Little Pencil Pot

[Carole Valentine]

Made this little maple pencil pot for a friend's birthday. She needs one on her computer desk...she's always scratching around for a pen or pencil! :) I designed it to be a little bottom heavy to prevent tipping. Wish I could figure out how to keep my camera from putting that blue cast on the white background. :confused:

http://www.esva.net/%7Epchousecalls/pot2_opt.jpg

[Ernie Nyvall]

Looks nice Carole.

Is the background of the same material as what the pencil pot is sitting on? Does the cameria do that to everything white?

Ernie

[Carole Valentine]

Yes, and yes! LOL

[Ernie Nyvall]

Well, I was just thinking that companies use blues and blacks to give whites a certain look. If your background was given a touch of blue to make a bright white, the camera might pick that up, but if it does it to all whites, maybe it's in the flash lense. I'm just guessing though.

Ernie

[Michael Stafford]

When I saw the picture I knew that this pencil pot could not have been for you. As I recall you once gathered up pencils by the dozens in your shop! :eek: :D

Cute and useful little turning! Nice! ;)

[Jerry Clark]

Carole try putting some white tissue paper over the flash-- this tone down the flash and also help the color. :D

[John Hart]

Pretty little pencil pot Carole! Do the pens go with it? They are very nice as well! :)

[Takeshi Uchida]

Cute form ,Carole. It reminds me a acorn :)
I wonder if your light condition on your digital camera is set at DAY LIGHT.
Color balance turns to bluish when you take pic under fluorescent or flash light .

[Don Henthorn Smithville, TX]

I need to turn one of those for pennies. May just steal your design.

[Fred Ray]

Nice job, Carole. Nice pens too, from what I can tell.

Check your camera maual for White balance settings.

[Dave Richards]

Carole, that's a nice little pot for pencils.

I thought I'd make a suggestion or two for your photos. First, as was mentioned, if your camera gives you the control, check to see what the white balance is set to. Electronic flash should be very close to daylight in color however not all flash tubes are made equal. It isn't unusual to see a slighlt yellowish tint when looking at the tube. This is intended to correct the the color. The problem is that manufacturers aren't always good at correcting it.

If your camera's white balance is set for tungsten light, i.e. incandescant lights, anything lit by daylight or flash will appear very blue. Things lit by flourescent lights will tend to look a bit magenta.

Another issue that is coming into play in your photograph is the inverse square law. This says that the intensity of the light drops off by the square of the distance. Since the background is farther away from the background than the pot, it is getting less light than the pot. If we were looking at a black and white image, the background would be gray. If you adjusted the exposure to make the background white, the pot would be way over exposed.

The solution to this is to use a different light to illuminate the background. This would be a challenge if your camera is of the point and shoot sort. You might check with a local camera store, though, and see if they have a small slave flash available. These don't cost a lot and have a sensor so they can be tripped by the flash on the camera. Some cameras may be able to deal with the slave while some may not. You'd have to try it and see what you get.

Finally, a third thing may be adding to the bluishness of the background. There may be whiteners added to the paper as they do to fabrics. These whiteners were once referred to as bluing. think of the blue crystals in powdered detergent. The bluing remains and is excited by strong UV. This is easily seen if you look at white fabric--a shirt--under a strong UV source such as a blacklight.

Electronic flash, an emitter of strong UV can cause these whiteners to flouresce causing the bluish cast. Filtering both the flash and maybe at the lens would help that.

This has been a problem for photographers for years. Wedding dresses come out looking blue under the light of a flash and sometimes in daylight. Flowers, especially ones like purple morning glories which reflect large amounts of UV typically reproduce as blue on film or on digital cameras.

One alternative that you may find easier to handle and dramatic is to use a black background. Don't hang black paper immediately behind the subject. Get a piece of black velevet and hang it as far behind the subject as you can. Prevent light from hitting the cloth. Work in a darkened (dimly lit) room.

By setting the black background at a distance you make the inverse square law work for you. If the pot is one foot from the flash and receives one unit of light from the flash and the background is 5 feet from the flash, it will only receive 1/25th of the light and be very dark--should be black.

The other benefit of setting up the background at a distance is that you don't need to worry about casting shadows on it.

[John Hart]

What a nice comprehensive and concise explanation Dave! Thank you! I learned a lot from that.

....perhaps not enough...but...

[Dave Richards]

Thank you John. I'm glad someone thought it was concise. ;) I figured I rattled on too long. I hope it is useful.

[Carole Valentine]

Whew! Thanks, Dave. I have saved your message for reference. I don't think my camera has the light settings but I will look in the manual. It's a Toshiba and 4 years old. The darn thing was almost $700 when I bought it and now you can get twice as much camera for half the money! When I have turned something really worth photographing (which may be a few years!) I will see about a photo booth and maybe a better camera.