My Traveling Medal Photography Kit

[Dave]

As most folks know, I recently concluded writing a book that involved taking photos of hundreds of medals, both US and foreign. Only three of these medals were in the hands of collectors; the remainder were still with the veterans or their families. A handful of the families were trusting enough to send the medals to me for photographing. The remainder I visited. Over the course of a year, I made 112 home visits, driving 24,000 miles and visiting 40 states. Plenty of families offered to take photos of the medals for me in order to save me a visit. However, as some of you may know, taking photos of medals, especially good ones, can be a real bear (you can substitute other terms...)

 

Worst was capturing the detail of the foreign awards. After I had a contract with the publisher, I had to put my offer of photographing the medals for the book into action. Unfortunately, for the life of me I couldn't get the photos right. I had a great camera and on several occasions, it just about went flying across the room. I almost sent it back for warranty work because the photos shouldn't have been that blurry. My wife didn't help things: "I don't think it's the camera that's the problem...I think it's the photographer..." OUCH! I invested hundreds of dollars into photo booths, covers, you name it, and still nothing was good enough. I finally came across a fellow forum member who was shooting some fantastic photos of medals. He was generous in sharing his expertise. I started from scratch, basing my kit on his design, and then modified it for travel. The results are in this post. So, MilitaryWired...thank you for making this happen!

 

Many of the families I visited were very impressed by The Box. So was the TSA (they LOVED to open it!) I think most were impressed by the sheer size. The airline loved the fact it was oversize, so every trip had an extra $75 tacked on for excess baggage fees. I learned what cars to rent and not to rent, what steps I could and could not go up or down (can't turn too well...and it's worse with a bad back...) and how to set it up and how NOT to set it up. (NOTE: Small pets, especially dogs, like to chew on foam. Who knew???)

 

Quite a few people said I should patent The Box. I was pretty adamant about keeping the idea under wraps for a long time, but finally figured...that does no one any good, so why not post it up here for others to use the same idea? You don't need to have to travel with it; all you need is the box, camera, arm, and remote in order to get some really great shots at home.

 

So I'll cover this in a few posts. In the meantime, here's The Box. It's a Pelican 1630...overall weight is 68 pounds with gear inside. I took these photos at work as I still haven't taken it home after I finished the renovations on my house as I still have families finding and sending me medals for the book and it's easier for me to accept shipments here and turn them around to have them heading back to the family the same day (LOTS of FedEx boxes...)

 

 

[Dave]

Here's the inside with the lid open. On the right is the photo box. To the left is my ancient XP laptop, and behind it is my XP-only-compatable scanner. Some folks chuckled when I pulled out my ancient scanner and laptop. But you know, with a 1/4" depth of focus on the platen...just try beating it for less than $1000 with any of the crap that's made today. Sometimes 1990s technology really WAS decent stuff.....

[Dave]

Going layer by layer...the second layer of foam had a place for the arm (stolen from a copy stand), my camera (Canon 7D), my "big" lens for closeups, and then the assortment of power supplies, remote, battery charger, and lens cleaning stuff...

 

Note I covered the foam with fabric. After the third trip, both the TSA and I had opened this so many times the foam was breaking apart. The fabric kept it all together.

[Dave]

Oh, forgot in the above photo...my Leatherman! I took apart over 40 frames with medals in them...the Leatherman was INVALUABLE at taking frames apart, rescuing the medals, and then putting it all back together again!

[Dave]

The final foam layer had a place for my small, portable copy arm that was INVALUABLE at the National Archives (special thanks to another USMF member for recommending it!), another lens (not there in the photo), my digital voice recorder (in case any of the veterans started telling good stories) and my handmade plexiglass holder for photographing things like ribbon bars and wings (it was shoved in the side for the photo and isn't visible).

[Dave]

I was asked a LOT how I got my camera kit around the country without having broken bulbs. Well, it was just very, very well secured and padded! This is the foam I put in place.

[Dave]

Now for the box itself...

 

It was made of a 10x10x10 cardboard box I found in the trash (no kidding). I then bought white foam board (on sale for $.88 a sheet at Michaels) and lined the box to make it reflective. Using some scrap plexiglass, I cut two shelves: one to hold the medal (with a hole in the middle for screwback awards) and then one to hold the upper light. I made "shoulders" from foam board for the inside of the box for the "shelves" to sit on. The florescent bulbs were standard round bulb fixtures from Home Depot. I removed the metal of the fixture and put the ballast on the outside of the box. I ran the cable for the light through the edge of the box and attached it to the bulbs inside the box. The great thing about buying the lights from Home Depot was that they were replaceable...I could get a new bulb or ballast anywhere I went. These were the most expensive part of the box at $30 each. Inside the box is a QP card that the publisher wanted. It was removable and was only there for photos.

[Tony V]

Dave

 

This is just awesome! I find it remarkable, and I bet the photos turned out wonderfull. I can only imagine how much fun you had at all the airoprts. And all the love from the hard woorking TSA people I will be watching to see your results.

Great ideas all the way around !

 

Tony

[Dave]

Having a lightbox is nice, but without something to hold the camera still, it doesn't help much. I borrowed an arm off a copy stand that I had purchased in one of my attempts to get the photos right at the beginning. I removed the mount from the copy stand board and screwed it into the base of the Pelican case. That way, the arm could just slip into the hole and stay in place while I was photographing.

[Dave]

Thanks Tony! Oh yeah, TSA LOVED the box..........

 

I went out of order slightly for the images and forgot this one...here are the ballasts on the outside of the box. I mounted them with 3M automobile emblem tape (the world's best double sided tape, incidentally...)

[Dave]

And then, when plugged in...there was LIGHT. I hated evening visits, especially in dark houses. I'd get a headache after 10 minutes of photographing. BUT...to get good photos, you need good light, and I had it. Note the wired remote for the camera. That was a MUST HAVE for taking the photos. Even after I got the photo box built, the images were still slightly blurred. Turns out, that tiny movement of me hitting the button on the camera was just enough to blur the image. Ouch! The remote was also invaluable at the National Archives...that way I could flip pages and photograph thousands of pages while sitting instead of trying to hover over my camera...

[Dave]

Because there was so much light, I had to make a ring to reflect some of it back on the face of the medal. For non-enamel medals, I used a rectangular opening, the same size as the camera frame. For enameled medals, I used one with a round opening in order to avoid the "square" reflection on the face of the enamel...

[Dave]

Of course, camera settings are important too...I used several different settings; this was one of them.

[Dave]

I don't have a good photo of it, but the photo I used for the majority of shots was the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. A delightful (and cheap) little lens...

 

And that's about it. This box has seen a lot of the country, but it's taken some mighty fine photos and they'll hopefully honor the men who earned the awards when the book is published!

[uniformcollector]

That's a great kit! Thanks for sharing! When do you think the book will be out?

[ocsfollowme]

This is awesome Dave. Two thumbs up from this camera guy. So you are over exposing the shots by almost 2 stops too?

[Dave]

That's a great kit! Thanks for sharing! When do you think the book will be out?

 

Thanks! It should be out sometime mid-next-year. Hopefully.

[Dave]

This is awesome Dave. Two thumbs up from this camera guy. So you are over exposing the shots by almost 2 stops too?

 

Thanks! Yes, for whatever reason, they were coming out too dark. So I bumped up the exposure and they seemed to turn out well. I probably had another setting wrong...but I had a bead on "what worked" and went with it.

[The Meatcan]

pretty nifty setup Dave! thanks for posting it all so we could see how it works.

Terry

[ocsfollowme]

Dave, with the QP card...I am learning about these in taking photos of photos. Did you do anything with the color adjustments or is the publisher going to make all of the adjustments with contrasts? Seriously Dave, if you made a youtube tutorial, you would get 100k hits in a year.

[irish]

Professional and Impressive, I commend your efforts to achieve good photographic result.

[tarbridge]

We never think what it takes to put together a book when you walk over and pick it up off the shelf...Thanks for the insight Dave. I think I will just stick to the reading part and leave the other side to you...

[Johnnymac]

What a great set up.!

[BEAST]

That box is brilliant! Especially the use of the ring bulb and the plexiglass. How far above the bottom of the box did the lower plexiglass shelf sit? Did the distance between the lower shelf and the bottom of the box affect the focus? I assume tha tyou manually focused the camera for each shot, correct?

 

Thanks for sharing this idea!