Taking pictures of baits

[Delw]

How does one get good pictures of the baits they pour,? Ive seen some awsum pics.

I heard of glass being used. I was going to try that tomorrow to see how it works.

[ol' big]

my pictures always suck!

[dvowell]

Hey Del,

There are a lot of things you can do to get pretty good pics. Glass can be used and you can put a light under it try and show off the translucence of your baits if you want. You'll still need to light from the top as well, just figure out which you want to be your main light and watch out for reflections off the glass. You won't want the light right up against the glass, either.

Watch out for your background when you do this. I like to make sure my glass is over a black background, felt works really great for this.

Another great option is to either build, or buy a product softbox. Inside this box, you can use either a black or white material, again, felt is great. Your lights are positioned outside and shine in through a scrim-like siding, which softens it up and helps eliminate a lot of shadows as well.

Now, here's the kicker with this: Don't use the automatic settings on your camera when you do this. Your light meter can and WILL be fooled by the black/white background. You'll need to go manual and adjust exposure so that your blacks are black and your whites are white. A good place to start with the white is to open up about 2 stops from whatever your meter tells you. The opposite (sounds counter intuitive, but it's correct) is true of black.

If you have any questions, please shoot me a message. I'm a working photojournalist and should be able to help you out quite a bit.

-Danny