Use a polarizing filter to cut out reflection..

 

Using a polarizing watch as the subject.

 

Love this thread. This has so much useful info (almost too much info). I am another one of those that just can't seem to get the "right" photo no matter how many times I try. I was convinced I need a new setup, but I am re-thinking that and going to try some of these suggestions. Great post!

 

Sorry, but you need to close the aperture! The higher the number (f8, f11, f22) the longer depth of field. To high number and you could end up with diffraction, which is where a lens has slightly less resolution. However I don't think that is of a concern when photographing watches, especially if it´s mostly for web-use.

Best regards
Peter
(former photographer)

 

Exactly the opposite. Full open aperture narrows the depth of field and increases speed. Narrow aperture increases depth of field. Bare in mind that the he higher the aperture number the narrower it is so aperture 1.4 is wide and aperture 16 is narrow.

 

as everyone pointed out, you have it backwards...but I would suggest not going past f11...every lens is different though. If you really want everything in focus, Google "focus stacking". With this technique you can get some amazing images of watches. Its a lot of work though.
The other trick is to shoot flat...if the watch is on one plain, its easier to control the dof compared to shooting the watch at an angle. The two example here don't need to be shot at f16, because the depth of focus is not that great as opposed to the 3rd image.

It helps to have a lot of light...you might try using strobes. But never light from the front.

 

To the OP:

With a Macro lenses and shooting "macro" ( close or very close to the watch) and on an angle ( as opposed to the subject being on a parallel even focus field like flat on a table) photography it is not possible to have everything on focus unless you stack several pictures with software like Helicon Focus.

An alternative is to use good lighting and shoot from a distance with careful focusing and then crop close in post production, the further you are the easier to get everything in focus but quality suffers so you're better not using a macro in that case. The 100 is a great lense and I have used it for fashion shots at a distance with great sharpness so experiment.

As for the floating and back background you can get that effect several ways. The easiest is to start with a black background, ( but it can be done without it) the most important thing is that the background is not too close to the subject and the light in front of the subject is stronger than the light behind it. Light degrades fast so a short distance to background will do, specially if using black background. For the front light set the camera on manual with the metering on spot mode and on the watch with soft or normal light and set a fast speed aperture, test the shot. It should come under exposed. Keep augmenting the speed until the shot gets darker and the background disappears. Now, without changing the preset add a flash. ( If the flash is mounted you may have to get more distance from the backdrop, but I insist it can be done without backdrop.)

The result is a shot that is underexposed everywhere except on the spot metered area affected by the flash. That is, from the watch to the camera but not behind it.

If you use a photo lens you can achieve the same effect with both the background and foreground dark. ( Like an actor on stage)

Good luck

 

These are all made outdoors without backdrops. My mom and niece. The ones from my niece are at a cafe. The idiot smoking and are with a backdrop. I was experimenting on isolating the smoke.

 

You can make a watch look like it is floating on the background by suspending it above the background or by cutting it out and placing it on a background. I did this one with my iPhone on my desk at a boring sales meeting. The watch was chopped out of its real background in Adobe Photoshop and placed on a black background. The whole process took about 7 minutes while watching the PowerPoint presentation. The lighting was certainly not as good as the photographer who made the original photo made.

 

OP:
I'm not sure if someone mentioned it already, but you'll want to check out focus blending or focus stacking. It's one of the most common techniques used in macro photography and many different photo editing softwares have helpful automated options for it.

It's also important to have a workflow set up to streamline your photos and the editing process. I personally use Lightroom to import photos, sort & catalogue them, and give them the first round of editing. A good plugin/software to use is the Nik collection, which is now apparently free (and I have paid for it, aaargh). If I need to go deeper or want to achieve a certain effect, then Photoshop comes into play. Those two interact with each other quite nicely.

Basically it boils down to knowing your tools well, their strengths and weaknesses. That is valid regardless of the camera or the software. I did architectural photography for a living and I can tell you that you shouldn't delve too deep into high tech super awesome cameras, lenses and toys, but rather into how to compose your photo, what effect you want to achieve, what you want to say with that particular picture. Sometimes it leads you from what you had envisioned into something completely different and awesome, so be prepared to experiment a lot and find something you're comfortable with. What also helps a lot is to try and recreate photos you've seen and that impressed you. That's how you get valuable insights about lighting and composition. It also gets you to think critically about a picture and you're forced to analyze it instead of just looking at it.

Having said that, I have never once taken out my bigger cameras to take a photo of one of my watches. Somehow I couldn't be bothered, or should I say... I couldn't bother my wife with me playing around with cameras and watches for a few weeks.

 

Would you care to show us any of your prouder photos?

 

Sure! Here's a really random selection. Not all of them are architecture photos.

 

I posted this earlier this week on a similar thread:

For me, all of the pics that I have posted so far on OF (except one for the sunset/sunrise thread) were taken on my three year old HTC One M8 phone camera. With a bit of editing on the standard photo editor app that came with the phone, the pics are not too bad. I do have an interchangeable lens camera but I barely use it. For better quality pics when I travel, I have a Sony lens that clips onto my phone in which it gives DSLR quality pics along with more camera options.

Pics with phone camera


Pics with Sony lens attachment

Trunk Bay US Virgin Islands

Mr. Gecko from Kona Hawaii


Sony lens attached to my HTC One M8

 

I think that the shot shown by the OP was actually made with Tilt-Shift lens rather than using stacking.... And then, sure, post-processed.

 

Could be but I don't see it. The watch is on one pane really it is just a diagonal position but not a depth of field one. IF it was Tilt shift on the opposite diagonal to get the dial in focus most likely we would get some banding. Also, for the amount of variance on depth of field on a watch using a tilt shift is a little overkill. That said it is possible I suppose, I have never used a tilt shift for product (I use it often for landscape and architecture) so I would have to play a little with it and see what the result would be on an b=object this size.

 

banding? why is that?

 

Perhaps not the most technical of terms, what i mean by it is when tilting the focus point you often get become more aware of the focal plane. It shows as "bands" off focus-on-off