another try at pictures

[David Wilhelm]

This is a spalted sweet gum. I pulled her out of the wood pile this week and gave her a spin to see what detail she would give up. My big issue I have been trying to understand this camera. Canon A720. I'm guessing I just dont care for the hole take pictures thing never really has been my cup of tea. So when it comes to focus I understand that. Flash, I'm good. the rest of these terms I'm hearing from people I'm lost. I did try to improve the lighting. I took a big box and lined the inside top with tin foil, I cut two large windows in each side and covered them with a white glossy wrapping paper. ( it's used for taking up space in shipping and was free). I used 2 flex clamp lights with 75wt floods and turned off my flash. I have tried to understand this overexpose stuff but my book doesnt' tell me anything about that. So i just pushed some buttons and took the pics. I'll try reading more in the book when i have time.

[Steve Schlumpf]

David - nice looking wood! You need to keep turning that firewood but PLEASE make sure you are wearing some form of breathing protective! Spalted stuff can be nasty!

When it comes to photos - we are all learning. There are a few folks here that really know the ins & outs and I am sure they would be able to answer any of your questions. Tops on my list would be Brian Brown. PM him and see if he can help.

For me - I find that any color in the background effects the color of the turning. A lot of folks have good luck with neutral backgrounds of light gray or even white. Another thing that I found works for me was to change the bulbs I use in the reflectors to Daylight florescents, low wattage - and it helps to keep the natural colors in the image. Regular light bulbs give everything a yellow color.

Couple of areas for you to read in the camera manual is: macro mode, white balance, aperture settings, self timer............. and make sure you use a tripod.

Lots to learn - for all of us!

Meanwhile - keep turning that spalted wood - it's beautiful!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Ditto what Steve said. Wear some breathing protection. Great looking bowl. Keep'em coming.

[Greg Ketell]

I'm better at photography than I am at turning so let me try to help.

The main thing that I see is the over-all red cast. That is most often from using incandescent bulbs and having your camera use "auto" white balance or "day light" white balance. What Steve said is dead on, switch to "daylight" fluorescent bulbs and set the camera to "daylight" mode. That will make a huge difference.

If there are ways you think I can help, let me know.

GK

[Scott Conners]

I adjusted the white balance and sharpened them up a tad, I think these are more neutral but I'm not sure if the color is 100% without some sort of reference
:)

[Don Eddard]

Those look better, Scott. The best reference is the piece itself. If the color of the pics looks like the color of the bowl, then you're good to go. That's some real pretty wood, BTW.

[David Wilhelm]

Steve, Greg and Scott:

SteveI've looked up the things you noted. I'm guessing I need to just try different settings and see what works best? The way the book reads I can set the white for each type of lighting. I am going to try the bulbs you guys said but I want to try and take a pic of the box i'm using so you'll see what i'm doing. If you can give me the exact bulb i need to go buy. These bulbs i got last night are what i got from a link on building a photo tent. may not be the same brand but they are indoor floods like the guy was using. i may have had my shutter speed messed up. I think it was on 1/8, I remember seeing that on the LCD I'm happy that I was already trying to learn what Steve was wanting me to understand It's just not sinking in. I'm using the flower Icon and that's macro mode, I learned that on my first pic. This over/under-exposed shutter speed throw in some white take out some white. GRRRRRRRRRR. Why can't I just email my yucky pics to Scott????? he did a killer job and didnt' even have the bowl or the camera......... This is a joy thanks to you guys!!!. I'll try to get a picture of the box later today........Will

[Steve Schlumpf]

David - I have the Canon PowerShot A70 which is most likely an older version of what you are using. These are the selections I use on the camera - maybe they will help.

Camera dial is set to AV (this allows the Aperture to be changed)

First thing I do once the camera is on the tripod and turned on:

Hit the function button and select:

ISO speed is 50 (on film cameras the ISO setting told you how much light it would take to expose the film - the lower the number, the more light required but the better the film quality. 50 would be considered portrait mode, 2000 would be for very low light settings and very grainy)

Select the 2 second self-timer. Its located in the Drive Mode option. That way the camera quits shaking before taking the photo.

Next thing is to select the light source: I use the Fluorescent H (closest thing to daylight) setting.

I set exposure to Center Weighted Average (tells the camera where to look to get it's light readings to determine what shutter speed to use)

+/- exposure I have set to first point on the plus side of 0....... but this setting is something you can play with and see how it affects the brightness and color saturation.

I then click out of Function Mode, select the Macro Mode and I am ready to take photos.

I would suggest taking a lot of photos with different +/- exposure settings. I wrote the exposure settings down for each test photo and then once I was on the computer I knew which setting provided the best color and light. It will vary a little according to what you are photographing but generally it remains very close to that setting from this point on.

Hope this makes sense. Let me know if I can do anything to help.

[Greg Ketell]

I've seen light tents made of cardboard boxes, wooden dowels, plastic. It all works. The key is you need to be able to have some light spreading material (sheets are often used) where the light is coming from, white on the inside (so the reflection of the non-white doesn't affect the photo), a way to attach a nice background, a nice background, and enough room for what you want to take pictures of.

The next important thing is lighting and "white balance". The easy way is to get "daylight" bulbs, those that put out light in the 5000-5500K (Kelvin) range and then set the camera to "daylight" mode. Those bulbs are available all over the place including at HomeDepot and Walmart, etc. You just have to be careful because many manufacturers go for 6500K and call it "cool daylight" and that will make everything in your photo blue. Here is one source I found: http://www.greenelectricalsupply.com/30-watt-spiral-cfl-day-light.aspx. That is the equivalent of a 100w incandescent bulb. They also have a 42w CFL which is equivalent to a 150w incandescent, if you need more light.

The better way is if your camera supports "custom white balance". The way to do that is to take a picture of a 18% neutral grey card (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/101853-REG/Delta_22030_Gray_Card_8x10_1_.html) and then tell the camera to use that to adjust the white balance. The other benefit to using the grey card is that you can put the camera on "manual" mode, put the grey card in your tent where you object is going to be, set your ISO, shutter-speed, and aperture to match the grey card, remove the grey card and put your bowl/vase/whatever in the tent and take the picture and be assured that the exposure is "perfect".

GK

[David Wilhelm]

Guys thanks a ton. I'll have to kill a few batteries i'm sure before I get much better at it. Steve you and Greg have helped a ton. I've got my pages marked and I'll spend more time with the camera. I stuck some 20wt flouresent bulbs in that i had to see what it looked like. Again thanks for the time you have taken, I'll get the hang of it. Here is what I threw together for a photo tent. It should fold up and store out of sight when not needed.

[Greg Ketell]

Looks really good. There are a couple of improvement you can make if you want.

Using paper blocks a lot of light and you are only using 75w-equivalent bulbs to start with. Either get the 40w CFLs to give more light to penetrate the tent or switch to something more transparent than the paper.

It looks like you have a different cloth as background than you are using as the "under" cloth. If you use a single cloth and have it drape from the top-back down over the base then you will get rid of the seam in the photos.

Just keep playing. You will eventually figure out what works for you and your photos will come out just as you want them to.

GK

[David Wilhelm]

Couple more questions,
I plan on buying a few cuts or cloth for backgrounds when i get things set up. Would a white/offwhite cloth work better for my windows? I'm going to Lowes today and look for more bulbs. I dont think the ones I had here are the Day light bulbs you guys are talking about. Also I have not downloaded the CD that came with my camera. I've just been putting the SD card in my drive and letting the canon program on my PC down load the files. I dont have a tripod yet, If i get one and set it up this will put my camera further away from my bowl and I'm guessing show the box in the picture. If i'm right in my thinking, I will need to edit the picture. This CD should have a program that will do that or will I be able to zoom in and just have the item in my photo? Thanks again for your help.

[Greg Ketell]

Most all light tents are made of nylon cloth so cloth will work great if you get bright white, not too thick, but not too thin either. :rolleyes: "high thread count" sheets/pillow cases work great. Or material like that. You really want uncolored pure white if you can get it. Otherwise get a grey card so you can adjust for the color tint the cloth will cause.

While you are getting cloth, get some backgrounds too. Reds, greys, blues all look good with wood. You want contrast but but not screaming contrast or busy patterns. You want your object d' art to be the focus of the picture, not the background.

A tripod will move it away some. But you can do things to compensate like having two legs forward and one back and have the forward ones short and back leg long. Zoom in and you might be able to get the box out of the picture. If not, software crop, as you say. But a tripod is mandatory for best possible pictures. Use it and the timer so you aren't touching the camera when it shoots and you have no vibration to blur the photo.

GK

[Clara Koss]

both sets of photos show great work on the bowl....the 2nd set of photos show off the great color of the wood... who would have known that turning and photography go hand in hand....:p