Polishing Stainless Guns

[gdr_11]

Rio,

Thanks for the advice.

My gun has the standard brushed finish, that is why I am concerned about putting too high of a polish on it. I was thinking the hand polish route which I will probably do under the trigger guard where it will be less conspicuous. Although the high polish is nice, I feel like I might need to wear my mink hat and lime green suit to the range if I went that far. I am just interested in minimizing the scratches.

[maxicon]

Maxicon, what kind of camera did you use to take those pics? What lense?

I use a Canon A620 7MP point'n'shoot, which was only about $200 new (it's 3-4 years old now). It's a great general purpose camera, like all the mid-range Canons, and I like it quite a lot. I used to have bags of film cams, lenses, flashes, and filters, and now I get by just fine with this mid level PnS.

Almost any good quality digicam with flexible settings can take great pictures. There are a few things you need:

- Manual white balance capability
- A decent tripod
- Some lights - I use $10 desktop halogen lights, which make the shadows a bit sharp, but you can soften that with reflectors or thin cloth
- An uncluttered background
- Macro mode for very close shots or very small items

Setting the white balance makes the colors right for whatever light you use, a tripod avoids shaky, blurry pics and keeps you from needing a lot of light, and 2-3 lights let you avoid harsh shadows and glaring reflection. For the background, I use the backs of denim shirts, old tablecloths, cloth napkins (in the shots above), or whatever. I also set it for a 2 second delay after pressing the shutter so my hand movement doesn't blur the pic. Generally, you want to avoid flash, but it brings out the detail for some shots, so I'll often take a few flash pics (and they usually get deleted).

You can do a lot better with more gear, like a lightbox and reflectors, but you can take good basic shots with simple stuff. The hardest part is the lighting, and by moving the lights around while you watch the camera viewscreen, you can figure it out on the fly.

Take lots of pics, look at them right away on the PC, figure out what you don't like about them, and take lots more. Before long, you get the basics down pretty well.

[Riodog]

Thanks for the info Maxicon. Your pics are very nice and sharp.

I use a Fuji 602 for just snappin and a Nikon D-80 with a telephoto for long distance and neither one is really good for close-ups. That leaves either a different lense for the Nikon or a different camera.

Thanks,
Rio

[gdr_11]

Well, I am no photographic expert, and I don't know if my image posting will work, so I am also including a link to my flicker set of pics of my 686. After reading all the posts here, I did a "minor pimp" on my 6" 686. Three coats of Mothers gave me a look that I am happy with. Go this this link and view as Slideshow for larger images:

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdr_111...7604594851514/)

[Riodog]

Nice looking gdr_11, I like the look of the full length under lugs. Now you need some real "pimpy" pearl grips.

Rio

[triaged]

I use a Fuji 602 for just snappin and a Nikon D-80 with a telephoto for long distance and neither one is really good for close-ups.

My Canon A720IS point & shoot does very good macro images (at wide angle) for what it is. Mind you these are shrunk to go in photobucket. You can hack the firmware to get RAW images too.

[Riodog]

Thank you for that info Triaged. Think I'm gonna go get one today iffin I have the time. That pic is like lookin in a microscope. LOL
Rio

[maxicon]

My Canon A720IS point & shoot does very good macro images (at wide angle) for what it is.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of the mid-range Canons. Great quality and flexibility at a really reasonable price.

I'd love to have a DSLR and a stable of lenses, but it's just not in the cards right now, and honestly, I haven't found a lot that I need one for these days except for serious zoom. Most of my photography now is family pics and hardware shots.

Here's a reduced pic from my A620 of a ruptured primer: