# a few black glass bottles bottles



## seniorscuba1 (Feb 26, 2020)

Hi here's an assortment of my black glass bottle collection and one of my  case gin   bottles


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Feb 27, 2020)

That is great. Nothing like finding bottles but under water i must be surreal, like  another world right. I was wondering if you don't mind what kind of light do you use?


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## seniorscuba1 (Feb 27, 2020)

Hi Robby; where we dive we don't need a light (except on a night dive ) . the viz is usually 30 ft or so . sometimes more . sometimes after bad weather it can be poor . but that never stopped us .. But I remember once while Diving on  an American ship that wrecked near the entrance of Halifax Harbour  ( it was the costal steamer A W Parry ) the wreck lies scattered down a slope from 45 ft to 110ft. one spring we had a run of good weather and the viz was extraordinary . My buddy and I were about 100 ft deep near the huge Boilers from the wreck . it was so clear that we  could see the surface from 100ft and the bottom another 50 ft away . So we swam out from the wreck and fixed our boyancy so we were neutral so we just hung there suspended 50 feet from the bottom and 100 ft from the top .It was incredable and the nearest _'ll ever come to floating in space . but we only could stay for a couple of minutes we were running  out of time and air  . but it was one of my favourate divees _


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## Harry Pristis (Feb 27, 2020)

*It would be great to see some individual black bottles you've recovered on this black glass thread:





						Who Collects Black Glass?
					

Who has some black glass bottles to show us?  Don't be shy . . . Give us or get some information about your bottles here!  Here are two pontil-scarred "leaners" to start us off:




					www.antique-bottles.net
				



*


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## seniorscuba1 (Feb 27, 2020)

Hi Harry : the bottle pictured here isn't exactly black it's more dark green . but it's interesting . I found it years ago diving in Halifax harbor . it is about 6 ins tall and it's a 3 piece cup mold .  I believe it's a wine bottle , But I 've not seen too many applied tops that look like this . any hint on the date ?


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## Harry Pristis (Feb 27, 2020)

*Your images, seniorscuba1, are too dark to examine details.

Do you have editing software that came with your camera or with your scanner? Use the image-editing software (or download shareware from the Internet).

You can be as creative as you want to be with the editing software, but the following basic things will improve anyone's images:

    GROUP IMAGES of more than a few bottles are not effective. The more individual fossils in an image, the greater the amount of table-top is in the image. Viewers cannot see the details of a bottle that might take up less than five percent of the total image. Photograph a single bottle (or two or three, if they're small), and post that image.*

*DON'T OBSCURE details of the bottle by pinching it between your fingers. If you want to use fingers to provide scale, support the bottle from below ... that is, on top of your fingers. To improve the focus, rest your hand with the bottle on a stable surface like a table or desk.*

*LIGHT IT UP. Use as much ambient light as possible to reduce shadows...two light sources are a minimum. Eliminate yellowed images caused by tungsten filament bulbs by switching to the new compact flourescent bulbs. CFLs come in a "daylight" (6500K) version that you can use in any (non-dimming) fixture and produce very little heat.*

*ELIMINATE SHADOWS by elevating the bottle on a glass or colorless plastic stage a couple of inches above the background. Illuminate the bottle AND THE BACKGROUND in this configuration. There are numerous things around the house to use for this purpose, from scrap window-glass to disposable plastic food/drink containers.

BRIGHTEN AND CONTRAST. BRIGHTEN the image until the bottle appears slightly washed, then adjust the CONTRAST until the bottle is bright and sharp and is a good color-match. Practice this until you get a feel for it.

CROP, CROP, CROP. Again, use the image-editing software to crop the image to only what is pertinent. Leave only a narrow margin around the bottle. The more of your kitchen counter-top in the image, the smaller the bottle image will be.

    REDUCE THE FILE SIZE. The images directly from a camera usually are too large for posting directly to a forum. You can constrain the proportions of your image to produce exactly the size that works best (I routinely use 700 Kb - 2.0 Mb for my images now). Save in JPEG format.*


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## sandchip (Feb 28, 2020)

Harry Pristis said:


> ...*CROP, CROP, CROP. Again, use the image-editing software to crop the image to only what is pertinent. Leave only a narrow margin around the bottle. The more of your kitchen counter-top in the image, the smaller the bottle image will be...*



Amen!  I would add that picking a good spot in the first place to take the picture is important as well.  Always be as aware of what's in the background as you are of the bottle itself.  You see pictures of bottles and artifacts not only here but on other forums and places like ebay where the background includes dirty dishes, unmade beds, or grungy feet.  Sometimes, the perspective of the camera will catch stuff in the periphery regardless, and as you said, crop all that crap out.  Nobody wants to see it!  Also, if the picture is blurry in the first place, it won't magically clear up when you post it.  This is common on ebay especially.  I noticed this really rare ink there that might warrant the hefty starting bid, but there's only one picture, it's blurry, and lost in a sea of white and I'm sure the owner wonders why it never gets any bids.





I don't have any good window spots to take pictures, so I have to find areas in the yard with a decent natural background.  I know that mine are by no means professional, but the best I can manage.  In fact, I see problems with my own pictures here and will try to improve things in the future.  As Harry mentioned, I need to make an acrylic stand in order to get my hand out of the pictures, and once again, crop!  I doubt that I ever take a picture that I don't immediately crop leaving decent margins, align and then discard the original.  As far as size goes, I used to reduce the size, but this new site has taken most anything I've thrown at it.  The John Clarke here is nearly 3 meg.  The advantage to a large picture is that if you want to zoom in on detail, it remains nice and sharp.


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## seniorscuba1 (Feb 29, 2020)

Thank You for the tips on proper ways of photographing bottles I'm not much of a photographer . also all i have is my cell phone camera but I think I'll try a windowsill and see if that is any better


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