Waterman 92

[inkista]

I'm into vintage fountain pens, but I haven't tried photographing them since I started reading the Strobist. Figured, what the hey and went for it. This fountain pen, btw, is probably from the 1930s or 1940s and has a flexible nib.



Where Was it Taken?
In my living room.

What settings did you use?
Manual exposure mode. iso 100, f/2.8, 1/200s.

I went with the lowest iso to get the least noise.
I went with my max. synch speed because I wanted to be fast enough to eliminate camera shake, but not make my flashes work too hard so they'd recycle reasonably quickly.
I ended up with f/2.8 because the reflective nature of the pen meant while it would be in focus, the detail that would really show up was the weave in the pillowcase I used as a background, unless I worked with a narrower depth of field to blur most of it out. EF-S 60 Macro => damn sharp lens.

What gear (camera, lens etc) did you use?
Canon XT/350D
EF-S 60mm f/2.8 USM Macro lens
Two speedlights: 430EX, 580EX
ST-E2 as on-camera master (because I'm lazy and I like letting eTTL do the work for me).
I used a translucent Ikea recycling bin as my lightbox, inspired by Ming Thein's work with watches, and his comment on the Strobist that you didn't need perspex sheets, you could just use an Ikea wastebasket.

The 580EX was on the left in Group A, the 430EX on the right in Group B, and I slid the ratios around to find what I liked. I think I ended up with 2:1. Maybe 4:1 (A:B). The ST-E2, unlike the 580EXII, only lets you control groups and ratios, not manual power settings of the remote flashes.

Why did you compose the shot as you did?
A fountain pen is long and thin. It goes better on the diagonal than horizontal or vertical of the frame (too much empty space), and I didn't feel like taking the cap off and using it as an additional composition element. The key thing for me was realizing I needed to also use the striped pattern of the pillowcase to be in opposition to the line of the pen.

Also, you can only shoot into a plastic box from so many angles.

What post production work have you done on the shot (if any)?
Nothing special, typical RAW->JPEG compression, and slight curve, sharpness, saturation adjustments. Mostly what you see is what I had out of the camera.

What were you hoping to achieve with the shot?
Pen porn.

What did you do well?
The real key to this photo was getting the position of the lights correct to place and control the specular highlights (the white reflections). With smaller objects and distances like this, small angle changes make a huge difference. I was deliberately aiming for a larger highlight on the cap, and a smaller one on the butt end, and to fade or feather them off a bit so you could still see the color of the celluloid. I put my speedlights on the floor about three or four inches away from the sides of the bin, pointed them where I wanted them to go, shot, and then readjusted. About twenty times. 'Cause I'm not good at this lighting stuff.

How could you have improved it?
Found some kind of background material with fewer distracting details.

I didn't quite manage to get the metallic bits in the celluloid (gold and bronze) to pop out and sparkle. Possibly adding a third more direct light from above, snooted or gridded to almost nothing might work? Also more separation from the background would be nice. Paths for future experimentation. Maybe for the Parker Vacumatics...

[LoveDSLR]

LOL. I just write with fountain pens and the oldest one is a regular Parker 65 Burgundy Maroon.

[inkista]

Oh, say it ain't so! Get a 61 at least, if you're not going for a 51*!! C'mon, dude! Standards!!!

*Footnote: by "51", I mean the vintage Parker 51 from the 1940s-1960s, not the more recent abomination reissue from Parker that's a (shudder) cartridge filler.**

** and I am, of course, just kidding. I use cartridge fillers with converters all the time, and write with plenty of modern pens. But if you write with a post-1962 Montblanc, you are dead to me.***

*** Ok, just kidding again. But I will snicker whenever you say "precious resin."

[LoveDSLR]

Originally Posted by inkista

But if you write with a post-1962 Montblanc, you are dead to me.***

I'm very sorry! Montblanc 75th anniversary limited edition.

[inkista]

>facehands<

No! We want cheap good fountain pens for writing with, not office jewelry!!

Actually, for an LE, though, it looks surprisingly capable of actually writing. Most of the time I see those LEs in the Fountain Pen Hospital catalog or something and wonder if any of them ever get inked.

[LoveDSLR]

Actually, that is for contract signing.

I use LE ballpoint, Solitaire Stainless, Cartier Diabolo and Dunhill for writing.

[PointNShoot]

I love my fountain pen

[inkista]

Yeah, I know I'm weird. My daily users are a Parker 51 vac, an Inkograph, a Pelikano (the older style, not the new one), and a Lamy Safari. Today. I tend to rotate them with a flex-nibbed Waterman 32, a Parker Falcon flighter, a Waterman 452 1/2V, a Parker 61, various Parker Vacumatics, a Sheaffer piston fill (Triumph nib), and a Shaeffer PFMI (Pen For Men, hand-on-heart that's really the name of the thing), and whatever my last find was. Probably the only collectible modern I have is a Visconti Copernicus (stylo with a barrel pattern that apes the old Parker Vacumatics) and I never use it.

All of my friends who've heard my pen hunt/restoration stories went "well, duh, of course you would!" when I started going on and on and on about finding old manual focus lenses to slap onto my XT.

[LoveDSLR]

Originally Posted by inkista

All of my friends who've heard my pen hunt/restoration stories went "well, duh, of course you would!" when I started going on and on and on about finding old manual focus lenses to slap onto my XT.

You need another hobby to change the stories. Watches?

[inkista]

No thenkyew.

Hell, wasn't my papercraft post amusing enough?