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The Dark Room -- Photo Editing and Picture Taking. Advice, tutorials, questions on all things photoshop, photo editing, and taking pictures of beads or glass.

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  #1  
Old 2008-01-20, 11:00pm
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Red face Camera settings are making me dizzy & other questions.

E.V., f/stop, white balance, ISO, Aperature, spot metering...

Sometimes too much information is just too much information. I have done research online and by reading the manual on my camera. I can find out how to set these things on my camera but I cannot find any information as to really what they do and which ones would be good for getting good bead pictures.
Could someone break these down into terms a kindergartener can understand and tell me which functions are the important ones so I can figure out how to set my camera?

I am currently trying to set up an area of my home dedicated to taking bead pictures so I can actually work on improving them. I am using a clear plastic storage container covered in a plastic bag for my photos.

Also I have an ott light as my light source. Is this enough?

Oh and I have a Samsung Digimax 4.0 Mega pixel camera if that's any help.
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Last edited by Bubbyanne; 2008-01-21 at 12:21am.
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  #2  
Old 2008-01-21, 12:10am
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I've never figured out the white balance thing either.

The f/stop I understand. It's the controls the depth of field. I take my pics on Aperture priorty, manual focus and set the depth of field up to 16. That way the whole bead or set of beads is in focus.
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  #3  
Old 2008-01-21, 6:15am
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Some white balance information can be found here..

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...te-balance.htm

You can also use the Google and search White Balance to get some other informative hits.....
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Last edited by kirksglassart; 2008-01-21 at 6:17am.
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  #4  
Old 2008-01-21, 7:00am
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I found this free online book really helpful: Digital Photography Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks
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Old 2008-01-21, 10:24am
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There are five basic things, camera wise, that determine the quality and nature of your images:

ISO - or more appropriately ISO Number. The International Standards Organization (ISO) are the guys that tell us how long a meter is, or how much a gram weighs. The ISO Number is a holdover from film cameras, and describes the relative light sensitivity of film. The higher the number, the less light it takes to get an equivalently "lit" image.

F/stop and aperature - The F/stop is a number that represents the ratio of the lens opening(aperature) to the focal length of the lens(all technical mumbo-jumbo). In practice, it is the size of the opening through the lens, and determines the amount of light entering the lens and the "depth-of-field". Think of depth-of-field as a "focus sandwich" in which the in-focus "meat" sits between two slices of out-of-focus "bread". Adjusting the F/stop changes the "thickness" of the "meat" and allows you to cause the background to be out of focus, in our case, a good thing. The smaller the F/stop number, the larger the aperature opening, and the thinner the "slice" of "meat".

Shutter speed - The nth's of a second that the film is exposed to light.

E.V. - Exposure Value - As it applies to using your camera, adjusting the EV allows you to lighten or darken your image without messing with your aperature or speed settings.

White balance - The light source you use in your photo setup has a color temperature ranging from warm (reddish) in incandescent lamps to cool in fluorescent lamps. While we do a pretty good job of brain-editing what we see, but cameras don't, so you often see images with a color cast in them, red-ish or blue-ish. Back in the day, you would buy your film accordingly... daylight, indoor, or tungsten film, which was formulated for the appropriate lighting. When you set the white balance, you're telling the camera, "This should be white.", and the camera makes the color compensation.

Spot metering - not one of the five, but important nonetheless. Metering determines the combination of F/stop and aperature appropriate for proper exposure. In our typical setup we have a small object sitting in front of a contrasting background, ie a dark bead against a white background or light bead and dark background.

Using the dark bead/light background scenario... area metering will look at most of the scene and determine an "average" light value and set the exposure. Hmmm, mostly light and just a little dark, so the camera will adjust for a brightly lit scene and your bead will be grossly underexposed (dark). Now spot-meter the same scene and the camera will pick a small area(spot) to meter, ie your bead if that's what your metering. The exposure will be set for the lighting on the bead and not an average of the whole scene.

I hope this helped a bit.
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  #6  
Old 2008-01-21, 10:57am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by prairieson View Post
Using the dark bead/light background scenario... area metering will look at most of the scene and determine an "average" light value and set the exposure. Hmmm, mostly light and just a little dark, so the camera will adjust for a brightly lit scene and your bead will be grossly underexposed (dark). Now spot-meter the same scene and the camera will pick a small area(spot) to meter, ie your bead if that's what your metering. The exposure will be set for the lighting on the bead and not an average of the whole scene.
Wow, that's one of the best explanations that I've seen of all those things! But I'm curious, do most digital cameras have a way to spot-meter or do you use an external light meter? I think I'm worried that if I go to manual settings on my camera that I'm going to have trouble figuring out how to set everything. It seems a bit overwhelming.
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  #7  
Old 2008-01-21, 11:05am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Beckah View Post
Wow, that's one of the best explanations that I've seen of all those things! But I'm curious, do most digital cameras have a way to spot-meter or do you use an external light meter? I think I'm worried that if I go to manual settings on my camera that I'm going to have trouble figuring out how to set everything. It seems a bit overwhelming.
The spot metering thing is camera specific, but I think more and more of them are offering that setting. If you do have to manual meter, there are really only two settings to mess with, F/stop and Aperature. And handheld meters offer you a "sliding scale" of settings to choose from for any particular reading. I would take the reading, then select the F/stop and shutter combo with the smallest F/stop number your camera can handle.
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  #8  
Old 2008-01-21, 11:18am
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Thank you Kevan, Jeanne and Judi. I'll be checking out the links!

Thank you John!
This is awesome information and I really appreciate you taking the time to explain everything so clearly for me. I understand a lot more now!


Quote:
Originally Posted by prairieson View Post
There are five basic things, camera wise, that determine the quality and nature of your images:

ISO - or more appropriately ISO Number. The International Standards Organization (ISO) are the guys that tell us how long a meter is, or how much a gram weighs. The ISO Number is a holdover from film cameras, and describes the relative light sensitivity of film. The higher the number, the less light it takes to get an equivalently "lit" image.

F/stop and aperature - The F/stop is a number that represents the ratio of the lens opening(aperature) to the focal length of the lens(all technical mumbo-jumbo). In practice, it is the size of the opening through the lens, and determines the amount of light entering the lens and the "depth-of-field". Think of depth-of-field as a "focus sandwich" in which the in-focus "meat" sits between two slices of out-of-focus "bread". Adjusting the F/stop changes the "thickness" of the "meat" and allows you to cause the background to be out of focus, in our case, a good thing. The smaller the F/stop number, the larger the aperature opening, and the thinner the "slice" of "meat".

Shutter speed - The nth's of a second that the film is exposed to light.

E.V. - Exposure Value - As it applies to using your camera, adjusting the EV allows you to lighten or darken your image without messing with your aperature or speed settings.

White balance - The light source you use in your photo setup has a color temperature ranging from warm (reddish) in incandescent lamps to cool in fluorescent lamps. While we do a pretty good job of brain-editing what we see, but cameras don't, so you often see images with a color cast in them, red-ish or blue-ish. Back in the day, you would buy your film accordingly... daylight, indoor, or tungsten film, which was formulated for the appropriate lighting. When you set the white balance, you're telling the camera, "This should be white.", and the camera makes the color compensation.

Spot metering - not one of the five, but important nonetheless. Metering determines the combination of F/stop and aperature appropriate for proper exposure. In our typical setup we have a small object sitting in front of a contrasting background, ie a dark bead against a white background or light bead and dark background.

Using the dark bead/light background scenario... area metering will look at most of the scene and determine an "average" light value and set the exposure. Hmmm, mostly light and just a little dark, so the camera will adjust for a brightly lit scene and your bead will be grossly underexposed (dark). Now spot-meter the same scene and the camera will pick a small area(spot) to meter, ie your bead if that's what your metering. The exposure will be set for the lighting on the bead and not an average of the whole scene.

I hope this helped a bit.
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Old 2008-01-21, 12:24pm
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Great explanations, John, thank you SO much! This is very very helpful.
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Old 2008-01-21, 7:01pm
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I'm saving the info John. Thank-you very much.
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  #11  
Old 2008-01-21, 7:13pm
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More on the white balance:

An Ott light simulates natural, outdoor sunlight. Most digital cameras have settings for different types of light, probably including a sun for bright outdoor light, a cloud for dim outdoor light, a lightbulb for incandescent light (indoor light), maybe even something for fluorescent light. If you're using one of these presets, try the sun, since the color of the light from the Ott light is similar to sunlight. Most digital cameras also give you a way to set the white balance manually, by telling the camera what white looks like. You'll have to read the manual to know which buttons to press, but what you'll do is set up the lighting conditions that you want to use for your picture, then put something that's pure white in front of the camera and let the camera focus on it. When you push the right buttons to set the white balance, you're telling the camera that "this is what white looks like," so from that information, the camera can figure out what all the other colors should look like. If you use the "sunlight" pre-set with your Ott light and your pictures still come out with a funny color cast (too blue or too yellow), try getting a white card or a white cloth and doing a custom white balance setting.

For what it's worth, I tried taking some pictures with just my Ott light, and I didn't think it was enough light, but you should give yours a try and see what you think.

You didn't mention whether you would be using a tripod. If you're not using a tripod, you should figure out some way to have the camera sitting on the table or something. Taking this sort of picture requires a really slow shutter speed (OK, it's still fractions of a second, but in photo terms it's really slow). Just the small wobble from the camera being held in a human hand is enough to mess up the focus. Your camera probably has a timer function, so that you can press the button and the shutter won't actually go off for two seconds or ten seconds. Use that function, so the jiggling in the camera from you pushing the button doesn't mess up the focus, too.
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  #12  
Old 2008-02-01, 4:21pm
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Wow, I'm so glad you asked this question and got some great answers! It's the same stuff I have been trying to grasp. I'm printing this out too. You all explained it in a way that even I can understand.
Thanks from me too!
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