How I take SOTD photos

I have had a couple of comments about my SOTD photos where people say they need a better camera. Since I use a very average camera at best I thought I would share what little I know about the subject.

Hopefully this will keep folks spending money on shaving goodies instead of new cameras

First of all I use a Pentax Kx most of the time which was an average camera at best when it was new and is now several camera generations old. I believe it is only a 12 megapixel camera but since I post at a resolution of 800x600 it is way more than enough for me Yes I would love to have a new full frame digital camera but since they cost about the same as a semester of college for my niece that isn't going to happen.

Hopefully we can get some other folks to share a few tips too ! While I have done landscape and portraiture for many years on B&W film. This is all new to me too.

So for the first post I thought I would share the little light box I use in over 75% of my SOTD Photos It consists of 4 pieces of paper from an artists sketch pad taped together with masking tape and 1 piece of scrapbooking paper.


As you can see it is a very expensive piece of equipment finely crafted from only the most exotic materials
OK I'm sure you get the idea. But notice that I taped the back paper to the sides without taping it to the top so that I can change the taller background paper out when I want something different.

Next is the lighting. Todays is going to be two 11 dollar lamps with 60 watt bulbs. I'm doing it this way since if you use a compact camera or a cellphone camera you don't have the ability to trigger a flash. So here is one of the lights.


Ok here is a picture with just the background but without the little light box over the subject.


Now for one with the light box over the subject with one lamp shining through the top sheet.


And finally this one is the same as the last one but with not only the one lamp shining through the top sheet but also one lamp shining through the left side sheet.


Now if you look at my SOTD post for today Sat Aug 17. you can see the same set up but with small old pentax flashes taking the place of the lamps.

That's all I have time for for today but I will continue at a later date if there is interest. probably try to cover the free program "Gimp" which I use to resize, sharpen, and fix images with next.