look out of focus, and the seats have hot spots and some out of focus spots. It might be due to a cheap tripod, not using mirror lockup, or a remote cord. It could be from using ISO 250. For a seat that shaped, or anything with that much depth, I would use a longer lens and set up further back to add much more depth of field. Something this long might even require using some stacking software. The hot spots might be helped by using an actual tent to diffuse the hot spots, or diffuse the actual light bulbs, using a couple layers of paper towel or thin white cloth, like in a soft box.

Awesome, that's exactly the sort of stuff I need! Thanks! I'll have to try the longer lens and light everything through paper.

I have a Sigma 50-500 and it works great for this kind of thing. I put it on the tripod and can shoot into my light tent from across the room. The angle of view is narrow at about 250-300mm, so I can get everything into the frame with ease. And from that far back, the depth of field increases. Just an example of what is possible.

If you had a light tent, it would get rid of those hot spots you see. A layer or two of paper towel over the bulb will do almost the same. Or maybe hang a sheet or pillow case in front of the lights. something to diffuse the light, but let enough through to light the object. Remember, it doesn't have to be real bright. On a tripod and using mirror lockup and a remote cord, your shutter time can be up in the seconds range and it will still look great.

Also, turn off all the other lights in the room. Even the TV.

Would you mind explaining the mirror lockup feature? I've always heard about it, but have never had (until now, I guess) a real need for it. I've been using the timer to let everything stabilize a little before the shutter is released.

It's an option you can set from the Menu. Set MLU to OK, then when you use a remote cord, or the button, the first press flips the mirror up and locks it in place, the second press activates the shutter. The mirror is fairly heavy and causes a vibration when it is triggered, so tripping it early and locking it up, then waiting a couple seconds for the vibration to stop before triggering the shutter will really reduce vibration, giving you sharper images in the end. Try it.

Also... exposures longer than about 5 or 6 seconds will get you more clear images than those of moderate length. Any slight vibrations will be hidden by the length of the exposure. I think 20 seconds is about ideal. Use a tripod and a release of course.
Try using an aperture of f11 or so and use iso 100.

I had another shot at it tonight with the longer lens and diffusing the lights through paper. I also gave the mirror lockup a try, but I still feel like I was right on the edge of keeping things both sharp and properly exposed. If I do more of these product-type shoots, I'll maybe have to pick up a remote release.

I did definitely get rid of some hot spots though, and I think a little more of the seat is in focus this time around, but it still gets a little fuzzy on the edges. Thoughts?

[Edit]: I have some more that I'll get around to editing tomorrow. I'll post those up at some point...

6.

The light is definitely much better this time. You might try some with the top facing the camera lens.

You are using a pretty long focal length. That is shortening your depth of field. Try something wider... Maybe 35mm. That will give you a normal equivalent with your camera. You are still shooting at f8, f7.1. Try using a smaller aperture. How about f13. You do need a release.
All that said, these look much better.

Cool. Glad to see I'm moving in the right direction. I'm unfortunately stuck right around the f/8 range at the moment since I can't slow the shutter speed down without picking up some vibrations... I suppose I could bump the ISO a little, but sadly I don't have a nicer body that can do that without loss of quality.

Thanks for the input guys -- I'll have another go this afternoon.

Use the timer with mirror lockup and you should have no problems with longer exposures.

Remote cord from E-bay, $5.