Photographer people help please

[Guest]

I have been trying out the "Box" on various objects and each piece has been illuminated with beautiful white light ! and sat on white card beneath and behind.

But every thing is coming out YELLOW!

any ideas? or is my little camera f8*^%43D

[Guest]

Not at all Hugh. It is a colour balance issue. If the lamps you are using have the traditional bulb, the colour of the light is quite red which gives a yellow cast. Our brain filters this out so we do not see it. If your camera has a White Balance setting, you need to set it to Tungsten, usually illustrated with a glowing bulb icon.

The other thing to remember is that if the inside of the box is brown cardboard then any light bouncing about inside would take on that colour. I doubt that is the problem but a coat of white poster paint inside the box would help.

If you do not have a white balance setting on your camera (I have not come across one that hasn't) then you will need to adjust the final colour temperature using software. Usually there is a slider for this depending on which software you use. If you use Photoshop, you can also use the 'remove colour cast' feature where by clicking the eyedropper on something in the picture that is neutral grey or white, it will do it for you.

[stona]

I'm not a photographer but have worked with the video end of things (with,not for...I'm no expert) but that seems to be a white balance problem. It's to do with the colour temperature of the lights you are using. Some cameras allow you to set the white balance. Maybe someone else would know more about this,not difficult! Maybe a bit of googling would bring something up?

Sorry I can't be of more assistance.

Good luck with it.

Steve

Excellent, I see Graham is obviously a bit more savvy about this stuff!

[Guest]

Would using those 'daylight' bulbs help the situation? Perhaps they would give a whiter white if you see what I mean!

[Guest]

Daylight bulbs will help but if you use lamps with odd screw or bayonet, you may not be able to get them. It should be correctable using white balance (don't leave on auto, select tungsten)

This is a one click correction in Photoshop by creating a levels layer and using the white eye dropper, i clicked on what I assumed is a white base. Not perfect but for one click it certainly gets close.

[John]

You can get daylight (colour 860) in BC and ES try and get the brightest you can, you shouldn't have any problems getting 30w compact fluorescent which is equivalent to about 150w in a standard lamp and use at least one at each side to stop shadows, no need to have one on the top, CPC do these which are quite good and you have either blue or grey screen to take pictures against.

[Guest]

It's your white balance that's giving you hard time.

Now to get over this what you need to is read your manual and find out how to set a "custom white balance" as you can tell the camera what is white.

In most cases take a photo of a sheet of A4 under the light condition that you're going to use, this is where you will need your manual to find out how use that photo to set the white balance.

Camera details

Make?

model?

let me know the above and I might be able to help you a bit more.

Regards

David

[John]

Just a thought if you can shoot using RAW then do so and you can make a lot of changes using your PC

[Guest]

:wow:what a wealth of knowledge, thanks for that everyone I will have a play tommorow, oh its a little casio exilim EX-Z750, I have found the settings for the various white balance and will give it another go tommorow.

Thanks again top stuff

[Guest]

Hi m8



A few more things to think about.



Lighting is key, so if possible have your item to photograph angled facing a window to get as much natural light on it as possible. You can also cover cardboard in foil to use as a cheap reflector and bounce natural are artificial light off it, which can then be positioned pending the angle you want the light coming from.



If the camera has a built in flash you can use this to good effect by placing various thickness white paper over it to dull the glare, seeing which gives best results.



Now looking at your actual camera, when taking pictures or stuff close up try not to zoom more than the 3x optical or the digital just starts cropping the picture, and it can start to look grainy.



As for camera settings, try the following.



Set the camera in macro mode.



Set the focus to 'spot'



You have several artificial light white modes so try all of them and see which comes out best, and then if need be, adjustments can be made in photoshop later.



You can also change the aperture, but looking at the manual its only f2.8 or f4 so set it to f4.



Most of all its just snap away trying different things, till it looks ok, then write down the settings for next time.

Don

[Guest]

Thanks everyone I am getting some better results now not perfect but good enough :-) Its mainly because I am selling some dinky etc toys off to help pay for some of the Kits i want LOL !

[Guest]

Hi again

if its just odd bits, your best bet is do it in the garden, as the light is much better.

[Guest]

Garden is still full of snow !!! on second thoughts all that white light may be of some use LOL !

No seriously thanks for the help evryone

[Guest]

No probs, it's what we are here fore :-)