Dust

[Ryewolf]

Today, I've mostly been taking product shots as part of my work - I'm a web developer/designer, so I often get asked to do product shots, if it's a jetski it's not much of a problem, but small products, such as todays black metal herb grinders, I often find despite trying not to handlie them to much - fingerprints and smudges do show up - and using a cloth used for cleaning glass and optics - I'm still getting dust particles. Other than editing them out, just wondered if anyone had any tips for avoiding dust? - Well, other than building a clean room.. I suppose it one of those things, it's just that you can't can see them from the viewfinder and it's only after viewing them on a 24inch monitor that they become fairly obvious.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Ryewolf

[FUJI]

In this season of Pollen and drying air,mI can only think that a ....Dust Free or Clean area is the best bet......we all know that when dusting we just scatter a good deal of the airborne stuff.

I don't know how much room you have, but alone of those collapsible Soft Boxes kept erected and covered with a clear plastic DITY tent may help. There may even be a plastic tent-like laboratory or medical ......Clean tent, they use for clean experiments to quarantined patients? These may even have gentle  a positive pressure air pump to prevent contaminated air entering?

Not much room?       construct a DIY one.

thats all I can think of currently.

 

FUJI

[colinb]

With product photography I always take into account the size of the final image and what it is going to be used for, more care needs to be taken for something that will appear in an A4 brochure than an image which will end up as a small picture for a web site.  Antistatic sprays can help as can lighting - would you care to show us a sample?

[Ryewolf]

Thanks Fuji, I have been looking at investing in one of those soft boxes, saw a 90cm one that came with 3 lights for £99, so that might help. I think it's just general dust that's in the air, so maybe some antistatic spray would help.

Thanks Colin, they are only going to be used on a website so no larger than 1000pixels on the longest length, that said it's still noticable, so anything that reduces the time I have to spend touching them up is a bonus. On larger products I've done it's not as bad. The grinders, however were only small - 50mm, so I did have to get fairly close in to fill the frame.

I've added an image, we're not talking massive amounts of dust, but hopefully it's visible...

(I thought that might happen, uploading the image to the forum - and it rescaling it has reduced the effect.)

Edited May 29, 2015 by Ryewolf

[colinb]

mmmm you can see some dust on the larger version. Without knowing the settings ... if you can I would reduce the lighting to try and prevent it bouncing off the dust and maybe up the iso, place the focus point on the lid (looks like it is on the body?) and clean it with an anti-static cloth. And rather than reach for the clone tool have you tried Filter/Noise/Dust and Scratches in photoshop? Its a bit less 'manual' but careful you don't push the picture off focus.

[NannyFerret]

What about using spectacle tissues to wipe it over judt before shooting?

[Ryewolf]

Thanks everyone, for your advice, I was using a cloth for glass, which is lint free, to clean each time I re-arranged the shot - having come across this problem before, I think this was airborn dust settling back again. The softbox and anti-static cloths sound like a good idea. I think it looked worse because they are quite small, requiring it to be closer in focus. I didn't use this image, as Colin pointed out is point of focus is a little off - I'd used autofocus, rather than selecting a focus point, but this image had the most dust specks.

Many thanks, the way I look at it, the better I can capture in camera, means less time editing and touching up, particularly for something that is always going to be web-based. After all, time is money....

[colinb]

and as a last thought do they really need to be a 1000pixels wide? if it was a photography web site I would agree but I baby sit a couple of sites and seldom go above 860 wide and thats just the header pics, main body around 750 wide? Just a thought might save some time?