posted
After finishing the Rainforest Mural this week a friend and I photographed it. We tried to account for the darkness of the room, and used the hologen lights I had there, but the pictures came out dark and the color way off. I did my best to fix them in Photo Shop, but they are still dark, the color is off and the details are lacking. Any advice on photographing this better? Any advice on photographing ANY work will be helpfull to all of us here...since there are different types of work and all need different techniques I imagine...windows, walls, outdoors, indoors, shiney surfaces, 3-dementional, etc. Adrienne
------------------ Adrienne Morgan Splash Signs www.splashsigns.com "Rainkatt' on mirc chat
A PROUD sponsor of this amazing site...U can B 2!! www.letterheads.com/supporters "If it wasn't for signs, you wouldn't know where you were!!"
posted
Hi Adrienne. The type of conditions that you are photographing in, and the method of lighting, should determine your choice of film. Generally, a film with a higher ASA rating will give you better results in this sort of atmosphere. I'd suggest you try a film with at least a 400 ASA rating, and remember to adjust the camera to reflect the fact that you are using a "faster film".
The one drawback is, the faster film that you use, the "grainier" the image you will get. ASA 100 is the type of film sold for general use and is good under sunny conditions and outdoor natural lighting. You can get films up to and beyond ASA 800, but these are mostly available in photographic stores only.
------------------ Ken Henry Henry & Henry Signs London, Ontario Canada (519) 439-1881 e-mail kjmlhenry@home.
Some days you get to be the dog....other days, you get to be the fire hydrant.
posted
Depending on you camera complexity and its options, there are a lot of ways to help this. In the case of your dark photo with the helper halogens. If you have focused on a light area that is perhaps refracting a lot of light back into the camera lens's metering devices it gets a fake overall reading causing the lens to squint like your eye would to a lot of light. The film or digital card will then record a dark picture, because it can't see through a squinted eye either. The fixes for this are several. One, to point the halogens away from the subject, thus causing an even, indirect lighting to the subject. You have seen this with white umbrellas used to seperate the light rays into a more evenly lighted room. Actually something like a white sheet will spread it around quite a bit. Another fix for many cameras is to focus and push the button half way down while it is trying to focus and hold the lens towards a darker area of the subject. It will meter that area and fake your camera lens into thinking that it needs to have its eyes wide open thus slowing the lens time down and allowing the picture to expose slower making it lighter in contrast. The other thing most cameras have is a choice of +1,+2,-1,-2 F stops which opens and closes the lens for special lighting, thus fakeing it out on the lighting. In your case, it will be correcting incorrect metering of light by your camera.....Now after all that, I would first try indirect lighting and a focus and metering on a lighter area (light wall above or to the side) then aim the camera back to the mural and with the button still half depressed, take the shot. Digital and SLR (Standard) cameras, both operate much the same on this issue..... A good example is when you shoot towards the sun or a light in a room it will make everything dark and silouette it. The camera is doing the same thing that your eye would do it the same situation, but our eyes won't handle the manual overide very well. Good luck, Bronzeo
------------------ Jack Davis 1410 Main St Joplin, MO 64801 www.imagemakerart.com bronzeo@prodigy.net http://www.imagemakerart.com
Posts: 1549 | From: Joplin, MO | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Adrienne, Your color is thrown off with the halogen lights, they may 'appear' to the eye as a very white light but are not very good for use with digital cameras, they are too 'warm' in their color temp and makes for a yellow/orange cast on everything. Daylight Flourescent tubes do pretty well, better color anyway. Photo Flood bulbs work better and can be used in most portable 'drop-light' type fixtures, these bulbs can be found at most photo/camera stores for around $6 each. Your next concern would be in how you approach your enhancements in PhotoShop, use 'Gamma' controls when possible in place of 'lightness' controls and then bump up the contrast, most of the time 'auto-equalize' will give good color results if there is a broad range of colors in the shot, if there is a limited range of color it's best to selectively enhance the color and then use the unsharp mask feature as your last action to sharpen the detail. We've used digital photography for over two years for product shots and the above is a brief overview of our proceedure. You stated you were using a cheap digital camera, even that is more than enough for web images if you get the lighting right in the first step.
------------------ Larry
Elliott Design McLemoresville, Tn.
If you can't find the time to do it right, where gonna find the time to do it over?
Posts: 486 | From: McLemoresville, TN. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
Adrienne, Cisco here. I would just use 400 sp film. Have a tripod for best results, and on your flash tilt it up at a 45-60 degree angle and bounce your flash to where you want to shoot. or aim straight with your flash, put a white tissue over the flash to knock down some of the direct burst of flash and get your results. reflectors are also good to use if you have them....
------------------ "surf" Cheryl Nordby Signs by Cheryl 206 300-0153 Seattle Washington
posted
Adrienne, for the longest time we used a simple sureshot camera for all of our sign photos. And wondered why our photos never did our work justice. One night some #@&%*(@$ stole the camera from my truck. I went to an actual camera store and bought a nice 35mm Nikon. The salesman was great and tought me how to use all the bells and whistles. We have taken 2 rolls with it so far and they have all turned out great . Good photography is an art, shutter speed, aperature, F-stop, film speed, lighting, etc. To get the perfect picture all variables must be right. I would like to take a class to understand it all better.
posted
Adrienne, I've used a manually adjustable 35mm Canon AT-1 for a long time. They may not be made anymore. Anyway, I have always used the fastest film I could get; anywhere from ASA800 to 1600, no flash even indoors, and gotten better than passable results. I also think the graininess that goes with fast film is pretty much a thing of the past. Good luck.
------------------ Bill Preston Fly Creek, N.Y. USA signpntr@capital.net
Posts: 943 | From: Fly Creek, N.Y. USA | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
I use a Cannon EOS Rebel-X with 800 film speed for my indoor shots ( like the cathedral pictures in my BB posts)
Digital cameras, in my opinion, are not up to the quality of picture compared to the price of the camera yet. $350 for a Cannon as opposed to $900 for digital for less quality
------------------ Go Get 'Em..... :) AKA Raptorman on #Letterheads mIRC Chat Draper The Signmaker Bloomington Illinois USA
Proud 2-yr. $upporter of this Web Site (May 1999-May 2001)
Posts: 2883 | From: Bloomington Illinois USA | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
As mentioned earlier photo floods would be the way to go but you could try it without adding any light first by using a tripod. The faster your lens, the faster shutter speed you can use. This type of shooting may be a bit much for autoexposure. Use the largest aperature you can, meter off of your open palm and open up 1 stop. This really does work ! You should also bracket your shots, with print film that would be 1 stop over and under.
Also bear in mind that all print films will have a color bias. Fuji leans towards greens for example and the developer plays an even greater role. I am really impressed with Kodak's new Gold line. Very saturated but you could always tone it down with your software.
If you still have trouble and the mural could be a major sales tool it wouldn't hurt to have a pro step in. I'm not a pro but if I was there I would step in with my Bronica medium format camera and give you a super sharp image you could enlarge to ample proportions. Or you could stop by with the mural...
------------------ "hooked on fonix" Olympia WA
Posts: 797 | From: Olympia, WA | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thanks everyone for your advice, altho I'm not sure I understand any of it!! haha, I will at least try 400 speed when i get a chance, and earlier in the day for more natural light. this one I may just hire professional for, I think it would be worth the expence. But I will certainly file this info for later referance when i can try it out. Adrienne
------------------ Adrienne Morgan Splash Signs www.splashsigns.com "Rainkatt' on mirc chat
A PROUD sponsor of this amazing site...U can B 2!! www.letterheads.com/supporters "If it wasn't for signs, you wouldn't know where you were!!"
. Good photography is an art, shutter speed, aperature, F-stop, film speed, lighting, etc. To get the perfect picture all variables must be right. I would like to take a class to understand it all better.
Printer-friendly view of this topic