help with bad photography

shot outdoors

e

>same camera shot outdoors in natural light. Color quality is good to the work.

Re: shot outdoors

Joe Herrmann

>I no photography expert, but I do know that incandescent light can play havoc with the camera and the resulting photo. There is a way to balance the lighting but I'm not that good at it. I'm sure that others will/can offer an explanation and can give you some direction.

Regards,

Joe

Re: shot outdoors

David Hammond, in Powder Springs GA

>I'm still very new to the photography, but try some tungsten bulbs and tungsten film in a dark room. The main reason I responded though was your peice - I love it! Very nice looking, inviting texture.

David

Re: help with bad photography

Russ Fairfield

>My photos are not the finest quality, but there are a few things that I have learned that may be helpful. The experts will tell me that I am crazy, but these things have worked for me.

The most significant improvement in my pictures, both film and digital, was when I realized that mixed lighting sources were causing my color problems. For some reason, I have never seen this discussed in any of the photo tutorials.

When using artificial lighting from whatever source, it must be 100%, without any infiltration from sunlight. To do that, I use the lighting at night with no other light source, and pull the shades on the windows. Mixing even a small amount of sunlight with the artificial lighting can upset the coloring of the digital or film to where it is impossible to correct it with a photo editor software.

The pink color in your background is what I got when I had a mixture of articicial and daylight.

It is easier to get a good color balance from a halogen shop light than an a common incandescent lightbulb.

The high priced blue bulbs from the photo shop are worth their cost. The light is "white", the color balance is the best I can get, and daylight film and filters can be used.

But, there are still those times when the golden coloring from a plain light bulb is desireable.

I have chosen to use three (3) adjustable light stands with white umbrellas instead of building the "light tent" that a lot of woodturners are using. I can use the umbrella as either a reflector or a filter, I have better control of the light than I ever did with a "tent", and I can take pictures of everything from very small to very large with the same equipment.

thanks

e

>thanks joe, david, and russ

i'll have to start scrouging up some better shop lights ... i did have mixed light source with some sunlight and the incandescent source.

also, i'll have to find my camera's manual because the auto setting produced lousy pictures and i wasn't familar with options in manual mode ... playing around with the setting, i got color from gold to grey ... guess i need to apply "rtfm" to myself.

Re: help with bad photography

Charles Bjorgen

>As others have suggested, you are experiencing problems of the difference in color temperature between daylight and incandescent light sources. If you are using color film balanced for daylight, your photos will naturally show an overall redness when using artificial light. Think of daylight as having a color temperature at the blue end of the color spectrum and artificial light sources at the red/orange end. These differences are normally expressed in degrees Kelvin with daylight around 58,000 degrees and artificial at around 3200 degrees Kelvin. Mixing the two light souces in a single photo will naturally cause an odd color shift depending on the strengths of the two light sources.

The simply solution, of course, is to use daylight for daylight film, or artificial light for artificial light film. Fluorescent light creates a whole different set of problems. I'd recommend avoiding fluorescents for now.