Photo Advice Needed

[kevrob]

Hello all:

After being in a pen turning slump for a few months, I finally had a pen turn out and was able to try my hand again at getting some photos. I am trying to work on my photo skills, but feel I have a long way to go. I built a photo box with the recommended bulbs and have been playing around for the last few weeks. Attached are two photos, one that is untouched....downloaded from the camera and cropped and the second (with the description of the pen) is touched up a bit. I posted both so you could see the original. What can I do to get better pictures? I played around with the F stop and shutter speed a bit - the untouched one was the best I could get given my limited knowledge of the camera. We have a Nikkon D80 if that helps.

Thanks in advance. (please feel free to give me advice on my pen turning skills too - I am a newbie
Kevin

 

[G1Pens]

IMHO you have too much light coming from behind the pen making it appear too dark. I think the lighting needs to be moved forward. Assuming you have it on the sides of the lightbox you need to move it to the front of the setup. Look at the metal highlights on the pen and you will see that the center (front reflection) is very dark. Looks like the lights are on the sides and maybe even or slightly in front of the pen. I think you need more light on the entire pen.

Also, you may just need to increase your exposure. If you are taking the picture on an automatic setting, the camera will overcompensate for the light background and underexpose the pen. I us Canon cameras and am not familiar with the Nikons, but you should have a way to increase exposure when on automatic by up to 2 f-stops. The setting may be on a dial but is more likely in a menu somewhere. I would suggest setting it at +1. This will lighten the entire picture. The setting is usually adjustable in 1/2 or 1/3 f-stops. Start at +1 and adjust from there. (The higher the + number, the lighter the exposure will be.

 

[Nate Davey]

I would adjust you setting as G1pens mentioned. The photo attached, was taken without flash or lighting other than my shop fluorescent tube. I set my aperture at 8, the largest mine goes to. This opens up the lens and give you greater depth of field and really shows off the grain. Because I am shooting with only my overhead shop lights, the shutter needs to stay open longer, so I set my shutter speed for 1/3 of a second. With the shutter open that long, you cant hold the camera you need a rest of some sort and I use the remote to take the picture so I don't move the camera. If the picture is too dark I slow down the shutter speed, too light I speed it up. I usually bracket my pictures by taking shots and moving the shutter speed on each, then picking the one I like. One other thing to consider is shooting in RAW. This allows you about two stops of aperture you can recover in editing if it is too dark. Too bright there's not much you can do.

Hope I wasn't insulting you intelligence.

 

[Rmartin]

I'm just in a learning stage too, so take this for what it's worth.

I've found that adding more light doesn't help like you think it should. The thing is, you've probably already got enough light, although like the others have said, you may need to move it forward a bit.

Try changing your white balance settings. See if you can set a custom white balance with your camera. As the others have said, increase your exposure settings. This will really improve the lighting.

 

[kevrob]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I have "attempted" it again. I have decided that the Nikon D80 is too damn complicated.

I switched around the lighting and played with the settings a bit as suggested. The attached photo had very little, except some cropping, done to it. What are your thoughts? ANY suggestions to remove the shadow at the top of the pen? I tried moving the lights everywhere and this was the best I could get. Any further suggestions on the camera settings?

Thanks in advance!
Kevin

 

[76winger]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I have "attempted" it again. I have decided that the Nikon D80 is too damn complicated.

I switched around the lighting and played with the settings a bit as suggested. The attached photo had very little, except some cropping, done to it. What are your thoughts? ANY suggestions to remove the shadow at the top of the pen? I tried moving the lights everywhere and this was the best I could get. Any further suggestions on the camera settings?

Thanks in advance!
Kevin

Like anything complicated, once you find the settings you need to use regularly it'll become much easier to repeat your efforts.

Lighting is much better, my thoughts would lean toward focus next, it seems just "slightly" off to me.

 

[gketell]

What you are seeing on the top of the pen is the bright light, then the far background. If you want it all "evenly" bright then put white in front of and above the pen and put a light onto that. It will create a "wall of light" that will be a white reflection on the pen.

Some tents have all six sides covered in white with just a porthole to put the lens in. Then any reflection is white.

 

[widows son]

Try this on your D-80

Thanks for the feedback so far. I have "attempted" it again. I have decided that the Nikon D80 is too damn complicated.

I switched around the lighting and played with the settings a bit as suggested. The attached photo had very little, except some cropping, done to it. What are your thoughts? ANY suggestions to remove the shadow at the top of the pen? I tried moving the lights everywhere and this was the best I could get. Any further suggestions on the camera settings?

Thanks in advance!
Kevin

I checked another D-80 that I tweaked for a friend using my D-200. Here's the set-up

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Set the exposure compensation to -0.7 by holding the +/- button by turning the rear dial two clicks to the right. You have to adjust this depending on the subject. Look at the image on the LCD and click it towards the left (+) to lighten the image, and to the right (-) to darken it for the next shot. Trying several exposures
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]For WB, start with Auto. If it looks different when you view it I would suspect it's the monitor on your computer not the camera. Nikon WB is usually dead on.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I would bracket + 2 f-stops on your pens.
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Other tweaks you can try



[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I think Color Mode 111A and Saturation set to "+" looks better than the defaults.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Use Matrix metering
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