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California handguns Discuss your favorite California handgun technical and related questions here. |
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#41
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more on balancing....
From what I’ve read, people seem to have an ok grasp on camera function and exposure techniques. The one area that seems the most neglected is color balance. What I mean by color balance is the relationship of color tones in the image to how they really appear to the human eye. If you look a bit “closer” at some of your digital pics or scanned pics, you might notice they are slightly blue or red or yellow or green or whatever. Look at white patches in the pictures or skin tones or earth tones. Your digital camera, once the button is finally pushed, tries to figure out the best balance of red to blue to green and at what percentages to mix them. Sometimes these fields are improperly/inadvertently influenced or your digital camera “leans” more one way than the other. Here’s how to fix this: photoshop (or something similar). In photoshop, you can obviously open your pics and view them. What you can also do is change your color balance, aka levels. First, open PS and open your pic. Never work on a compressed file format (predominantly jpeg) and never save your pics in a compressed format. This has to do with image degradation. Save your pic as a tiff or bmp and then work on them. After you open your pic, change the color mode from RGB (red blue green) to CMYK (cyan magenta yellow black). This mode affords you more flexibility in balancing your levels and is the print-media industry standard. You can now individually change four different levels of color in your pic. Look at white areas or skin tones or colors you know how they appear naturally. Adjust your black areas last, never really going past 85-90% black in the areas that appear 100% black. You’ll be surprised how “off” your typical exposure is in regards to color. Always return the image mode back to RGB otherwise most computers/computer systems won’t properly recognize the color mode. If you can only adjust the RGB levels with your program that will still make a huge difference.
Side note: make note of your light source or sources. Not every light source “burns” at the same color. Incandescent bulbs burn warm so your pics will look initially yellow or redish. Fluorescents burn cool so your pics will look a bit blue or grey. The sun burns warm. Flashes are made to burn at the right temp to produce a nice, neutral white. ex: If you look at xenos pics, the top two are slightly cyan and magenta. The bottom one came out well because of the white piece of paper. The black levels still need adjustment
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it's a trick. get an axe. |
#42
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I also do like Ken Lunde's photos against his blue satin sheet - I've noticed that blues tend to photograph fairly well. Check out this example: Quote:
I agree that Ken Lunde's pictures are awesome - he helped inspire my quest for better photos, as did one of my friends who introduced me to the light box concept. Turby |
#43
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is that you pic, Turbinator? if you are using an SLR, what you might want to try using either graduated neutral density/color filters so you can more effectively expose the lower portion of the pic or a stackable filter unit which would achieve similar results. OR you can do a little trick that is used more often than you think. on a day with nice clouds or a nice sunset/sunrise, just take pictures of the sky. use different angles and bracket your exposure. then with some photoshop work, just swap in and out different skies. this allows you to properly expose the dark area without worrying about loosing the typically brighter sky. yeah, its not quite an authentic picture, but sometimes it looks just right
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it's a trick. get an axe. |
#44
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But I liked the color of the sky, so I kept it.. Turby |
#45
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With your permission Turbinator (I hope). I personally like the effect you had with the sky. Truthfully, the underexposed bushes are less distracting than when it's lightened up. |
#46
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Turby |
#47
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a quick photoshop effort. unfortunately its easier to make a lighter picture darker than a darker picture lighter. some cloud contrast was lost and the detail in the hills looks kinda crazy. the good part is that the pic is 300dpi:
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it's a trick. get an axe. |
#53
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Turby |
#54
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JOe |
#56
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One light shots.
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King, Great dramatic shot...just for s***s and giggles, try this...fill in the heavy shadows with a tin foil reflector inserting light into the non-detailed places. The shiney side will give a more direct beam than the frosted side. By crumpling the foil and then reopening it you can get different degrees of diffusion. To get rid of those strong highlights you can strategically place strip diffusers in front of the light where it will only affect the glare. Crumpled saran-wrap (or something like it) works well. Last edited by Toscano; 01-23-2009 at 8:20 AM.. Reason: subscription |
#57
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Nah. I started originally with a point and shoot. I did move up to a more expensive dSLR but it is nowhere near $5K. I'd say a Costco special for about $500 would do it to get shots like these. It's all about knowing HOW to use your gear, as opposed to what gear you have.
Turby |
#59
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Great thread Turby I'll set up this weekend with my Canon and see what I can do
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"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson |
#60
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Turby |
#61
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I just wish I lived in a CCW shall issue state: You don't need to spend a ton of dough sometimes - this was done with a $100 Vivitar 100mm macro lens. Normally I don't touch the cheap vivitar stuff - but the 100mm macro is one of the sleeper cheap lens out there.
One soft box directly above, and a reflector to the right to fill in some shadows. Last edited by creampuff; 01-23-2009 at 9:20 PM.. Reason: forgot to mention lens |
#62
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Creampuff,
Nice job on the USP 9 compact! Good, even lighting, and a nice drop shadow. And, totally agree that you don't have to spend a lot of money to get good results - kit lenses often will do the job, or as you mention, the $100 macro lens works great. Thanks for sharing! Turby |
#68
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Keep practicing. Guns are shiney and they have all sorts of different angles and crevices, which makes photographing them challenge. The more time you spend with the light box the better you'll get. Once you master the light, your entire room could be used as a "light box"!
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#71
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Turby |
#72
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I originally bought PVC piping to make target stands... I will have to forgo the project and make a lightbox instead!
Great info Turby, I passed the info on to some other forums.
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The fate of the wounded rest in the hands of the ones who apply the first dressing. |
#73
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Turby |
#74
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Awesome job on their pictures everyone! |
#75
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Light boxes / photo tents can be found on flea-bay for not a lot of money these days. I decided to purchase one several years ago rather than spend the time to build one. Here is only one example out of many hundred results to my simple search for "photo tent." If you are non-flea-bay I'm sure they can be found at various other online outlets.
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#76
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Not bad for $11.99 and free shipping. Costs less than my "invention" (which by the way I didn't invent) - I think mine is about $20 to $30, not including the lights. The pipes generally are the most expensive part along with all the trimmings - endcaps, fabric, lighting..
Turby |
#78
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Newbie on Calguns Forum here. I just found this how to on photographing your firearms.
I did this one a couple of days ago. It was my first attempt at this type of shot. I took several, this is one to the best. The shot was taken using Nikon D50 and it's built in flash.
__________________
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." (James Madison, The Federalist Papers #46 at 243-244) |
#79
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Nice, but just a comment - my personal opinion - I don't like how the image gets soft / blurry towards the grip and the rounds at the bottom of the grip. I'd suggest increasing DOF to ensure the entire handgun is sharp.
Turby |
#80
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Turby |
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