Still life: Snare Drum

[rdlugosz]

Here's a still life I shot this weekend for a "music"-themed print contest.

http://gallery.rrdphoto.com/photos/138270027-S.jpg
Snare Studies (http://gallery.rrdphoto.com/gallery/2620278#138270027-L-LB) <-- click for larger view

Lighting was a medium softbox on the left, sandwiched with a black bounce and heavily flagged to prevent spill onto the background. A gridded spot was very close on the right aimed near and slightly above the throw off (the thing with the strings). I ended up putting a paper towel (ha!) over the grid to diffuse the light a bit.

Post was pretty minimal - a few dust spots (chrome is hard to keep clean), desat of the blue and red in the chrome highlights to remove some CA, and a levels adjustment of the background to crush the black completely.

C&C welcomed...

[gavin]

Great shot and set up. Light is perfect. Love how you did this shot. Great everything.

[ShepsMom]

Very nice, very clear with great colors and light. :clap

[Skippy]

Here's a still life I shot this weekend for a "music"-themed print contest.
Snare Studies (http://gallery.rrdphoto.com/gallery/2620278#138270027-L-LB)
Lighting was a medium softbox on the left, sandwiched with a black bounce and heavily flagged to prevent spill onto the background. A gridded spot was very close on the right aimed near and slightly above the throw off (the thing with the strings). I ended up putting a paper towel (ha!) over the grid to diffuse the light a bit.
Post was pretty minimal - a few dust spots (chrome is hard to keep clean), desat of the blue and red in the chrome highlights to remove some CA, and a levels adjustment of the background to crush the black completely.

C&C welcomed...

Very nicely done, the end result is excellent :clap
Hope all goes well in the competition for you :thumb ..... Skippy
.

[rdlugosz]

Thanks all!

[Swartzy]

Very nice shot and love the lighting. Thanks for sharing that info as lighting can be so ellusive :rofl

[USAIR]

Yep you sure did nail it
Great photo

Fred

[Airedrifter]

if you don't win could you get us links to the winners? I enjoyed yours so much. I am skeptical that superior competition exists. :bow

Moreover, I appreciate the sharing of the lighting info. I hope to remember your ideas and just plain steal them in the future.

[TylerW]

I've got that very same snare drum! Pearl 13" maple shell picollo snare! :thumb

[rdlugosz]

if you don't win could you get us links to the winners? I enjoyed yours so much. I am skeptical that superior competition exists. :bow

Moreover, I appreciate the sharing of the lighting info. I hope to remember your ideas and just plain steal them in the future.

Ha! Thanks very much. I'm pretty happy with it myself. It's a print contest, so I'm not sure if any of the winners will be online. I'll link if they are. Display and voting is on Thursday; this is the themed "5th Thursday" print contest at my camera club (http://blog.rrdphoto.com/2007/02/cincinnati-photography-clubs.html). First Thursday is always an unthemed contest, but when the 5th Thurs happens we throw in a twist. :)

Speaking of which, I will probably reprint tonight on some Epson HW Matte. I originally printed on Canon Photo Paper Pro and I'm not happy with the blacks - they're a little too light on that paper; I believe I'll get deeper blacks on the HW matte. We'll see. Only problem with it is that the paper tends to get a bit saturated on my i9900 whenever there's that large of a solid dark area....

Happy to share the lighting info. I'll blog about it (complete with a setup shot) when I get a chance & post here.

[rdlugosz]

I've got that very same snare drum! Pearl 13" maple shell picollo snare! :thumb

Cool! I use coated Remo Emperors on the batter side and an Ambasador on the resonant. I'm pretty happy with that head setup. I think I need to replace my top rim though - I think it's a little bent 'cause it's extremely hard to get the tuning balanced out... One lug always seems loose. I sometimes wonder if it took a spill when I wasn't around to see it happen... :cry