Help, please: New light tent,3 lamps still not enough light.

Jim Sackett

Elite Cafe Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
828
Location
Hallock, Minnesota, United States
This is a 10" by 7" brass plate I have been working on and off. It is cut n the tredition of the 'engraved social stanionary' I hand pushed this with a 60% square. Lines should be deep enough to hold and transfer ink each letter has 3 lines in the body stroke.

Are there any photo tricks to bring up the third line. I used a Kodak 10x 7.1 with the setting on auto. HELP!!!:(:( Jim

PicturePlaque3 018.jpg

PicturePlaque3 019.jpg
 

Arnaud Van Tilburgh

~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Joined
Oct 3, 2008
Messages
4,221
Location
Belgium
That is nice lettering Jim.

Problem with light for making photos of engravings, you have to make the light defuse.
Sure if the plate is a bit bigger. When I make photos of my engravings, and especially when they are shiny, I put a piece of paper so the light of my two daylight TL lamps has to come true the paper.
That was I have a more equal light. In particular there is a different reflection in the shiny surface.

Best is of course when you go outside, especially on a cloudy day when it is not raining, then yo can chose the right angle so the clouds reflect on your surface to be photographed, you also then have enough light. Only beware there are not disturbing reflections of trees or whatever.

I also have a tent to make some photo's, but I rarely use it because of time.

Hope this helps you

arnaud
 

Andrew Biggs

Moderator
Joined
Nov 10, 2006
Messages
5,034
Location
Christchurch, New Zealand
Hi Jim

Good job on the lettering. Well done. Your work is getting better all the time and hand pushing is quite an acheivement :)

Post a photo of your setup so we can see what it looks like...........maybe that will help with some of the answers.

Cheers
Andrew
 

KCSteve

~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Joined
Jun 19, 2007
Messages
2,882
Location
Kansas City, MO
Jim

'on auto' is your problem. The camera wants to make the overall scene of medium brightness - basically grey. The more light you pour on to the scene, the more the camera closes things down to limit the amount of light coming in.

Set up just like you did for this shot, in auto mode and try one of these:

1) If your camera has a setting for 'EV' or 'image brightness' set it higher. Nice thing with digital is you can try changes until you find the one you want.

2) If not, see if you can get your camera to tell you what settings it intends to use. My little point & pixellate shows it at the bottom of the display when you press the shutter half way down to make it focus. Pointing at my desk it showed "40 f2.8". That means it intends to have the shutter open for 1/40th of a second at an aperaturs of f2.8. Now I can go to the manual mode and set it to the same settings myself.

But I don't want those settings, I want more light.

There are two ways I can do that. I can leave the shutter open longer (change the 40 to a 20) or I can open the lens up further. But f2.8 is as open as my lens gets so I can't set to f1.4. Plus, the wider open the lens is, the less that's in focus so I'd really like to change that 2.8 to something like an 8 or a 16. That means I need to lengthen that 1/40th of a second out further to make up for the change in aperature.

Aperatures run 1, 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32.... (although even 2.8 is hard to get) so to go from 2.8 to 11 we move 4 full steps (called 'stops'). That means I need to adjust that 1/40th by four full steps too so we go 1/40 -> 1/20 -> 1/10 (more likely 1/8) -> 1/4. Now we've got the equivalent of the original setting. We didn't like how dim that was so let's go from 1/4 -> 1/2 and see what a setting of 1/2 f11 gives us. It should give us a nice, bright picture with a large area in focus.


Note: if follks want I can do my "30 second photography lecture" to explain Aperature, Shutter Speed, and Depth of Field.
 

Jim Sackett

Elite Cafe Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
828
Location
Hallock, Minnesota, United States
This is my new winter set up.

5 below to cold for out side pics and working in the frount entry way. So I set this up in the corner of the bed room. Sweety is threatining to move up stairs. Please hurry spring.

Jim

PicturePlaque3 021.jpg

PicturePlaque3 022.jpg

PicturePlaque3 026.jpg

PicturePlaque3 027.jpg
 

Andrew Biggs

Moderator
Joined
Nov 10, 2006
Messages
5,034
Location
Christchurch, New Zealand
Hi Jim

I think I see your problem..that is if I'm looking at the photos correctley.

Your problem seems to be reflection.

The lights should not shine directley onto the object. They should be diffused by the light tent material so you may want to move them around a little more. The light should shine through the material and then onto the engraving that way the light is diffused.

By the looks of it you don't have a top to the tent...........the same thing applies and the light needs to be diffused through the matrial.

Yes, frolicking around in 5 degree tempratures wouldn't be much fun........but if the light isn't strong enough from the lamps you could try setting the tent up near a window to give you some extra natural light and diffusion.

Hope this helps you out a bit

cheers
Andrew
 

Marcus Hunt

~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Joined
Nov 9, 2006
Messages
1,799
Location
The Oxfordshire Cotswolds, England
I have those stupid little lights too Jim. They came with my light tent and they're useless. I find it much better to take the light tent outside and use natural light. I took my last photos of the Lancaster O/U outside in the snow but I think it was only about -3ºC.
 

Arnaud Van Tilburgh

~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Joined
Oct 3, 2008
Messages
4,221
Location
Belgium
Marcus, that is also what I experienced, tried to explain and it is simple indeed, could be cold or whet. :D


@ Steve, I have a Nikon D70 and whatever I try to make a Photo of a jewel on a white background, the camera don't like white, they make it grey.
So even when trying to use a bigger lens opening to ad more exposure compensation, still don't come out as white.
I make all my photos in NEF (nikon electronic format 16bit) I can change then ad more exposure compensation, correct the white balance if it was not right. But I cant overexposure the photo of course.
So I correct the exposure compensation till the object is well lightened. Then I use the curves to overexposure the background whit a layer were I can paint on whit black to exclude the over lightning by the curve tool.

Perhaps not clearly explained, but I know how to do it, you probably know it too.

Photo Shop, no good digital photo without it. :D

arnaud
So then I open the photo with Photoshop
 

Andrew Biggs

Moderator
Joined
Nov 10, 2006
Messages
5,034
Location
Christchurch, New Zealand
Here is a simple trick with Photoshop that may help some of you out. I use it with the FEGA magazine all the time.

Photos that are not the correct clour can be improved by using the auto colour feature in Photoshop. You can find it in the menu bar........... Image>Adjustments>Auto Colour.

It doesn't always work on everything but you'll be surprised at what it does work on.

A typical thing may be a strong background colour will influence the overall colour of the picture. (eg: too warm or too cold) For instance if you take a photo of a french greyed gun (or a gun in the white) on a red or green background. When you hit Auto Clour it may not work.............so, cut the gun out using the lasoo tools and then get rid of the background...............then use the Auto Colour feature and that will quite often correct the picture.

Then if you wish more detail to show try using the Sharpen feature in photoshop will help. This is in the menu bar ....Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen............but only use it once (twice or more is too much)

However..........the golden rules still apply. It has to be a good photo to begin with and by good I mean in focus with no camera shake..............nothing can fix those basic errors.

Cheers
Andrew
 

Les Riddell

Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2008
Messages
83
Location
Cromwell New Zealand
photos

i have found that taking photos of shining things with detail, both large and small, is best done with low diffused light slow film ,200asa or less, using a tripod and a long exposure. I have ever had any success with auto function on my camera. Make sure the camera is stationary. The aperture should be set so that your light meter tells you to use a shutter speed of 30 or less. set the timer and push the button then step back a good 5 paces and wait. Check out my web site in the gallery page photos 1,3,7 and 8 were taken this way.
give it a crack. I am using a 30 year old minolta 35 mm camera body with a vivatar macro dedicated lens.
hope this helps.
Les
 

KCSteve

~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Joined
Jun 19, 2007
Messages
2,882
Location
Kansas City, MO
Arnaud

Yes, the camera does not want that white background to be white, it wants it to be grey. That's why you have to make the adjustments. And, as you said, it can often be easier to make the adjustments later in PhotoShop than in the camera.

The rule of thumb is, if you have a dark object on a light background, you need to add light. If you have a light object on a dark background, you need to subtract light.

Jim

It's already been covered but yes, move the lights around to the side so they're shining through the tent. Makes the light dimmer but more even. Dimmer light you can deal with via longer exposures but uneven light... that's a problem.

Les's advice to go slow and let the camera take it's time is good, and I've read Boris's article before and it's a good one.
 

canadian

Elite Cafe Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2008
Messages
201
Location
Toronto, Canada
Jim,

From your set up it looks like you are using spot lights rather than diffused lights.

That maybe one of the reasons you are getting hot spots.
Make sure that your light are at 45 degrees to each other and that they are diffused enough to illuminate the entire plate.
It may also be of some help it you had some sort of a filter on the light, like a white sheet or something like that. That will help to diffuse the light and make it more even.

Hope this is of some help.

Boris
 

Kevin P.

~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Joined
Feb 28, 2008
Messages
1,256
Location
Nambe, NM
Set up a photo enclosure: use white foam core for three sides, the fourth is for your camera. On the top of this cubical space use diffusion film, available at most photo places and inexpensive. Light from above the diffusion film. It's not the amount of light. Also use a tripod for the camera. HTH
Kevin P.
 

Sponsors

Top