Photographing your hat - How to do it well?

That's a great idea, AlanC. And you can make the light box as big as material will allow.


Lee

Dav3 said:

Another thing that's good for photographing hats. If at all possible- get a picture of the hat on your head. You can Take pictures of it all day from every angle, but it'll never look as good as it does when it's being worn.

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I concur 100%

-Al

I began looking for a thread that discussed how we photograph our hats. This thread is the closest thing I could find, so here we are, back from an 11 year hibernation.

Like anyone else, I have certain criteria for what I consider acceptable for a hat photo, in general, and for those that I will post here.

1. It must be on my head. To me, hats come to life when they are doing what they were meant to do - be on a person's head.
2. The photo must highlight the hat, and may show some of my face, but as little as possible. This allows more of the hat to be shown. More of the crown can be seen.
3. Use natural light.
4. Not need any color-correcting or digital processing.

When I began doing this regularly for this website, I tried different things.

Three phones ago, I tried using the selfie lens, but the quality was not as good as the forward facing lens. I began trying to take pictures without seeing the viewfinder. It was hit-or-miss, to say the least.

So I figured I needed a mirror so I could see the viewfinder in the mirror. So where is the most obviously accessible mirror? The powder-room.

So I tried a bunch of positions and angles in front of the mirror, and finally settled on an angle and a hand-position on the camera, based, first, on my preference to show the bow side of the hat, so that means my left hand, with my thumb on the down-volume button on the side, which is a shutter release button, in addition to the one on the screen.

Then I came upon the idea of close-up cropping, to show as much of the hat as possible, and then resizing the pictures so they fit the way I want them to on a FL page.

As a side-note, I found that bathroom lighting allows colors to show up pretty darn close to what they actually are. Flash does not.

Fluorescent lights do not, either. I had taken pictures of various hats in my office, which is fluorescently lit. The colors are always washed out.

Believe it or not, sunlight does not show colors as accurately was incandescent lighting does, especially close by, as the a bathroom.

The last hat pictures I posted here recently could be amongst the best I have shown. They are shots of my new Hufvud. I was standing by the back door in the corner of the dining room with outside light coming in from two angles, and six overhead incandescents.



The combination of light types and sources resulted in some spectacular shadowing, IIDSSM. It just happened to be where I was at the time, but it worked, and has been noted for future pictures.

I find that diffused or indirect sunlight is the best light for any kind of photography. If I'm doing indoor hat photography, I find that using flash really helps. I normally don't use flash if I can avoid it, but I have to admit that flash on clothing items is very helpful.

I didn't want to start a new thread for this, although the subject matter is peripherally related.

I had been in communication on fb with a member here about a hat, and the subject came around to color.

I have found that the same hat can look very different depending on where the picture was taken, and more specifically, the light source(s) used.

Most often, I use either the incandescent lighting in a powder room, or the fluorescent lights in my office, especially after the clocks are set back in November because I almost never, during the week, get the chance to be outside in good daylight to take a picture.

Now I have found another variable. Today I brought to work with me the last phone I had before my current LG Stylo 4, which is a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. I got it when my SG S5 died because my wife had done a lot of research and got her N4 because of the (at the time) superior quality of the camera. My S5's camera was good, but when were out together and taking pictures, hers were noticeably better.

So I brought my Stylo 4 and Note 4 to work today and photographed the hat I am wearing, a carbon gray Fed IV. As you can see from the pictures, the color of the hat is quite different from camera to camera.

The Stylo is on the left, the Note on the right. Both were taken sans flash, with just the normal fluorescent light of the room.



Neither picture is the exact color of the hat, as I have it sitting next to my computer right now. But the Note is way closer, being perhaps only a small slight bluer than the actual hat, whereas the Stylo photo is quite a bit bluer.

I will repeat this test this weekend with a couple of hats, outside, in whatever conditions (minus precip) there are where I will be. If it follows that the Note is more accurate, that will be my hat-photographing camera. Actually, that'll be the camera I shoot everything with. Accurate color is a good thing.

I call this one, Artsy Fartsy. A black and white perspective from the Porcelain Throne.

The hat is one of my conversions. 3X Stetson Western that I converted to a thin ribbon fedora....

lighting and contrasting background help a lot.

scottyrocks said:

1. It must be on my head. To me, hats come to life when they are doing what they were meant to do - be on a person's head.

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Some guys wear their hats with a particular slant; some with the brim snapped practically down to their nose. Some wear hats too small by today's standards, 2" above their ears. What I'm interested in is the dimensions & specs & pics from different angles because that will tell me how it will look on me & the way I wear a hat.

The composition of a photograph (as TJ said, the artsy fartsy stuff) will hold my interest & make me look at the hat & the big picture longer. The same old shot standing in front of the tree in your front yard or your garage door doesn't.

The number 1 thing that affects an image is lighting and with that goes WB (white balance). If you're unable to custom set your WB, the camera has to do it for you and they can only preprogram in so many variables. That's why a camera with complete manual control is the best option. Given most aren't willing, or able, to spend thousands of dollars on a good camera body PLUS lenses, the cell phone is adequate if you keep in mind that you should set your WB for each lighting situation. I spend years of doing photography workshops showing people how to make use of natural light when photographing people. I don't have time to go into details right now but would be happy to share some pointers later on this evening. The big problem when shooting indoors under lights is that they may be cool, warm, very warm or some other color and the combination of all of the above makes it even harder for your camera to know which light to adjust to.

*Some of my work! All natural light.

Hurricane Jack said:

The same old shot in front of the tree in your front yard or your garage door doesn't.

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Reckon you may have ruffled a few petticoats there.

Lean'n'mean said:

Reckon you may have ruffled a few petticoats there.

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I'm looking for more of a hat documentary type photograph & not the FB stuff.

It's pretty easy to tell when a hat is too large or too small on someone, and people do wear their hats differently, but that's the nice thing about opinions and preferences, and the ability to have choices to help form them. Some folks like still life and others prefer living subjects. Whatever works.

scottyrocks said:

It's pretty easy to tell when a hat is too large or too small on someone, and people do wear their hats differently, but that's the nice thing about opinions and preferences, and the ability to have choices to help form them. Some folks like still life and others prefer living subjects. Whatever works.

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I agree. Wether or not you like a hat style or a photo’s composition is up to you. We all have our preferences, but it’s not necessary to voice criticisms of other’s postings.


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scottyrocks said:

Believe it or not, sunlight does not show colors as accurately was incandescent lighting does, especially close by, as the a bathroom.

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The sun can show accurate colors if shot at the right time of day. Mid afternoon sun washes out color while the first and last hour of sunlight (golden hour) provides rich color but warmer so we need to do a WB adjustment. Indirect light (diffused, reflected, bounced, open shade, etc.) can also provide good color rendition. I recommend shooting a piece of white paper (index card) that is a white reference point in the photo that allows you to tell tweak the color by adjusting for white (color correction) in any good photo editing software.

thundurchasur said:

The sun can show accurate colors if shot at the right time of day. Mid afternoon sun washes out color while the first and last hour of sunlight (golden hour) provides rich color but warmer so we need to do a WB adjustment. Indirect light (diffused, reflected, bounced, open shade, etc.) can also provide good color rendition. I recommend shooting a piece of white paper (index card) that is a white reference point in the photo that allows you to tell tweak the color by adjusting for white (color correction) in any good photo editing software.

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Thank you. White balancing is always a good idea when color accuracy matters.

deadlyhandsome said:

I agree. Wether or not you like a hat style or a photo’s composition is up to you. We all have our preferences, but it’s not necessary to voice criticisms of other’s postings.

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Well, it seems you can never account for that occasional axe that never seems to not need grinding.