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Lume shots...let's see 'em!

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Stretch44
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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by Stretch44 »

Just changed out the batteries in my UV light and couldn't resist charging lumes. Bottom photo is my Leonidas. Lume is over 80 years old and lasts about 20 seconds.
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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by MoT »

Stretch44 wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 11:15 pm Just changed out the batteries in my UV light and couldn't resist charging lumes. Bottom photo is my Leonidas. Lume is over 80 years old and lasts about 20 seconds.
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This is cool!
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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by MoT »

The Citizen Homer still has some existing lume. It doesn't look as bright as this to the naked eye.

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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by yinzburgher »

Seiko DressKX lume

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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by Miggyd87 »

yinzburgher wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:37 am Seiko DressKX lume

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Teach me your lume shot secrets
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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by Miggyd87 »

IMG_20210325_191043231~2.jpg
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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by yinzburgher »

Miggyd87 wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 6:16 am
yinzburgher wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:37 am Seiko DressKX lume

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Teach me your lume shot secrets
:D - I have a Google Pixel 4 and they just have really good cameras. Not only that, they have a feature called NightSight for taking photos at night or in dim light without a flash. That's what I used for this one. It makes photos appear brighter. You just have to hold the phone still for a couple seconds. I can tell I must have moved bc there is a little squiggle on the second hand by the lollipop counterbalance.

- I wipe away dust and grease, usually with my shirt. :lol:

- I often take about a dozen photos and pick the best one. It just increases your odds of getting a good one.

- For a photo like this, I sometimes use a photo editor. There's no secret sauce to this that I know of. We all know what looks good......we're full-time watch appreciators. I don't bother with filters, I just mess around with brightness, contrast, etc to try to make it look better than the original. I don't worry about it looking perfect. It's just for fun.

- I charged up the lume with a LED flashlight. Often times (especially with killer Seiko lume) if you take a photo right away, the lume has a kind of fuzzy halo effect......there's probably a fancy photography name for this. But if you wait a minute or two before you snap a pic, it typically looks much "cleaner", and doesn't have that blurriness even though the lume isn't quite as bright.

- Whether or not your phone has a feature like NighSight, I think these photos turn out best when all the lights are off in the room but there is maybe some dim ambient light coming from another room. Or you can have a very dim light on in the room but put your body (and camera) in between the light source and the watch.

- I try to take the photos at angles that minimize reflections....especially off of polished bezels....and particularly of my ugly mug.

I used budget phones for years. One of the main reasons I finally decided to spend the money to get a decent phone was bc I was seeing everyone post killer watch pics on forums and mine were very mediocre. Taking better pictures of my watches then became one way to enjoy my watches more. For those of you with budget phones, you could consider upgrading to one with an really good camera. Even if it means buying one less watch to afford the upgrade, you might find taking better photos one way to enjoy your watches more.

I think that's all I got. If anyone else has any tips, ideas, etc....please add them. I'm always curious how watch forum people take such great photos.
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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by Miggyd87 »

yinzburgher wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:40 am
Miggyd87 wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 6:16 am
yinzburgher wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:37 am Seiko DressKX lume

Image
Teach me your lume shot secrets
:D - I have a Google Pixel 4 and they just have really good cameras. Not only that, they have a feature called NightSight for taking photos at night or in dim light without a flash. That's what I used for this one. It makes photos appear brighter. You just have to hold the phone still for a couple seconds. I can tell I must have moved bc there is a little squiggle on the second hand by the lollipop counterbalance.

- I wipe away dust and grease, usually with my shirt. :lol:

- I often take about a dozen photos and pick the best one. It just increases your odds of getting a good one.

- For a photo like this, I sometimes use a photo editor. There's no secret sauce to this that I know of. We all know what looks good......we're full-time watch appreciators. I don't bother with filters, I just mess around with brightness, contrast, etc to try to make it look better than the original. I don't worry about it looking perfect. It's just for fun.

- I charged up the lume with a LED flashlight. Often times (especially with killer Seiko lume) if you take a photo right away, the lume has a kind of fuzzy halo effect......there's probably a fancy photography name for this. But if you wait a minute or two before you snap a pic, it typically looks much "cleaner", and doesn't have that blurriness even though the lume isn't quite as bright.

- Whether or not your phone has a feature like NighSight, I think these photos turn out best when all the lights are off in the room but there is maybe some dim ambient light coming from another room. Or you can have a very dim light on in the room but put your body (and camera) in between the light source and the watch.

- I try to take the photos at angles that minimize reflections....especially off of polished bezels....and particularly of my ugly mug.

I used budget phones for years. One of the main reasons I finally decided to spend the money to get a decent phone was bc I was seeing everyone post killer watch pics on forums and mine were very mediocre. Taking better pictures of my watches then became one way to enjoy my watches more. For those of you with budget phones, you could consider upgrading to one with an really good camera. Even if it means buying one less watch to afford the upgrade, you might find taking better photos one way to enjoy your watches more.

I think that's all I got. If anyone else has any tips, ideas, etc....please add them. I'm always curious how watch forum people take such great photos.
Thanks for your insight! I'll have to give a few of those a try.
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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by MoT »

Miggyd87 wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:44 am
yinzburgher wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:40 am
Miggyd87 wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 6:16 am

Teach me your lume shot secrets
:D - I have a Google Pixel 4 and they just have really good cameras. Not only that, they have a feature called NightSight for taking photos at night or in dim light without a flash. That's what I used for this one. It makes photos appear brighter. You just have to hold the phone still for a couple seconds. I can tell I must have moved bc there is a little squiggle on the second hand by the lollipop counterbalance.

- I wipe away dust and grease, usually with my shirt. :lol:

- I often take about a dozen photos and pick the best one. It just increases your odds of getting a good one.

- For a photo like this, I sometimes use a photo editor. There's no secret sauce to this that I know of. We all know what looks good......we're full-time watch appreciators. I don't bother with filters, I just mess around with brightness, contrast, etc to try to make it look better than the original. I don't worry about it looking perfect. It's just for fun.

- I charged up the lume with a LED flashlight. Often times (especially with killer Seiko lume) if you take a photo right away, the lume has a kind of fuzzy halo effect......there's probably a fancy photography name for this. But if you wait a minute or two before you snap a pic, it typically looks much "cleaner", and doesn't have that blurriness even though the lume isn't quite as bright.

- Whether or not your phone has a feature like NighSight, I think these photos turn out best when all the lights are off in the room but there is maybe some dim ambient light coming from another room. Or you can have a very dim light on in the room but put your body (and camera) in between the light source and the watch.

- I try to take the photos at angles that minimize reflections....especially off of polished bezels....and particularly of my ugly mug.

I used budget phones for years. One of the main reasons I finally decided to spend the money to get a decent phone was bc I was seeing everyone post killer watch pics on forums and mine were very mediocre. Taking better pictures of my watches then became one way to enjoy my watches more. For those of you with budget phones, you could consider upgrading to one with an really good camera. Even if it means buying one less watch to afford the upgrade, you might find taking better photos one way to enjoy your watches more.

I think that's all I got. If anyone else has any tips, ideas, etc....please add them. I'm always curious how watch forum people take such great photos.
Thanks for your insight! I'll have to give a few of those a try.
If your phone doesn't have a Night Sight feature but has manual or "pro" controls, you can slow down the shutter speed to achieve a similar result. There is more to it than that, but it would be arduous to replicate everything Google's Night Sight does.
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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by Miggyd87 »

ManOnTime wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:50 am
Miggyd87 wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:44 am
yinzburgher wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:40 am

:D - I have a Google Pixel 4 and they just have really good cameras. Not only that, they have a feature called NightSight for taking photos at night or in dim light without a flash. That's what I used for this one. It makes photos appear brighter. You just have to hold the phone still for a couple seconds. I can tell I must have moved bc there is a little squiggle on the second hand by the lollipop counterbalance.

- I wipe away dust and grease, usually with my shirt. :lol:

- I often take about a dozen photos and pick the best one. It just increases your odds of getting a good one.

- For a photo like this, I sometimes use a photo editor. There's no secret sauce to this that I know of. We all know what looks good......we're full-time watch appreciators. I don't bother with filters, I just mess around with brightness, contrast, etc to try to make it look better than the original. I don't worry about it looking perfect. It's just for fun.

- I charged up the lume with a LED flashlight. Often times (especially with killer Seiko lume) if you take a photo right away, the lume has a kind of fuzzy halo effect......there's probably a fancy photography name for this. But if you wait a minute or two before you snap a pic, it typically looks much "cleaner", and doesn't have that blurriness even though the lume isn't quite as bright.

- Whether or not your phone has a feature like NighSight, I think these photos turn out best when all the lights are off in the room but there is maybe some dim ambient light coming from another room. Or you can have a very dim light on in the room but put your body (and camera) in between the light source and the watch.

- I try to take the photos at angles that minimize reflections....especially off of polished bezels....and particularly of my ugly mug.

I used budget phones for years. One of the main reasons I finally decided to spend the money to get a decent phone was bc I was seeing everyone post killer watch pics on forums and mine were very mediocre. Taking better pictures of my watches then became one way to enjoy my watches more. For those of you with budget phones, you could consider upgrading to one with an really good camera. Even if it means buying one less watch to afford the upgrade, you might find taking better photos one way to enjoy your watches more.

I think that's all I got. If anyone else has any tips, ideas, etc....please add them. I'm always curious how watch forum people take such great photos.
Thanks for your insight! I'll have to give a few of those a try.
If your phone doesn't have a Night Sight feature but has manual or "pro" controls, you can slow down the shutter speed to achieve a similar result. There is more to it than that, but it would be arduous to replicate everything Google's Night Sight does.
What should the shutter speed be set to? I would love a bit of a "how to lume shots with manual camera controls on your phone"

Someone can streamline the title
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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by tommy_boy »

Still messing around with my a7. Auto lens, this time. Kinda grainy.

There are some presets for low light that I have not yet used. Maybe tweak the ISO number? We'll see.

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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by Stretch44 »

Seiko lume never ceases to amaze me.
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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by Split-Time »

tommy_boy wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 6:08 pm Still messing around with my a7. Auto lens, this time. Kinda grainy.

There are some presets for low light that I have not yet used. Maybe tweak the ISO number? We'll see.

Image
Something like this may help. Don't put too much weight in my suggestion as I haven't taken anything other than a cell phone picture in months :? . We keep something similar in the camera bag when we travel (used to travel).

As for the grain, I also obsess over clean high ISO photos with my camera, but many of the best photos have some grain...in fact, I have added some in post on occasion. I don't mind a little noise/grain at all and it often keeps the subject from having a "plastic" look.

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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by Dub Rubb »

Now I may have to upgrade my phone. My wife seems to think I need to, and I have been maxing out my awesome 16GB storage. That said, better watch pics is the most deciding factor this far[emoji23].

Lume shot with my LG something2790orOther4786S. Here are the watches that ended up on my bureau this week. Also, bonus Reese's lume shot. Still have this laying around from Halloween because it's awesome.

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Re: Lume shots...let's see 'em!

Post by Stretch44 »

Top is with Nightsight and afterglow enhancement with my Pixel. Bottom is regular shot and no adjustments.
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