Hardware photography

The register is the one FDT applies to everything else - muted, terrain-first, quietly intense. Hardware is photographed as deployed, not as retail. The goal is a picture that looks like it came off an operator’s iPhone between exercises, not out of a product brochure.

Principles

• Matte subjects only. No glossy studio polish, no chrome highlights, no ring-light reflections. If the hardware is matte in the field, it photographs matte.
• Deep navy background. navy-900 or a near-match physical backdrop. No white cyc, no gradient, no “tech product on a beach” lifestyle composition.
• Single directional light source. One key light, hard or modestly softened. No three-point beauty-dish lighting, no ring lights, no rim-light drama. Light suggests environment, not spotlight.
• Muted shadow. Ambient fill over strong directional shadow. The subject never casts a theatrical shadow.
• No props, no hands, no models. Context is implied by the subject, not supplied by a scene.
• Focal length: 50–105mm equivalent. Normal to short-telephoto. No wide-angle distortion, no extreme compression.
• No CGI pretending to be a photograph. If a product is presented as a photograph, it is the actual product. Renders are acknowledged as renders - separate treatment, clearly labelled.

Per-category setups

Category	Setup	Notes
Ruggedized tablets (iPad)	3/4 angle, screen at 40% brightness showing a real product surface. Navy-900 backdrop, single key light at 45° above-camera.	Screen content must match what the page surrounding the shot claims. Never render a mock UI.
Radios & handhelds	Straight-on profile shot, display and top controls at centre-mass. Shadow side slightly filled.	Antenna collapsed unless the shot is specifically about antenna deployment.
Radar units & sensor packages	Mid-range 3/4 angle that favors the sensor aperture. Key light comes from the aperture side so the optic is the subject.	Include any mounting surface only if it grounds the scale - otherwise crop.
Vehicles & vehicle-mounted equipment	On the vehicle where it is mounted, not isolated. Shot from operator eye-height.	The vehicle is context, not the subject. Frame tight enough that the FDT equipment is the focal point.
Operator-worn equipment	Off-body, laid flat on a matte navy surface. Lit from a high 45°, shadow falling away from camera.	No head forms, no mannequins. If worn-on-body is the story, it’s a separate in-context shot with a different discipline.
Exploded / technical illustrations	Not photography. Rendered in a separate visual register - isometric wireframe on a navy-900 ground, 1px steel-500 stroke, labeled with Micro uppercase in steel-300.	Captions say “rendered,” never “shown.”

Render vs photograph

The two have to be visibly distinguishable on the same page. If a reader can’t tell which is which, the page is lying.

• Photographs carry a real shadow, real dust, real specular highlights (even muted). Captions use plain tense: “The FDT-R7 ruggedized tablet.”
• Renders carry no shadow, a flat matte fill, and a labelled caption: “Rendered - FDT-R7 ruggedized tablet (pre-production model).”
• Never crossfade between the two in a layout. A grid of tablets should be all photos or all renders, not a mix.

In-context / environmental shots

Separate discipline from studio hardware photography. Rules:

• Real operators, real environments. No models, no simulated TOCs.
• Ambient light only. Fluorescent, vehicle interior, field overcast - whatever the environment gives. No flash, no on-camera ring, no warming gels.
• The equipment is never the hero. The operator’s task is the hero; the equipment is present because it’s being used.
• Captions identify the exercise, not the equipment. “Fire-support coordination exercise, Camp Roberts, 2026-03-04” - not “The FDT-R7 in field use.”
• Release approval decides how much the caption says. A location or date that isn’t cleared for publication is generalized or left out: “Fire-support coordination exercise, 2026.” When in doubt, say less.
• People are cleared, or they aren’t recognizable. Real operators appear in a published shot only with release approval for their identity. Without it, faces, name tapes, badges and unit patches are framed out or obscured before the image leaves FDT.

Retouch rules

Allowed	Required to stay
Dust on lens / sensor noise cleanup	Handling marks, scuffs, wear
Tape residue, temporary labels	Permanent markings, serials (removed when operationally sensitive)
Cable tangles tidied for clarity	Real field-added modifications (zip-tie repairs, mount adapters)
Exposure and white balance from the grey card, color from the color target	Natural patina on metal
Focus stacking for sensor-assembly shots	Operator-drawn callsign / squad markings (removed when they identify a unit or person not cleared for release)

The rule: if the mark was there when the unit left the factory and it’s still there, keep it. If it was there when the unit came back from deployment, definitely keep it.

Release approval comes before this table. A marking, serial or background detail that isn’t cleared for publication is removed from every image that leaves FDT, whatever the column says.

Consistency sheet

When shooting a product line:

• Shot angle convention. 3/4 front-right at 35° for every hero shot; lock the angle and reuse.
• Scale indicator. A calibrated matte-black rule in the corner (cropped out of hero frames, kept for reference frames). Human-hand or boot-scale callouts go in a separate in-context shot with consistent eye-height.
• Color calibration. Shoot a matte-neutral grey card and a color target at the start of every session: the card sets exposure and white balance, the target’s patches set color. Apply the same LUT across the line.
• File naming. {product}-{variant}-{angle}-{date}.tif - for example, fdt-r7-base-hero-2026-03-26.tif. That is the internal name. A file delivered outside FDT drops the date unless the capture date is cleared: fdt-r7-base-hero.webp.

Delivery

Photography ships at three resolutions with consistent dimensions:

Use	Resolution	Format
Marketing hero	2880×1800	.webp (primary), .jpg (fallback)
Program card	1200×800	.webp
Technical documentation	4096×2731 at 300dpi	.tif (archival), .webp (delivery)

No square crops by default. If a square is needed, shoot separately - don’t centre-crop a hero.

Every file delivered outside FDT has its embedded metadata stripped: location, capture time, device and serial fields. The archival .tif keeps them and stays internal.