Re: Photographing Opals - Tips, Tricks & Techniques
Posted: Sat May 06, 2017 1:40 pm
you really need to white balance... the incandescent yellow is muting the gorgeous colors of your stones and throwing it off
otherwise shoot raw and balance afterwards
ie balance and things are applied to the image the sensor sees. if you shot raw, you get what the sensor sees and can do the color balance and such post production in a pc which having more computational power and better filters could do a better job. however raw takes up lots of space compared to the adjusted, and compressed jpg
sadly, balance is one of those things that people don't do and when they eventually learn and start doing, wonder why they were not clear headed about it
its very much worth doing, as i can save you a lot of issues post production. after all, if you think of the data fitting in a box, any manipulation and adjustments will shrink the box not expand it. never expands. so the fewer steps between sensor and final means the biggest richest box of color possible (i know this is an abstraction but some stuff is really hard to talk about given there is no common language for it!!)
tripods are a must, and i get lazy, ergo the softness of the images..
however your pendants are obviously prettier than represented and a large portion of that is your lighting and white balance
if your using one light source type, color balance and your fine
if your using more than one, think of putting some white cards to either side of the item with the idea to even out each types contribution.
turn each off, balance the light to make it better (perfection will drive you nuts hunting down tiny things no one else sees or almost no one. remember your making images for recording not "art" for the most part, though i would be wrong to say it cant be as i have seen it in many a museum, so if ya can get that far have at it)
the reason is that unlike the human eye and mind which does heavy pre-processing and you never actually see what your looking at, you perceive.
which is why you can miss things right in front of you... if you were really seeing the world, you might not miss it or might miss a lot given the complexity. so what you see is perception, and perception gets trained... which is why over time your pictures get better, you learn to percieve the qualities necessary to the issue and learn to adjust behavior/camera to meet those issues. many are instantly available by awareness once mentioned, like the light issue.
the sensor sees light and does not do the processing that makes every sensor maker drool at the human eye and positively faint at the hawks.
we have a million to 1 bracket!!! we see three colors, many birds and insects see four (UV) i do not know of five or more...
when you look from your lit room to the other room that has sun coming in, these lights are all different but yet, you do not even notice them being that different, in fact you cant tell. its so much and so good this way, we still don't have technology that can make a photo balanced without any effort across the frame with all kinds of lighting, and have it look great. i guess when we do, the art will be different as we forget that each way we make something past or present adds a certain fingerprint of its process and in many cases a large portion of the arts appeal is that fingerprint that odd quality process brings to the appearance and the making.
so if you light something with tungsten on one side, and halogen on the other side, white balance would average them if you balanced in a middle point (though to you they seem both pretty white, to film tungsten is very very orange and halogen is blue).
however if the light is all over you probably can get away with a good white balance and its amazing the difference it instantly brings across a quantity of work.
sorry bit talkative... your images are nice, but boy would they be nicer with balance and if on tripod longer exposure for less grain
another thing, if you want sharper images you have to shrink the aperature which will make for long exposures and tripod becomes required (or some way to hold the camera), and even a means of triggering the camera is better... (for those stretching towards the farther reaches of perfection, they even allow a more pro level camera to put the mirror up in the reflex area so that does not shake the camera!!)
have to go...
if your not sure how to do a white balance, let me know your camera type and i see if i can find it for you.
otherwise shoot raw and balance afterwards
ie balance and things are applied to the image the sensor sees. if you shot raw, you get what the sensor sees and can do the color balance and such post production in a pc which having more computational power and better filters could do a better job. however raw takes up lots of space compared to the adjusted, and compressed jpg
sadly, balance is one of those things that people don't do and when they eventually learn and start doing, wonder why they were not clear headed about it
its very much worth doing, as i can save you a lot of issues post production. after all, if you think of the data fitting in a box, any manipulation and adjustments will shrink the box not expand it. never expands. so the fewer steps between sensor and final means the biggest richest box of color possible (i know this is an abstraction but some stuff is really hard to talk about given there is no common language for it!!)
tripods are a must, and i get lazy, ergo the softness of the images..
however your pendants are obviously prettier than represented and a large portion of that is your lighting and white balance
if your using one light source type, color balance and your fine
if your using more than one, think of putting some white cards to either side of the item with the idea to even out each types contribution.
turn each off, balance the light to make it better (perfection will drive you nuts hunting down tiny things no one else sees or almost no one. remember your making images for recording not "art" for the most part, though i would be wrong to say it cant be as i have seen it in many a museum, so if ya can get that far have at it)
the reason is that unlike the human eye and mind which does heavy pre-processing and you never actually see what your looking at, you perceive.
which is why you can miss things right in front of you... if you were really seeing the world, you might not miss it or might miss a lot given the complexity. so what you see is perception, and perception gets trained... which is why over time your pictures get better, you learn to percieve the qualities necessary to the issue and learn to adjust behavior/camera to meet those issues. many are instantly available by awareness once mentioned, like the light issue.
the sensor sees light and does not do the processing that makes every sensor maker drool at the human eye and positively faint at the hawks.
we have a million to 1 bracket!!! we see three colors, many birds and insects see four (UV) i do not know of five or more...
when you look from your lit room to the other room that has sun coming in, these lights are all different but yet, you do not even notice them being that different, in fact you cant tell. its so much and so good this way, we still don't have technology that can make a photo balanced without any effort across the frame with all kinds of lighting, and have it look great. i guess when we do, the art will be different as we forget that each way we make something past or present adds a certain fingerprint of its process and in many cases a large portion of the arts appeal is that fingerprint that odd quality process brings to the appearance and the making.
so if you light something with tungsten on one side, and halogen on the other side, white balance would average them if you balanced in a middle point (though to you they seem both pretty white, to film tungsten is very very orange and halogen is blue).
however if the light is all over you probably can get away with a good white balance and its amazing the difference it instantly brings across a quantity of work.
sorry bit talkative... your images are nice, but boy would they be nicer with balance and if on tripod longer exposure for less grain
another thing, if you want sharper images you have to shrink the aperature which will make for long exposures and tripod becomes required (or some way to hold the camera), and even a means of triggering the camera is better... (for those stretching towards the farther reaches of perfection, they even allow a more pro level camera to put the mirror up in the reflex area so that does not shake the camera!!)
have to go...
if your not sure how to do a white balance, let me know your camera type and i see if i can find it for you.