Longifolium: New photo set up.

[orcoholic]

The plant is a beauty. The pic is great too. Well focused ant the composition is terrific. It is, however overexposed and there are a few hot spots.

The hot spots (the washed out round white spots on the pouch) are caused by the flash. To eliminate these you need to ditch the flash, or not have it flash directly on the plant.

The overexposure is caused by the camera being tricked by the black background. When the camera meter reads the scene it "averages" the amount of light. Because a lot of the scene is black, it causes the camera to overexpose the lighter parts. To avoid this, you have a couple of options.

The first is too shoot with a tripod and no flash (using the lights you have). You can fool around with where to put the lights. You get even lighting over the flowers (no hot spots). The tripod is needed to steady the camera because you may have long shutter times.

To meter the scene you can get an 18% gray card. It's available at any photo store or on line. Hold that up in front of the scene and read the metering (shutter and f stop) through the camera. Manually set those settings and the photo will be exposed properly.

Another way to meter the flowers is to set your camera on spot metering. Aim the center spot in the viewfinder at a middle tone in the plant. Record the f stop and shutter speed and set them manually.

In all instances shoot one picture at the settings you read, one at one stop above and one at one stop below the recommended settings. It's called bracketing and will compensate for any problems with the metering.

 

[Erythrone]

Michel, quel sorte de Canon as-tu?? Travailles-tu en mode auromatique, priorité d'ouverture (Aperture = Av)?

 

[Shiva]

Michel, quel sorte de Canon as-tu?? Travailles-tu en mode auromatique, priorité d'ouverture (Aperture = Av)?

Canon PowerShot A560. I use both automatic or manual settings and I'm still finding new useful functions after a couple of years using it. It's actually a pretty good camera with 7,2 megapix. I also use PhotoPad editor for tweaking the pics on my computer. Pretty good too and simple to use and also free.

 

[cnycharles]

canon has photo editing software that's pretty good, what I use for my pics. it came on a disk with the camera, think it has mac and windows versions

 

[Erythrone]

Do you use Evaluative, Center-Weighted, and Spot metering options when you shoot in manual or semi automatic mode ? That camera can do this.

It also has exposure compensation increments. Do you use them?

 

[Shiva]

canon has photo editing software that's pretty good, what I use for my pics. it came on a disk with the camera, think it has mac and windows versions

The problem is I changed from a 32 bits to a 64 bits Duo Core processor computer and the program didn't work on the new computer with Windows 7. Tried to get a new driver for Win 7 and couldn't. I heard somewhere that Canon will give an upgrade as long as you buy a new camera. Not sure this is true though. I then found PhotoPad editor and I'm quite satisfied with it for now.

Lise. I found that out in this thread. I will try it.

 

[SlipperFan]

Two lights with white translucent umbrellas up front and one back light without umbrella. The fluorescent bulbs that came with the set up don't light up the scene enough so the flash filled in with too much light. I need to move to brighter bulbs and disable the internal flash on my camera. A large piece of black cloth and a white piece also came in with the set. I stapled the black cloth to a wall and I will do the same with the white cloth to the adjacent wall (one side of a corner black and the other white), which should give me two different backgrounds without having to move the lamps too much.

I'm not sure I understand -- are you shooting the light through the umbrellas? If so, I would agree with the comment that you might try setting them a little closer to your subject. I also agree that you should disable the camera's internal flash -- it rather negates the quality of light your umbrellas should give you. Also, if you are using flash, there is nothing like a manual setting on your camera and a flash meter. They aren't all that expensive, and can take the guesswork out of exposure.

 

[raymond]

salut Michel quelle est la largeur de la fleur

 

[Shiva]

I'm not sure I understand -- are you shooting the light through the umbrellas? If so, I would agree with the comment that you might try setting them a little closer to your subject. I also agree that you should disable the camera's internal flash -- it rather negates the quality of light your umbrellas should give you. Also, if you are using flash, there is nothing like a manual setting on your camera and a flash meter. They aren't all that expensive, and can take the guesswork out of exposure.

Dot, the umbrellas are used to reflect the light but they could be used to shoot through as well. And yes, there is a manual setting which I used to take the pic. I just have to learn to use everything properly. After all, I only got the kit wednesday afternoon. However the bulbs provided (42 watts fluorocompact) don't seem bright enough to me. They do the job to a certain degree, but the exposure time required makes it more difficult to take hand held pictures when required. I ordered 105W bulbs on the Internet, which should give me more room to work. Thanks for the help.

Raymond : Les fleurs font 13cm de diamètre.

 

[SlipperFan]

Thanks, Raymond. The umbrellas I used to have were opaque black with a silver/white lining. If your umbrellas don't have a black backing, you are probably losing a lot of light through them. That's why I wondered whether you are shooting through them or bouncing the light off them.

 

[Phrag-Plus]

Very nice photo! And a very interesting thread!
When you'll master all that Michel, I will need a teacher....

 

[Shiva]

Very nice photo! And a very interesting thread!
When you'll master all that Michel, I will need a teacher....

Yes, my young Paduan! :rollhappy: