RE: Photo tent and "shooting knives"

Way back, in the '70's when it was called the American Blade Magazine (before just "Blade") I had a short article in there titled "Shoot Your Knives" or some such. Wrote it for fun, since it doesn't cover expenses to do these things.

Anyway, the photos I used to show different results were made in natural settings, with efforts to control reflections on blades, and inside a light tent I made.

Bottom Line, it is difficult to get proper exposures and highlight control in anything other than a light tent, although I have gotten some good photos otherwise through effort and luck.

Bottom line, and the reason I am posting this here as a reply to Capt. Chris's recommendation, is because I recently bought a 4 foot cube Smith-Victor brand light tent from Adorama. It is still in the package, no time to work with it yet, but once I decide what lighting setup I want to use I think that is the only way to go.

Another wrinkle--which I do not have software to do yet--is that you can shoot the knife on a green background that you can buy that works like a "green screen" in movie making, and then have the green replaced by another scene behind the knife--should be able to "fake" some artistic outdoor shots using this approach.

Happy shooting,
Larry