Camera Labs

Hi guys.
Here is the problem I'm facing - when I take pics of my knives(I collect them) - I'm running into problems with dynamic range - parts of the image underexposed and other parts are overexposed - I guess the simplest way would be to take a few pics from tripod at different exposures and combine them into ONE that will look good, now - how do I do it? Is there other ways to get better results?
Thank you
Ultimately I wanna be able to take pics like that

Looking at that sample, I have to guess the lighting is key more than the settings of the camera. The light looks quite diffuse with no strong shadows. That in itself will keep the dynamic range requirements low so you wont necessarily need to combine multiple exposures.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Those are not my pics - just an example of what I want

Hi Benya,

I think what popo is trying to tell you here, is that the issue is more likely to be one of lighting, rather than your camera-settings.

The images you've shown here are essentially product shots. In order to avoid harsh shadows, you need lighting from several angles - preferably diffused to the point here shadows are soft.

While you can try and see what comes out of bracketed shots merged as a HDR image, they will look rather different from what you're showing here.

You might find the following link useful: http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html

..make sure to check out the other links to see more about equipment as well.

Cheers

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Nikon stuff and other stuff, but not nearly as much stuff as I really want!