Mixing work and play.

Had a nice opportunity last week to use my photo skills at the day job. We had an obsolete part that has to be remade and the manufacturer needed an idea of what it looked like. They didn't need a complicated drawing, just a reference of some of the holes and such. Using a roll of white paper (not real seamless, this stuff is just plain paper) to make a quick light box, and the one speedlight I had with me, a tripod, and a light stand I did all the shots they needed. I made then look pretty good too I think. So here's one of the shots.

What they needed to see in this shot was where the holes were in the inside of the barrel in reference to where a mounting plate was. Using a 580ex on manual mode zoomed as tight as it would go I aimed it down the inside of the tube pointing slightly up. I had it on the light stand and used a pocket wizard to fire it Around 1/64th power I still had so much light I could keep a small aperture for a long depth of field.

The area that I had to shoot in didn't have much ambient light so I went with a very slow shutter speed to pick up as much of that as possible. It still wasn't enough to keep detail in the shadows so I used a flashlight to paint the face of the barrel and the mounting plate with light. It was a bit of trial and error on how long to use the flash light, but I had it in about four frames. The flashlight also came in handy to light it up enough to focus. Once I had my focus I turned the AF off.

The background wasn't this nice white. I used a curves layer to blast it out and a mask to bring back the barrel. Another couple of curves layers to get it looking the way I wanted it, and some sharpening to finish it out.

From set-up to tear down it took be about 2.5 hours including processing for 5 shots. To top it off I made a secure gallery on my website so I could upload a little bigger image that the manufacturer could download without killing their email box, and it let the people in our office that needed to see them not have to download if they didn't need to.

Did I get paid what I would have charged a client for the same service? No. But I showed an added bonus for my mangers to keep me when the next round of lay-offs comes around. Times are getting lean around here and I'll take what advantages I can get.

Amen!

Good job though, you may not have gotten paid what you would have, but you got to do it on company time (right?) and you got in some valuable practice.