Thread: Photographing Razors

Lots of good ideas here. I find the best way to deal with shiney surfaces is to not let the light strike it directly at all. A large white reflector such as poster board or foam core will reflect on the blade to give it an even look. It it's flexible enough you might even be able to bend it to smoothly fill in the curve of the blade. If you're using a digital camera, be sure to set the white balance correctly to give it the proper color tone. Otherwise, your razor may end up with an icy blue appearance or the look of gold colored tarnish.

This is what I was talking about. Rotate the blade in two direction.

1. The first is at an angle to the horizontal, around 70°
2. Rotate the away from the camera lense. If the blade is parallel to the length of the camera turn it at at about 30*°-50° away from the camera. You will see the mirror shadow start to disappear in the LCD view finder as the blade gets turned further and further. There is a bit of a balancing act between getting the blade clear, the stamping clear and enough of the blade in focus to show whats what.

The three pictures show the difference between a nice mirror finish and a rough old one that needs work. The mirror finish is near perfect and won't show many (if at all) defects. While the other two show what a mirror shadow looks like. The light gets trapped by the concave grind and doesn't make it out to the camera well enough.
Finally, the picture can be washed out. No sense in putting a picture of that. Play around and see what happens, but I think a light box with overhead light, a little side light and ANGLES are the trick.

Apparently the are out of sequence

I take a piece of toilet paper and pull it apart, then put that over my flash as a diffuser. Works well. I haven't exp. with razors, but I have photo'd other shiny things such as antique bike parts that I restore and sometimes sell.

Chaps, I have taken the liberty of copying parts of this thread over to the Wiki: http://straightrazorpalace.com/srp-w...tml#post309439

If any of you have any problems with that, please remove your bits, or tell me what to remove.

Thank you!