Knife in the Dark

[Ultra Magnus]

This work for any of you? I thought it was a bit cheesy, but my wife liked it. She actually thought it was one of my better pics and could picture it in a knife book or something..

I took it in the dark with the flash, and set up some black cardboard to totally black out the backround. I think it could be darker, but whatever. I had to frame by pointing because my LCD was totally black. About 30 pictures later, I had a couple framed ok.

What do you think?

[natatbeach]

and my taste can border on the weird side...I'd crop the handle and . The blaring white reflection of the metal detracts from the beautiful details, rich tones and graceful curve of the blade. play around with some crops and it would be a very simple but effective abstract or...preset your camera in daylight so that you can get the DOFcorrect and a little less extreme ( sharp to blur is too much---not enough transition with this particular shot) then you'll only have to figure the exposure...

I really think this is a good shot as far as concept and execution considering it was literally a "shot in the dark"

[Ultra Magnus]

Thanks.. If I ever try this shot again, I'll give it some more DOF.. What I invisioned before I started was haveing the knive coming out of complete blackness but quickly realized I had no idea how to accomplish that!! If I maybe had some totally truly flat black non reflective material for the table and backdrop, maybe, but I don't know where to get anything like that.

Ps.. I dig knives...art in iron.

[natatbeach]

Homedepot is a great place to buy materials---think outside the box...

you might want to set up a nightlight(4 watt) or something else to allow your camera to "see"the object so you can play around with what you mention...I like the concept of it coming out of the dark.

[Sebastian]

To get the blade to come out of complete darkness you would need to have the flash fall off down the length of the blade. Basically, you would need to have the flash focus on the blade, with a soft fall-off towards the handle. I think a cardboard makeshift snoot, with maybde siome sort of grid on the end of it, would create that effect. Like Asylum Steve once said, set up all the lighting first, and then remove the light you don't need to work your way to the effect you're going for.