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I've just photographed an immaculate looking Edison recorder and the resultant image makes it look appalling , it is visually very bright and shiny , what to do ? It looks like a completely different thing ,

Beautiful reproducer!

Lighting.

Make sure you have plenty of natural or soft light behind you and to the side of you. Avoid shadows.

You might want to consider putting together something like in the attached photo. You need the diffused light to get rid of the shadows.

THANKS FOR ASKING THIS!

I have a Brunswick tone arm on eBay right now. The plating is beautiful, but the eBay photos make it look terrible. Of course, stating, "honest, the plating is better than in the photos", makes it appear that I'm just making that up. I've also photographed a really nice record that I sold on eBay, (maybe E- condition). The photo made the grooves look worn and gray. Last, I bought a very nice, but dirty, Columbia Q and posted "before" photos on the forum. I cleaned and polished it and it looks perfect, but the photos look worse than the "before" version, UGH! Sorry for the rant. Hopefully a more helpful poster will follow...

tesch1932 wrote:Beautiful reproducer!

Lighting.

Make sure you have plenty of natural or soft light behind you and to the side of you. Avoid shadows.

You might want to consider putting together something like in the attached photo. You need the diffused light to get rid of the shadows.

Natural daylight , what a difference ! Thank you , That's what it looks like ! I guess I need a box as shown to get rid of the deep shadow in the center with outside light , do you know what light sources are OK for a light box , ie are modern LED lamps OK or do you need old incandescent 100 watt lamps ?

soundgen wrote:

tesch1932 wrote:Beautiful reproducer!

Lighting.

Make sure you have plenty of natural or soft light behind you and to the side of you. Avoid shadows.

You might want to consider putting together something like in the attached photo. You need the diffused light to get rid of the shadows.

Natural daylight , what a difference ! Thank you , That's what it looks like ! I guess I need a box as shown to get rid of the deep shadow in the center with outside light , do you know what light sources are OK for a light box , ie are modern LED lamps OK or do you need old incandescent 100 watt lamps ?

Love it! Glad I could help.

I think a dimmable LED light would be best. I'm a teacher, and have been using 2 on either side in one of those clip-on work lights for my zoom calls. Very natural and soft.

Thanks, great question and thread. I've also struggled with photos. Jerry B.

Using a dark background helps, although pure white works well also. Whenever photographing anything outdoors, the less bright sunlight the better and keep it behind you - don't shoot towards the sun. The same is true indoors, low light behind you and to the side works best. Ask Grant Kornberg on the forum what he uses to photograph his machines, the images are spectacular. https://www.technogallerie.com/

When I began writing regularly for the CLPGS magazine the Editor advised me that to achieve the best results, photographs should if possible be taken outdoors in natural light, but not direct sunlight.

Without going into color temperatures, various light sources, color correction filtration, and the rest of it, diffused "natural" light (i.e., sunlight) is best. The key word here is "diffused," as for example what photographers call "cloudy bright" (no distinct shadows).

I've just bought a light box on Ebay only a tenner , I'll take a picture when it arrives and post the result to compare the three photos

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Studio-Light ... 2749.l2649