Light Tent

[Whaler]

My old light tent fell apart about a year ago and I have been meaning to build one. To many other things on the do list so I broke down and ordered one. It came yesterday and I have been playing with it today.
Here is a pic of my setup and a few test pics. The lighting is 3 27 watt photo correct CFLs.
All comments and suggestions are welcomed.

 

[JohnGreco]

Cool! Maybe it's just me, but do the pens feel a little overexposed? The other 2 shots look great imho.

 

[butchf18a]

Agree, pens slightly overexposed. This is common issue with a white background. If your camera allows for it, adjust your white balance or EV= -1/3 should go long way towards compensating for all the white of the background.

3 lights may be bit of overkill as well. Even though they are not big powerful units, their combine effect against white background may be a little over-powering. Reduce output on one if possible, or eliminate it altogether.

Have you ever played with HDR effects?

I do like your composition on the pens, simple and emphasizes the pen.

jmoicbw-bidi

 

[butchf18a]

went back and looked at the set-up pic. you definitely have a camera where you can make the suggested adjustments.

butch

 

[Whaler]

I agree with your comments on the exposure and appreciate the suggestions. Looks like we will still be snowed in tomorrow so I'll play with it some more.

 

[RSidetrack]

Looking good so far. The exposure issue is the hardest part in my opinion. First thing, make sure you set up for your custom WB. The funny thing about that is you have to maintain the same lighting and exposure for every shot otherwise things start looking bluish If you change anything, reset the custom WB. Your camera looks like it should have that sort of setting.

The other thing, does your camera have an AUTO EV setting? On mine, a Digital Rebel, it has the ability to shoot 7 photos. -3,-2,-1,0,+1,+2,+3 for the same shot (I believe it is called bracket shooting). I like this feature because I can then pick the one that is best exposed to work with. Though I do still run into minor WB issues

 

[Cherie]

I agree with the lighting advise they are giving you, but if you also change the background color, it will change the way your pictures look all together. I try to put dark on light backgrounds and light on dark backgrounds. Do not know if this makes since to you or not.

 

[76winger]

Not to be critical, but to offer some observations to help you get dialed in:

The non-pen photos have a larger mass which kept the white background from throwing off the meeter so far.

Actually, the white background would have caused the pens to come out UNDER exposed, so I think something in the setup is already compensating for it, but it's over-compensating.

I've commented in a couple other threads where a medium gray has worked out pretty good for me, even after a lot or experimenting with manual settings and bracketing exposures to figure it out. Keep working at it to find what works best for you.

Also check your focus, and consider going to a higher F# on your aperture setting to get a greater depth of field. Notice on the Marksman pen how the top of the cap is in focus, but the final is blurry. This indicates you've got a really open (low number) aperture setting, which causes a very shallow depth of field. With the tripod, you should be able to bump it up to around f16-18 and be OK with the slower shutter speeds, )just be sure to use the timer to shot the shot so you don't wiggle the camera pressing the button...).