# playing with the camera alittle!



## booney0717 (Feb 14, 2013)

Lets face it if anybody has realy paid much attention to my pen postings, my pictures are total crap. So just messing around with some things i had around the house and playing around with my lighting a little. I think my pictures are getting somewhat better. Have a look and please tell what ya think. I do know i'm gonna have to get a better camera in some of the pictures you'll see a blue line running through it. I have no idea what is causing it but i started seing it about a year ago. My camera is a Fuji film finepix s700 7.1 mega pixil. Who knows mabey somthing in my settings is causing it. Someone might know. Please some c&c would be very helpful. 
Thanks.
Kevin!


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## chriselle (Feb 14, 2013)

Hmm...focus seems really soft.  White balance is way off.  You're using a tripod right?


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## booney0717 (Feb 14, 2013)

Yeah but not a very good one


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## chriselle (Feb 14, 2013)

What are your camera settings?  All auto? Are you using the timer?


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## Tom T (Feb 14, 2013)

Nice pens.  Color seems off.  Most cameras have a setting for light.  Day light, fluorescent, 
Incandescent, AWB (auto white balance) I would not use auto white balance for what you are doing.  Do not use the camera flash, it looks like you are not using it which is good.
The blue line is very hard to see.  Looks as though it is in the same place each time.  Not really sure about that.  Still nice pens.


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## booney0717 (Feb 14, 2013)

I dont see anything in the settings for awb. my favorite setting on the dial says natural light without a flash. It does'nt give me much freedom for manual settings such as color, light adjustments and so on. It dose take great landscape photos and portrates. I love it for that kinda stuff. I just cant seem to set up a good still life to save my life.


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## Tom T (Feb 14, 2013)

There may be a menu setting for kelvin some where in there. That handles how white the color is or more toward yellow.
Wish I could help more I shoot Canon.  It has more setting than I can figure out.
Don't know your camera.
Trying to help.
Still really nice pens.
I think the pictures look very usable.


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## 76winger (Feb 14, 2013)

I agree with the white balance needing set to match the type of lights you're using. I also notice the focus off, particularly on the last couple of shots. 

I'm not sure about the blue streak in the middle one, but would work on the above first. 

I took a quick look at a description of your camera, and in some areas it's probably better than my Nikon D40 (which is nothing compared to the new ones but enough for what I do currently). That said, you need to see about getting some of the above in manual mode so it doesn't change on you unpredictably due to auto settings. If you can manually *set the white balance to the type of lights your using* (and/or come up with a set of lights that the camera can be manually set to, you'll have the single biggest issue (other than focus) with pen photography handled. 

Also: *Don't mix light sources!* incandescent bulbs have a reddish to yellowish color and florescent bulbs & tubes have a greenish color  and you can't get proper lighting on your pens and have the camera set to color correct (using the white balance) for both at the same time. 

If you can *manually focus*, to me that's better because you can choose the point you want in focus instead of the camera picking it for you. 

Once you get white balance and focus tamed, you'll be well on your way. Then we can talk about ISO settings, aperture settings and shutter speeds! :wink:


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## booney0717 (Feb 14, 2013)

Thanks for the compliments Tom. It just bugs me, i dont feel the pictures are a good represention of my pens. They look so much better in hand than they do in the pictures. The settings seem some what generic compared to the info that i'm getting from everybody. The only things i can adjust are stupid things like how long the dang lcd screen stays on. i was able to turn off the illuminator(the light that goes on just before the pic. is taken) but that was off when i took these. I can change the background color. but i dont think that would be of help. I know that if i use natural light they look much better. mabey its my lighting. I'm using a daylight bulb. would that need to be changed?


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## booney0717 (Feb 14, 2013)

Thanks Dave! This camera is all auto focus. I'm going to work with some different lighting tomorrow and see if i can find sonthing that this ccamera will like. The white balance adjustment is'nt in there anywhere. It must do that automatically.


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## 76winger (Feb 14, 2013)

booney0717 said:


> Thanks for the compliments Tom. It just bugs me, i dont feel the pictures are a good represention of my pens. They look so much better in hand than they do in the pictures. The settings seem some what generic compared to the info that i'm getting from everybody. The only things i can adjust are stupid things like how long the dang lcd screen stays on. i was able to turn off the illuminator(the light that goes on just before the pic. is taken) but that was off when i took these. I can change the background color. but i dont think that would be of help. I know that if i use natural light they look much better. mabey its my lighting. I'm using a daylight bulb. would that need to be changed?



Daylight bulbs would help and the higher the color temperature (kelvin) the closer to natural light you'll get. 

I use 6500K florecent daylight bulbs and still have to compensate in my white balance. An aquarium light with 10,000K high intensity lights is getting real close to real daylight, but for the cost of those with the fixture, you can upgrade your camera! For instance eBay has all kinds of used Nikon D40 cameras like I use for under $200, and that's definitly less than I spent for the lights over my 75 gallon aquarium!


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## John Den (Feb 15, 2013)

Reading the manual for your camera which I’ve just downloaded from :-
My Retrevo - My Manuals (I hope this one is yours?)
  It would appear that you have a good camera for taking your pen pictures.
  1/ You have a Macro (Close up mode)  which looks ideal. Page 66 describes how to set this up.
  2/ You have a Custom White Balance mode that is explained on Page 83 (how to adjust to get your yellow looking pictures so that they will be balanced to a more neutral gray average)
  3/ You have the ability to set your exposure manually for both aperture (How much light gets through your lens per second) and the shutter speed (how long the shutter is open for to let the light through). Page 62 describes how to set these settings of Aperture and Shutter Speed.
    .    a/ Set the aperture so that the whole of your pen is in focus (after manually focusing on the middle of the pen).  Increasing the “f number” puts more in focus, but lets less light through the lens. (Try f13.6  -  your largest F number available on your camera)
     .    b/ Set the shutter speed so that the picture you take comes out right in exposure (you will be working in the around  1/10 second range at this aperture using 2 “Halogen Desk Lights”)
     .    c/  increase the shutter speed towards the “seconds” end of the scale to make your picture less dark.
4/ Use the self timer to expose the pictures on your tripod.  Page 69 tells you how to go about setting this up and using the self timer. Set it to "2 Seconds Delay" to allow everything to stop shaking after you press the shutter release button on the camera to take the picture.
5/ Hang a 4 pound(ish) weight from your under your tripod's top with a bit of string and this will turn you Cr...py tripod into a good one and stop any residual camera shake.

Hope all this makes some sort of sense to you and that it helps a little.
Kind Regards,
John[FONT=&quot]
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## booney0717 (Feb 15, 2013)

Thanks John. I will retrive my manual to start. I've had this one for several years and moved a couple times so needless to say it got lost in the move with a bunch of other stuff. Thanks for the link and the research you did. I kinda miss the good ol days taking just black and white photos for class with the pentax k1000.loved that thing. loved developing the pictures and all. Never realy got very good with digital. Later today after reading the manual i will play with your suggestions and post more pictures and see what we came up with. Thanks again to all.


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## azamiryou (Feb 15, 2013)

I found the manual for this camera here:
http://www.fujifilm.com/support/dig...s/finepix_s5700_s700_s5800_s800_manual_01.pdf

It looks like all the features you need for pen photography are there. Start with the white balance, which is in the "shooting menu" which you access by pressing the OK button. Details are on page 49-50 and 83 in your manual.

Unfortunately, the blue line may be a flaw in the camera sensor. You can probably correct for it a bit in post-processing, but to fix you'll probably have to send the camera in for repair (or buy another camera). Apart from the line, though, I think this will prove to be an excellent camera for pen photography.


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## booney0717 (Feb 15, 2013)

Finally figureed  out how to adjust everything everyone was talking about. white balance and all. Now to play a bit and see what happens. Thanks for the links for the manual.


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## 76winger (Feb 15, 2013)

booney0717 said:


> Finally figureed  out how to adjust everything everyone was talking about. white balance and all. Now to play a bit and see what happens. Thanks for the links for the manual.



Let us see some results when you get done playing!


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## jbswearingen (Feb 16, 2013)

If it hasn't yet been mentioned, Ribbet! Online Photo Editor is a great, easy-to-use photo editing site.  I love it.  In the colors tab on the left (after you upload and start editing), there's a "Neutral Picking" tab.  Click it, then click anywhere on the image that's supposed to be white.  This will reset your colors correctly.


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