Steve - CNC Milling Centre

[Manfred M]

Another one of my images from a local machine shop. The is Steve, who is setting up one of the computer controlled vertical milling centres.

[Round Tuit]

I like his expression; He looks like a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I find the crop a little tight particularly on the right and his eyes are quite soft but that could be caused by dirty glasses.

[Manfred M]

Yes it is a touch soft. Here is the re-done image to tighten that up a bit. Topaz Sharpen AI to the rescue.





Just as an aside - there is virtually no room to position equipment and my light here. The first image was taken at a 50mm focal length and the image is uncropped. I did not want the control panel in the shot.

This next shot has a few raw adjustments, but none of the area or local adjustment I do (yet). The studio light and light stand are just to the left and you can see the back of the next machine on the right. It is a very tight to take any pictures and as in any shop I have ever been in, very busy. There is a tool chest and table on the camera left side and a tool chest just out of view on the camera right side. I'm standing in the main traffic aisle to take the shots, but fortunately, this is at the end of the aisle of machines so I am only interfering with two or three people.

This shot was taken at 30mm focal length on a full-frame camera.

[rpcrowe]

This seems to have been a very difficult area in which to shoot... I wonder how a shot of Steve adjusting the CNC control panel might have come out?

[Wandjina]

A nice image, but his fore-arm and elbow seem to dominate the shot because of their closer proximity to the camera. maybe shoot from a higher angle and have his elbow tucked in closer to his body. Having said that, we are always wiser after the event and have time to sit down and analyse the image.

[Manfred M]

This seems to have been a very difficult area in which to shoot... I wonder how a shot of Steve adjusting the CNC control panel might have come out?

The machines are programed elsewhere and the program is uploaded to the machine. The control panel gets minimal use from the operator, other than monitoring how the job is running. The machine can be programmed via the control panel, but that is not how this shop operates.

The problem of shooting the operator using the control panel (usually nothing more than loading the appropriate program and telling the machine to start running it), is that the operator faces the control panel to see the screen. A view of the back of the operator's head is quite uninteresting.

[William W]

Another one where you've nailed the lighting well and I assume again under difficult circumstances.

I am not keen on the Skin Tone Forearm cutting the middle of a Portrait Orientation Image which is almost all Blue and Grey.

***

In the second Image, you're getting a reasonable mirror of his face on the protective glass doors - I'd look at exploiting that as: The Shot.

I agree, certainly the "Back of the Head" Portrait is very difficult to pull off: yet a mirror reflection of the Face, could be very effective in this scenario.

Also, if you're photographing the reflected face it gives you a tad more Subject Distance.

WW

[William W]

... It's a very interesting project, I am very much enjoying watching its development.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the comments Bill.

This project would be a lot simpler if I were not for the restrictions I have to work under. I get 5 - 10 minutes per employee and these people are not used to being photographed, so trying to get them to pose has not worked well. They pull of that stilted look common to what we see in high school grad photos. I curse the photographer that encouraged people to say "cheese" when their pictures were taken.

From a technical standpoint, I was able to find a single position for my key light and sometimes I was able to squeeze in a reflector. That tended to dictate one shooting position quite close to the key light. There really is often no room to work as the space between two machines is often just over 1m / 3-1/2ft.

I did some testing with reflections, but the results were not great. This is a shop environment so any plastic surfaces, like the protectors on the machines or program terminals are full of very fine scratches from the cloths used to clean them off, sometimes contaminated with cutting fluid. The reflections are not at all crisp.

Regardless, a challenging and interesting project. I expect another shooting session next week or the week after.