Sorting out over exposure problems with my camera setup

[Rose Model Art]

Hi folks,

I have been photographing my mini's for a while now and am happy enough with the results but i am finding that most of my pics come out too exposed or washed out.

My setup is:

Camera - DSLR Olympus E-410 with standard lens, though i have a macro lens as well.

Lights - Angle poise lights with equivelant 3k watt daylight energy saving bulbs or 2 daylight rated standard bulbs.

Light tent - fold up type bought through amazon.

I have got the basics down for manual control, i.e ISO at 100, F stop at 22 so full depth of field and good colour retention.

I find the main problem i find is that the models have a sort of sheen or too white from the light, i have tried various light temp settings on the camera for daylight bulbs and flourecent bulbs, and i can set the light metering on the camer and exposure time, all of which help.

However i never seem to get a good soft still that shows the model as it looks to the eye, the colours always seem more pale.

It must be something i am doing wrong as the camera is more than capable.

When i see the pics in magazines or on CMON they are dark backgrounds but the models are crisp and look colour temp correct.

Anyone have any ideas about what i should be looking at, i.e. a setting on the camera or different background colour, i tend to use black cloth.

cheers

 

[Bailey03]

I'm not a camera expert, so if someone more experienced comes along listen to their advice over mine. Have you tried bracketing your pictures? I find this especially important if you've got a light model in front of a dark background. Or if you're taking pictures of something with a lot of white/light colors or a lot of black/dark colors. If you're not familiar with bracketing, that simply means taking a photo at the correct settings and then taking several more photos while underexposing and overexposing the picture. If you fix your ISO and aperture, start with the correct shutter speed and then take a photo with a speed one higher and then one lower. You can also try doing another 2 shots at 2 higher and 2 lower. You can do the same thing with the aperture of course, but that also affects your depth of field. Once you're doing done select the image that looks the best and discard the others.

If you want to get real advanced you can merge the different exposures together so both light and dark areas look good... but that requires more skills than I have.

 

[Farydia]

Hi there,
before reverting to HDR, are doing any work at all on your pictures after taking them (I can't really find any hints to "post-production" in your post)? If not I strongly recommend doing so - and you get best results (in my opinion) when working with RAW images, because you can adapat lighting, white balance, vibrance, etc. very easily. And especially pale looking colours are easily remedied by adjusting lighting and contrast. Only downside is, you'll need a RAW converter...
If you just want to have a go at it before spending big money on Photoshop and the like, you could use Photivo for RAW (it's not that user friendly, maybe but rather powerful and it's freeware) and GIMP for JPEG.

@Bailey03: putting the pictures together is no big deal - there are tools that do that for you ;-) But the results always have a little bit of an artificial touch, because in "real life" you would never get this high dynamic range. But you can do some really cool effects with HDR nevertheless.

 

[Rose Model Art]

I use photoshop elements 8 or 9 i think. I basiacally just adjust levels and thats about it.

The thing i want to get the most out of the picture is to show the colours as true to real life (as in what you see with your eyes) rather than the often slightly blue or white tones that i get on my pics.

I have done the test of taking lower n lower exposures to get the images more colourfull and less exposed but they can become too dark doing that.

I assume it may be me using black backgrounds, but if the models are a lighter colour then a white background makes it worse.

hmm

 

[Farydia]

If your image looks too blue or generally too cold, it may very well be the white balance (as you seem to have figured out yourself...) In that case I really recommend using RAW image format and tune the white balance on the finished picture. If there is no white on your mini, you can use a greyscale or just add something light grey in a corner that you afterwards cut off from the picture.

 

[ktooloo]

I've only taken one semester of digital photography so I'm not a pro at all, but based on what I learned...
- In general it sounds like you're getting too much light. A faster shutter speed, greater diffusing of the light, or removing one may be the way to go.
- You don't need the F-stop that small. You could go as large as 16, maybe 11 and still get enough depth of field for a mini. This will let in more light though so it would have to be compensated for.
- Have you tried using a faster shutter speed? The less time the shutter spends being open the less light gets in and it should cut down some of the glare.
- Try clipping some some parchment (baking) paper to the lamps to diffuse the light some more before it hits the light tent. Or possibly move the lamps further back from the tent.
- If you have a telephoto lens & a tripod, you can try backing away from the mini and zooming in. This will change the angle relative to the light a wee bit and may avoid some glare/hot spots.
- Otherwise make sure you're using the correct white balance setting on your camera. There is only so much correction that can be done in Elements.
- Shooting in RAW is always handy too.

After reading your update...
- Try a blue or neutral colored background.
- Be extra sure that your white-balance is set correctly on the camera.
- Try the the "lower exposures", but keep the shutter open longer so more light gets in to compensate.
- When you experimented with the "lower exposures", did you up the ISO a step or two to help compensate. Using 200 or 400 will not negatively affect your pics.

P.S. I don't own a macro lens so I don't know if any of this will help with that. Also there are several articles here on CMoN's Articles section about photographing minis specifically so you may find some useful info in there as well.

 

[boubi]

Hi Rose, can you post the picture you are not satisfied with?
It will help us to understand and to adjust it.
I have an Olympus myself, which lens are you using, you mention a macro, is it 50mm f2? In that case this lens depth of field is really shallow, but the clarity and details are simply amazing. If you stop at F22, that's too much you are losing quality due to diffraction, you should stop around F8-10, where often the lens give you their best.

Bracketing is an option, not to do HDR picture, but simply picking the best out of the 3 or 5 pictures which were bracketed. But normally you don't need this.

Let's see one of your picture with its EXIF (information of the picture, which camera, which lens, flash, F, speed, etc...) it will help us to understand a lot your problem.

 

[Vrox]

If the colors are not true and you are getting blue tints, then it's a matter of white balancing or temperature of your lights. If your camera has a custom white balance feature then use that, if you have options such as cloudy or sunny, rotate through these setting until you find the closest setting that matches your true color. This is not always possible depending on the light source but you should get pretty close.

I agree with boubi, if you post a picture then it will help us give you better advice.

 

[Zab]

Try dialing back your F stop a bit 22 is pretty high a better for bigger pieces like terrain but tends to wash out minis and add a lot of grain. Around 8-10 or 10-12 is usually more than enough. Also try a neutral background. Black and white can be harsh contrast for most cameras and minis. Whit black you need way more light and with white less and more indirect. Welcome to macro photography hell. :at-wits-end:

 

[Rose Model Art]

Ooh, bit oh threadnomancy hehe.

Thanks for all the tips guys, tbh I haven't been taking any pictures of late as life's been a bit mad what with hospital\docs appointmnents, doing GD entry and moving flat this weekend.

The white balance on the camera has about 6 choices, sun, cloud, a bulb symbol and 3 what look like strip light symbols, I tend to use the number 1 strip light setting as this seems closest.

As for the F stop setting I will try taking it back to 8-12 range and see what's what.

The main issue seems to be that the models look to bright, as in I have a light right above them but when you look at them in the tent they seem almost dull its very odd.

I meant to have a look at the Golden Demon photographing table this year but I forgot to take a pic as was bit unwell and was fed up with the shoving.

Just seeing the setup and lights they use to get good quality sharp not harsh lit pictures.

May be a bit simpler as have a big spare room now so can set up photo area and leave it and tinker with settings, as have to pack it away after each use at the moment.

I will put up some pictures next week once I have tried some tests with old models

 

[Zab]

These are full of neat tips...http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.de/2013/09/miniature-photography.htmlhttp://massivevoodoo.blogspot.ca/2013/09/miniature-photography-part-2-how-do-i.html

 

[griffongames]

Ooh, bit oh threadnomancy hehe.

Thanks for all the tips guys, tbh I haven't been taking any pictures of late as life's been a bit mad what with hospital\docs appointmnents, doing GD entry and moving flat this weekend.

The white balance on the camera has about 6 choices, sun, cloud, a bulb symbol and 3 what look like strip light symbols, I tend to use the number 1 strip light setting as this seems closest.

As for the F stop setting I will try taking it back to 8-12 range and see what's what.

The main issue seems to be that the models look to bright, as in I have a light right above them but when you look at them in the tent they seem almost dull its very odd.

I meant to have a look at the Golden Demon photographing table this year but I forgot to take a pic as was bit unwell and was fed up with the shoving.

Just seeing the setup and lights they use to get good quality sharp not harsh lit pictures.

May be a bit simpler as have a big spare room now so can set up photo area and leave it and tinker with settings, as have to pack it away after each use at the moment.

I will put up some pictures next week once I have tried some tests with old models

Since you're shooting with a dslr you should really try out a range of exposures to really learn what works and what doesn't with your setup. I also recommend getting a "Grey Card" (http://amzn.to/1cc6Dbe) to help you figure out what you should be shooting at. You put the card down where you would normally put your mini, see what your light meter recommends for an exposure, set the exposure to that, then replace the grey card with the mini. Shoot. Your exposure should be dead on (or at least really close).

The only other alternative is to use another program to fix the exposure in post. At that point you'll need photoshop or GIMP or something to fix the exposure (much easier if you shot in RAW as mentioned earlier). But since it doesn't cost you any more to shoot more photos you can always just experiment until you find the right exposure.

BTW - The grey card can also help with figuring out your white balance issues as well. Although I don't know for sure, most decent DSLR cameras have a method for setting manual white balance that would generally require the use of a grey card.

 

[Rose Model Art]

Thanks for the replies folks. I'm just finished recovering from a bowel resection so out and about again now and raring to go (painting a 47 man strong Space Marine army for tournament just now, and awaiting to see if Golden demon is dead in the water and where to go to enter painting comps now)

Thanks for the tips about the WB, to be honest I need to have a sit down and read of my camera manual if I find it, I have a few good books od digital photography and an older book on exposure and the art of photography which is more detailed.

Is a light meter something that's worth getting for the amateur, do you get reasonably priced ones? I will play about with my camera trying all manner of settings just to get more comfortable with it, as I think looking at some of my pictures in my gallery of my GD entries from 2012, one looks very good and is bright and correct colour, the other looks dark or like a light has gone off, and its making my score lower as a result (not that I am too fussed about them nowadays )

I will look into that grey card and look at getting some Bristol board that's a neutral grey colour too for my light tent setup, which I still have to setup in the new flat...and try not to blind my guinea pigs with the lights hehe.

An example of my current photographs (Please ignore the ropey alignment of the images in the first pic...still working out PS layouts :

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics16/img5060acbc83d1f.jpg

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics16/img5060a64e4bc3a.jpg

This is the kind of thing I am looking to achieve, in terms of not too washed out, looks like I am looking at the model not a picture etc:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics16/img5314f10519e67.jpg