The Moore Pen

[Tojusi]

White balance means basically the color of light - is real life white really white in the picture; is a neutral gray really gray? Human eyes are quite good at fixing the white balance without us realizing it. For example, on a sunny day in summer, with lots of grass around, and under the leaves of trees - a white paper will still appear white to human eye. But when a photo of that page is taken (without adjustment) and then later viewed, there may well be a distinct green tint to the page. It does not appear white.

 

Some cameras therefore have white balance adjustment. There can be various in-built settings one can choose - such as sunny day, cloudy day, fluorescent light. and so on. These are inbuilt approximations that may result in an OK picture.

 

There may also be the possibility of setting the white balance manually on the camera. For this purpose, one would purchase a gray card which is a neutral gray card. White balance is then set by pointing the camera at the card and pressing set or whatever the camera manual provides as the procedure.

 

Using a gray card is sensible if the light does not constantly change. For example, when taking pictures of a pen / pens in the box like Cronos did, the light is not changing constantly. Setting the white balance once for that session is enough.

 

If there is no white balance adjustment on the camera, it can be done in postprocessing on the computer, depending on image manipulation software. Taking a picture of the gray card is used for this. The program can obtain the adjustment values from that picture, which can then be generally applied to a batch of pictures resulting in uniform white balance adjustment across a photo session.

[Cryptos]

Who is this 'Cronos' of whom you speak, hmmm?

 

Anyway, good info there. I will have a look at the camera menu thingy and see if there's something that looks like a 'white balance' setting. At my school I have access to the full photoshop suite (though I mainly use Illustrator) so I should be able to figure out the grey card balance matching whatsit.

 

Will give it a go.

[linearM]

Just look at the function menu on your camera. Usually you see a symbol for clouds, sun, incandescent light bulb, and florescent light so you just have to set that to whatever your light source is.

[Cryptos]

Is that still applicable if the light is passing through a material that diffuses the light?

[KBeezie]

You just reminded me I need to take shots of my Moore 94A.

 

Speaking of point and shoots and trying to get studio style lighting out of them.

 

I tend to try to set everything as manually as possible. The last point and shoot I had prior to the little olympus tough I have now (which is not used for taking pics of my pens or anything I'd want of controlled quality as it has no manual mode) was something like a Canon Powershot A110, very cheap, but at the ability to set aperture priority, shutter priority or full manual.

 

But because of that, I was able to set it on manual mode, set the shutter and aperture according to the strobes I had (was only using it because my DSLR's battery died), and turned on the built in flash, which was enough to trigger the strobes optically.

 

Point is, your S4000 has Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual shooting mode, which is plenty sufficient to handle most table top situations.

 

1) Tripod is pretty much a must, especially if you're just using lamps, LED panels, etc. Tripod shooting will for the most part make most automatic shooting modes ore usable (especially if shutter speeds fall below handheld capability).

 

2) Manually set the white balance such as to tungsten or daylight. You can pick up a pair of Sylvania 6500K daylight CFL bulbs from a place like Lowes for about $14 USD that are 100wat equiv, however I don't know if you have anything like that in New Zealand. Full daylight balanced bulbs will render fuller color with the picture. While it's true you can just set the white balance for a warmer bulb, the colors won't appear quite as rich since less of the color spectrum is being reflected back at the camera.

 

3) If you use a shooting mode, use P (no not for "professional", for "program" ), it automatically decides the shutter and aperture settings for you, but you can dictate most of the other functions like white balance, ISO (lower is better for quality, but may require a tripod), color effects and such (usually stick with natural if it's an option), etc.

 

4) If you do use bright lamps try holding a sheet of white paper near the object, sort of blocking the path of light between the lamp and the object. This will help diffuse glare and harsh shadows as the light spreads across the paper or sheet.

 

Ideally something like this for around $30-40 USD may uncomplicate things a bit:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Polaroid-Studio-Lights-Carrying-Backdrops/dp/B0057OX3JY/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1421041438&sr=1-2&keywords=photo+studio+light+tent+kit

 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71QzU2WASqL._SX522_.jpg

 

Especially if it comes with a little tripod to hold your light weight point and shoot.

 

  On 1/12/2015 at 4:34 AM, Cryptos said:

Is that still applicable if the light is passing through a material that diffuses the light?

The brighter the white paper, the more applicable it will be. The point to manually setting the white balance is consistency, so it's not changing from one shot to the next making it more difficult to correct a series of pictures for a minor color shift. Also since you're using a P&S you'll be able to see the colors on the screen as you change the settings.

Edited January 12, 2015 by KBeezie

[Cryptos]

Erm, thanks Karl, that set up is pretty much the same as the one I linked to in THIS thread!

 

Other than that I am not sure I understand one word in ten of the rest of your post - it's not you, I know you are super with the camera. It's me, I to have search for the button that makes the camera take a picture AND remember to point the camera in the right direction. On the plus side I do know what a camera is, so there is that I suppose.

 

Oh, I had another look on the body of the thing and it says COOLPIX4300. No idea what exactly that indicate...

 

I don't have a tripod. I had the camera on the same (almost) level as the pen. Set the timer, pressed the button thingy and stepped away. I didn't even switch off the overhead fluorescent light - don't know how much of a difference that makes. All the other light was from the Fenix LD22 - it only puts out 190 lumens though.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Cryptos

[KBeezie]

  On 1/12/2015 at 7:17 AM, Cryptos said:

Erm, thanks Karl, that set up is pretty much the same as the one I linked to in THIS thread!

The polaroid one pretty much always pops up when someone google's light tent, but meant that idea in general least for anyone curious. I suppose you can always use a small laundry hamper with nylon white sides and just sit it on it's side and do the same thing.

 

  On 1/12/2015 at 7:17 AM, Cryptos said:

Other than that I am not sure I understand one word in ten of the rest of your post - it's not you, I know you are super with the camera. It's me, I to have search for the button that makes the camera take a picture AND remember to point the camera in the right direction. On the plus side I do know what a camera is, so there is that I suppose.

 

Oh, I had another look on the body of the thing and it says COOLPIX4300. No idea what exactly that indicate...

I'm assuming you understand white balance (if you already know, I apologize in advance for assuming you didn't). More of a perception of what is white. Indoors with yellow-ish lights we tend to see a white sheet of paper and know for the most part that it is white, even if the lighting reflecting off it is warmer, but take a picture and view it on the screen and it will seem yellow if the camera was thinking it was daylight. (Daylight/Natural 6500 Kelvin as opposed to Cool White, 5000K, or Soft Warm around 3000K).

 

As far as the shooting modes, your camera the 4300 doesn't exactly set it up like most other cameras. Meaning you don't have PASM (Prgram/Aperture Priority/Shutter Priority/Manual), instead they throw all that stuff under the "Manual" mode instead of Auto, Scene or Movie.

 

Manual mode on your camera is essentially the same thing as "Program" on most other cameras, as yours has no way to manually set the shutter (duration of exposure) or aperture (how wide the 'eye/iris' opens, the 4300 only has two aperture ranges anyways), but you can at least change the white balance and ISO there.

 

  On 1/12/2015 at 7:17 AM, Cryptos said:

I don't have a tripod. I had the camera on the same (almost) level as the pen. Set the timer, pressed the button thingy and stepped away. I didn't even switch off the overhead fluorescent light - don't know how much of a difference that makes. All the other light was from the Fenix LD22 - it only puts out 190 lumens though.

I think depending on how bright all the light sources are, they can cause light pollution depending on what the light balance is set for. For example if you have overhead fluorescents, and you have daylight balanced bulbs on the side and the camera is set to Sunny or Daylight, then you might get a green cast on the picture due to the fluorescents.

 

I usually turn off all light sources except the ones I'm shooting with, and I make sure all the bulbs I'm using for the scene are of the same color temperature.

 

When I'm using strobes or flashes I usually don't worry about what other lights are on, because the settings I use with the strobes would cause the picture to be pitch-black if the flash didn't fire, even with the room light on.

[Cryptos]

Okay, much appreciated.

 

It would be fair to say I didn't have a clue about any of that, but some of it makes sense - a little anyway.I'll have a bit of a play around over the next few weeks and see what I get. I may even pop into a local camera shop and see what's what (bit of a scary trip that'll be given the extraordinary depth of my ignorance).

[linearM]

If you don't have your camera manual you might check this out to help understand the controls on your camera:http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/CP4300/C43A.HTM#design. You will see that using the menu you can see what the color balance is set at and make adjustments according to your light source.