Thread: Photographing Razors

Eric, the new photos do look great. If you would change anything and what you would change would depend on what you want to show in the photo. For example, in the last photo (the Friodur), you can see the factory grind marks. That is because you have the line of black to white reflection. A photo like that is great if you want to show the factory finish (or if you want to accurately show the finish on a restored blade that isn't quite mirrored). Conversely, if you wanted to hide that, you could use an all white reflection.

From my minimal observations, the black/white line is great for showing the finish, but an all white reflection is better for showing staining. A greyish reflection seems to show frosting/light etching (like in the Craftsman photos above this post) well, while a deep, dark etch is best with a white reflection.

From what I remember of cameras, it's because a camera's sensor (or film, if you use that) can only accurately show light across a rather narrow band of intensity. Beyond that band, things look washed out or much darker than they are. So to show a faint etch, you have to have a medium intensity reflection. But if the etch is very clear, you can use a higher intensity reflection and the exaggerated contrast makes the dark, clear etch stand out even more. The same is true to really show staining on a razor - a high intensity reflection makes the staining appear darker so it looks "worse" in the photos than in person. This is the same effect that makes grind marks stand out; the black/white creates very intense reflections off certain faces of the grinds while the opposite sides of the grinds are very dark. This alternation of exaggerated bright to exaggerated dark makes the grind marks stand out like black and white strips.