# Getting Better  . . . . . A little.



## BSea (May 1, 2013)

I really struggle getting anything better than just average pictures.  So today, I set up my light tent, and read the manual for my camera (again:bulgy-eyes.  And I think I finally understand how the light balance thing works.  My big problem before was getting colors to look right when I was in aperture mode.  And I really wanted to get my depth of field to show more detail at the edges.  And still give accurate colors.

Here's a few pics for comparison from a recent pen.

Old Pic.







New Pic






Close up Old





Close up New 






Depth Shot.  I moved the cap as far away as I could in my light tent.  In fact I got the cap in front of most of the light.  That's why the colors from the pen to the cap look so different. I know the focus isn't perfect, but before I've had more focus issues when the pen was capped than I did with this shot.  





I know these won't win any awards.  But I do think I'm getting a little better.  The best thing is that I only took about 10 shots to get the new pics.  I'll bet it was more like 50 for the original pictures.  At least reading the manual has saved me some time.

Obviously, I welcome any critiques/tips you can give me.  My camera is a Sony A65 with a 18-55 zoom lens.


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## mmayo (May 1, 2013)

I see improvement easily and you are doing quite well to me.  Nice color balance and much better appearance of resolution.  What f stop did you manage to get and what shutter speed?  I have some software and perhaps many exist that can "see" this info from all of our digital photos if you do not remember.


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## BSea (May 1, 2013)

mmayo said:


> I see improvement easily and you are doing quite well to me.  Nice color balance and much better appearance of resolution.  What f stop did you manage to get and what shutter speed?  I have some software and perhaps many exist that can "see" this info from all of our digital photos if you do not remember.


I don't recall the f stop because I used 3 or 4, and just picked the picture that looked best.  I used aperture priority, and I think I started it at 16 and went up.  In this mode I can't control shutter speed.  I did have to adjust the contrast with software to get the picture where I wanted it.  I need to go to full manual to set both the shutter speed and aperture at the same time.  I'm going to try that next.

I'm at least getting better results than before.  After I get the settings somewhat figured out, I'm really going to work on my lighting.


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## BSea (May 1, 2013)

Ok, Things are starting to come into focus (Pun Intended).  This latest picture I used full manual with HRD.  The f stop was 32, and the EV was +1.  The ISO was set to 100.  And while I really don't know exactly what the EV is all about, I think I finally got a picture that looks like the actual pen, and is completely in focus.




I think this picture is a little sharper than the previous one I did earlier today.  But the big thing is that the picture wasn't altered at all except to crop & resize.  I didn't have to adjust anything as far as contrast or color.

Of course I still managed to clip of the top of the pen.  And that was all me taking the picture.  I didn't crop it off.  OOOPS!!  :redface:

But at least I'm getting the quality I expect.  Maybe now photography will be a little more fun.


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## mikespenturningz (May 1, 2013)

How can you take a bad picture of that beautiful pen.


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## ironman123 (May 1, 2013)

*Getting Better . . . . . A little*

That last photo really captures the beauty of that pen.  Bravo!!

You are on the road.

Ray


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## BSea (May 1, 2013)

mikespenturningz said:


> How can you take a bad picture of that beautiful pen.


Want to see some?:wink:

And  thanks for the compliment on the pen.  That's a big compliment coming  from someone with your ability.  I just love looking at your segmented  pens.




ironman123 said:


> That last photo really captures the beauty of that pen.  Bravo!!
> 
> You are on the road.
> 
> Ray


After looking at the picture some more, it really hit me.  If you look at the stand, it's the only picture where it looks like it's got the correct exposure.  All the other pics the stand looks over exposed.  And the background is a light grey, not white like the earlier pictures showed.  Well, the original pictures were on a white background, but the rest were done with the same setup as the latest picture.  I know I still have a lot to learn.  But I feel like I turned a corner on getting better photos.


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## Phillip Kelley (May 20, 2013)

*WoW! Superb pen!*

I have such along way to go!


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## D.Oliver (May 20, 2013)

BSea said:


> New Pic


 
Bob, I like this one the best.  The depth in this shot is awesome.  Night and day between the first shots and these last ones.  Really makes that pen "pop".


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## farmer (Oct 22, 2013)

*gray card*



BSea said:


> Ok, Things are starting to come into focus (Pun Intended). This latest picture I used full manual with HRD. The f stop was 32, and the EV was +1. The ISO was set to 100. And while I really don't know exactly what the EV is all about, I think I finally got a picture that looks like the actual pen, and is completely in focus.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
buy a 18% gray card  then set to custom white balance

Farmer


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## PeetyInMich (Oct 23, 2013)

Beautiful pen, but the new photos (at least the early ones) look like they are two different blanks, like the body of the pen getting more illumination than the cap causing the cap to look much darker.


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## Irish Pat (Oct 23, 2013)

Can you explain what do you mean by the F - Stop?where is it or better still what does it do.I'm only new to taking photos and have a lot of problem getting them to focus.Any help please.


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## jsolie (Oct 23, 2013)

Irish Pat said:


> Can you explain what do you mean by the F - Stop?where is it or better still what does it do.I'm only new to taking photos and have a lot of problem getting them to focus.Any help please.



Basically, it's a measurement of diameter of the hole when the diaphram blades in the lens fold out when the camera's shutter is actuated.  The number is an inverse of the diameter.  f/2.8 is larger than f/8 which is larger than f/16.  f/32 or so is a pretty small hole.

This does cut down the amount of light coming into the camera, and the amount of time that the shutter is open needs to be increased to compensate for the reduced amount of light.  The benefit of this is that the depth of field (or the focused part) of the photo can be increased so that more of your object is in focus.   It's also fairly easy to get those blurred background photos by adjusting your f-stop.  The down side is that at either end of a lens' f/stop range your image quality can suffer especially in the sharpness category.

Hope this helps...


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