Calling all photo gurus--need help

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Here's the deal. I want to take good picutures of my work but am not willing to shell out any bucks for a better camera. I need to work with what I have if possible. I built a light tent this evening with white fabric as my difuser. I am using 2 halogen work lights about 2' away from the photo booth shining on the sides. My camera is a 3.1 mp Sony and I am using a tripod with self timer and no flash to avoid any shake. Here is the results of the best picture:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/MesquiteMan/Algarita2.jpg

Here is the picture doctored to hell in Paint Shop Pro 10 to get the color accurate. Should I have to do this?

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/MesquiteMan/Algarita.jpg

I am using a grey background in this picture as shown more accurately in the doctored picture. I am shooting without the flash on the automatic settings.

What should I be doing different? Different lights? More light? Play with the camera settings more? Any help would be appreciated. Sorry for the big pictures but I did not want to mess them up by shrinking them too much. Thanks.

[Lee DeRaud]

Your first picture is already better than most of mine: I've got the gear, I've got the knowlege, I'm just way too lazy to set up lights and stuff to take photos to post here. :p

That said, if you think the second one more accurately depicts "reality", it looks like your only problem is with the white balance (or in film-speak, color temperature). Not all cameras have adjustments for that...if yours doesn't, nothing wrong with doing the same thing on Photoshop or whatever.

Great turning, BTW.

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

I'm definitely not an expert, so, I'm guessing here.

Questions:

1. Did you want the shadow on the left?
2. Does the wood have a greenish/ yellow hue?

If the answers are both yes, then there is nothing wrong.

If you don't want the shadow, you DO need more light on the left side, low down.

If the true color of the wood is more like the first picture, then you want it to be accurate. To me it is more important that the wood color is correct than the color of the background.

Just my .02 US

Bruce

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Bruce,

Yes, the wood looks pretty much just like the second picture. It is truely yellow with a green tint. No on the shadow on the left. I am not too worried about the shadows and such, mainly that I am not getting true colors with the un-doctored picture.

[Jim Becker]

Your camera's white balance may be off. If it's adjustable, play with it. Otherwise, the software is the key! Incidently, your fabric seems to be textured. A smoother surface will reflect more light. You may want to consult with Jamie Donaldson and/or John Lucas (from TN...the turner/photographer) as they have done some dynamite presentations at the AAW symposiums on "budget/phrugal" photo setups...

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

The background is actually a piece of grey craft paper that does have some texture. I bought a number of different pieces and colors to experiment with. I though the texture might soften things up a little. I will experiement a little more in a few days as time permits. thanks for the suggestions.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

First off Curtis, lousy pic or not, that is one heck of a HF :eek:

Which Sony do you have?

I have one, and the setting on it are crucial.

If you have them all set to "Auto" you get fairly good shots.

If you play with the white balance, you can get good pics, it has setting for "Sunny", "cloudy", "Incandescent lights" and "Fluorescent Lights".

If you are using the Halogen lights, and it is set for fluorescent, the pics come out bad.

Here is a pic I took with my Sony......

http://www.ablett.jp/workshop/images/stand.jpg

Same subject, with two different light sources, a halogen spot, and a fluorescent, then I played with the white balance settings.

I hope this helps.

Cheers!

[Ian Abraham]

The light thats put out by normal incandesent lights is more of a yellow / orange compared to sunlight which has more blue frequencies. So the digital camera (and many films) see it differently. Our eyes / brain automaticly compensate for the change, we sorta compensate / ignore the colour differences.

Some ideas...
What colour balance settings has the camera got?. Many will automatically adjust for sunlight / incandescant / flouro lights, or will have manual settings.

Try shooting with the item light by diffuse sunlight, like natural light through a net curtain. Not direct sun, just natural light thru a window or in the shade outside.

Special photo lights are available that put out a 'hotter' light that will give a better colour reproduction. But they are usually pricey :(

Othewise adjust the image with photoshop so it looks right. Remember of course that different printers and monitors will also reproduce colours differently as well.:o

Good luck

Cheers

Ian

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Stu,

Thanks for the comments on the HF. This was a root ball of a bush that grows around here and no one knows of for turning. It was something I found and tried out. I was pretty pleased compared to what I started out with!

My camera is a MPEGMovie VX model DSC-p73 Cyber-shot. It is actually 4.1 mp not 3.1 like I stated above. I will play with the ligh settings to see what results I get. Thanks!

[Mike Vickery]

halogen lights are not a good choice they are way to yellow (they were the first I tried also).
I actually use daylight balanced flood light bulbs in those cheap clip on work lights that you can get at Lowes or Home Depot for $8 a piece.

after changing your lighting
1. Try using the Macro mode of your camera (if you have one)
2. Play with the white balance (mine I need to go +1 to get good shots)
3. Do not use you flash

The tripod and timer are a great start keep with that.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Curtis, you have this camera........

37286

This is the camera I have.......

37287

I'd be willing to bet that the menus are very similar?

if the color balance is NOT set on "Auto" but say on fluorescent, and you are not using them, the lighting can really suck, also, there is a spot meter, this flashes an orange light at the object when you are focusing the pic, if this is turned off, then in lower light settings the camera has a hard time getting a good focus and exposure. One more thing, the focus on my camera can be set to multi or single points. If it is set on single, and the single point is a very light point the whole pic will be rather dark, and if the single point is a rather dark bit, the whole pic will be overexposed. I don't think, this will be much on an issue with the turnings, but when I take pics of a bandsaw, for example, and the table is bright and shinny, I have to make sure that I don't point the camera right at that spot.

I hope this helps.

Can't wait to see some more pics!

[Travis Stinson]

Curtis, I have a 5.0 mp Sony. My best luck shooting inside is using the daylight balanced flood lights like Mike mentioned. Color balance on incandescent and white balance on the + side. That is still a pain at times to get accurate colors. That's when I get tired of messing with the lights and take everything outside.;)

[Keith Christopher]

I have two friends who are photographers professionally. And while perhaps not as much, they tell me ALL digital photography has some amount of digital editing to make them come out "perfect"

[Glenn Clabo]

Curtis...Like many others have said...It's a white balance thing. Same stuff used to happen in film...remember those orange shots taken inside with the wrong temp color film?
Here's a good tutorial ... Albeit a little techical... http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

[Greg Savage]

You definitely have a color balance issue...Most of the guys here have offered some good advice on correcting the situation. If you want to invest a little $$$$.....There are some inexpensive strobes set-ups out there, but I don't know if your camera is capable of tripping them.

As for the "shadows"....Don't worry about them! They are so minimal that they don't even deserve a mention. Besides..... Shadow adds visual interest as long as they are not so deep that they don't hold texture.

Here is a pic of mune that you may have seen.....

[Charlie Plesums]

Two issues...

Color balance. As many have said, it may be adjustable on your camera, but as Stu demonstrated, trying to set it may be enough to drive you nuts. But if you have something white in the picture (even off at the side where you can crop it out later), most automatic cameras automatically do a pretty decent job automatically adjusting the color balance or white balance (if you get a good white, everything else falls into place)

Light source. If you have a blue light, you can only see something blue; the rest will be dark. Red light, you can only see red. So to see all the colors, you have to have all the colors in the light. White light has all the colors, but since our eyes adjust colors, we don't notice if the mix is wrong (everything doesn't look green when we wear green sunglasses). Sunlight defines "good." Incandescent bulbs have all the colors, but excess on the red end (or less blue) compared to sunlight. Cheap flourescent bulbs have excess blue, and little if any red. I don't know the mix in halogen work lights...

You can test the colors in your lights and how your camers compensates by taking a picture of a white sheet of paper. If it comes out white, you should get good results (but you may need that white "reference" at the side of the picture). If you can't get the white paper to come out white, try a different light source. Work lights are designed to give lots of bright illumination, but the halogen and other gas inside the bulb could be a mix that gives bright light, but not all the colors.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Very interesting Charlie, thanks for posting that!

Cheers!