(I apologize if this is considered soliciting, but thought this would be the best way to go about posting this much information)

http://www.behindthewatch.com/blog/watch-iphoneography-101

Recently wrote a piece regarding taking watch photos with your phone. Feel free to use this as an educational tool for yourself, and drop some knowledge bombs in this thread if I've missed anything. I'm probably going to cover editing terms and what they do, using flags/bounce cards, and why not to crop in the 102 post.

 

Interesting, will check it out later

 

That's a good review of some of the basics.

I also like the features of Snapseed and don't think the learning curve to master this App is that bad. Recently, I switched most of my house light fixtures/lamps to LED bulbs -- one of my floor lamps it the type that points the bulb to the ceiling and produces a soft and natural-looking bounced light - I get decent images from this light while using my iPhone.. https://omegaforums.net/threads/wruw-today.567/page-1763#post-375166

 

Thanks for posting this info here @travisrock ! I see a surprising number of cell phone photos posted on this Forum that leave much to be desired, and which could have been improved tremendously by employing just a few changes to the photo-taking workflow (or lack thereof).

One hint that someone gave me recently (and which I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't know until recently) was how to get an iPhone camera to focus on a particular, off-centre spot in the scene: just tap the preview screen on the spot where you want the focus distance set, you'll see a yellow square at the spot that has been selected, and voila! Off-centre focus!



As high-quality as iPhone photos can be straight out of the camera, I find that I can add a lot of "pop" to the image by doing just a little bit of post-processing. I don't have experience using in-camera editing apps, but I do make a lot of use of Photoshop Elements for editing .JPG images on my computer. I usually end up tweaking the brightness, contrast, sharpness, and sometimes even the colour saturation. And if I'm going to post a photo for casual viewing like the WRUW thread on this Forum, I usually reduce the pixel count to 640 pixels wide, mainly to minimize the storage burden on the OF server.

Here's a straight-out-of-the-camera image:



And here's the same image after applying some of the tweaks described above:

 

I'd be thrilled beyond words if someone would invent the </ de-densify arm hair /> filter

 

You know, it's funny you mention that- I was going to mention something regarding using certain in-camera functions regarding focusing, etc., but assumed it would be wasted space. This is good to know, I take a lot of things like that for granted as common knowledge with stuff like this. I'll have to mention that in the 102 post though, maybe ill do a section on using some special functions like AE lock and AF lock

I agree that a lot of photos leave a lot to be desired, and sometimes it's on pieces that are outstandingly beautiful. That was kind of the kindling for the flame that was this blog post. That, and if we could decrease the number of "is this real?" posts with photos look like they were taken by Michael j fox on a cold day, that would be great. *gets ticket ready for the river styx*

This. You should see some of my wrist shots. Sometimes it looks like I have massive gouges on my lugs/case, but its actually just arm hair trying to steal the limelight.

LED bulbs are much brighter and much better than Tungsten (anything is better than tungsten, dare I say), but they do still have a bit of a blue cast to them (cooler white balance) unless they're daylight balanced (color temp wise).

Yes! The effect of light hitting the ceiling and being diffused is called "bouncing". Used alllllllllllllllllll the time for wedding photos. If you're ever at a wedding and see a photographer with his flash pointed at the ceiling behind him, that's why! ;D

I'm going to mention something in the 102 post regarding bouncing light using some common house hold things, and how to "flag" light as well. Great shots! Those emulate window light quite well I'd say.

 

Thank you. very helpful. I love the Ipad lighting tip.

 

Glad to help! Is there anything else you'd suggest to be added/ would like to see for the next post?

 

Thanks for sharing this, very usefull!
Just gotta get rid of the dusk speck INSIDE my iphone lens now

 

Travis, you rock.

 

oi! well...can't do much to help you with that. :/ Is it showing up in photos at all? Try bringing it to the lovely folks at apple to see if they'd help you out there? I've taken things there out of warranty coverage before and they've been surprisingly helpful sometimes, others, not so much

 

Yeah it shows nice and clear in most pics, but I've managed to find a way where it isn't so visible most of the times. I've just bought a little tool set with the famous pentalobe screwdriver and this weekend I'm gonna try a go at opening it up and cleaning it. The benefits of youtube!

 

Cool tips!

One additional one could be a very simple DIY light tent for watch photography, such as the one I "built" below out of an old semi-translucent storage bin and a piece of canvas paper. I've posted it elsewhere in these boards, but it seemed appropriate here too. It diffuses ambient light, reduces shadows, and blocks annoying reflections.

These type of sterile, clean pictures are particularly useful for watch sales, but I personally find them attractive in general (as the focus is, literally and figuratively, on the watch). All three images were taken using an iPhone.

For best results, light the sides of the box with a pair of desk lamps (preferably 5500K sunlight bulbs). Didn't do that for these pics yet.

 

Nice pictures!

 

Great tip, @dialstatic ! Will definitely try this out!

 

have you ever incorporated apps like VSCO cam to help with editing? its a really usefull app IMO

 

I'd drop on that plop!

 

Number one on the editing list- it's my favorite. I'm a big fan of film, and the tones vsco produces are reminiscent of some film stocks (as their LR plugins are supposed to be).

Great suggestion! You mind if I use those photos in part 2? I'll give credit however you'd like, as well. I like that you mentioned color temperature (for the bulbs) as well- very important when trying to capture tropical dials or anything with patina accurately.

 

both cell phone pics with a little editing

 

Question for all of you. I know the iPhone has good camera, but do you guys also use those little lenses that you can buy pretty cheap on the internet ? Do they help ?