package help

[LongHaul]

ok so ive had a nightmare with this package. How is this one?

[LongHaul]

even thought it looks like its leaning back, i assure you it is not its taped flat against the wall and my camera is on tripod focused on center of cycle.

[shmax]

Looks pretty good to me. One thing that can help diminish the effects of perspective, or bowing of the sides, is to simply pull the camera back a bit. Most cameras these days shoot with enough resolution that you can then crop and still have an image more than large enough to meet our requirements.

As for taping it to the back wall, I don't advise it--you risk damage to the toy, damage to your light box, and you can wind up with weird shadows when it's that close to the back wall. If a toy won't stand upright by itself, just lean it against some small heavy object (I use a heavy-duty tape measure).

Some questions:

- does your camera have a sharpness setting? If so, what's it set at?
- what ISO setting are you using?
- white balance?
- exposure?

[LongHaul]

iso is set to auto
white balance i couldnt get it to calibrate so i gave up and left it on auto
couldnt tell ya on exposure, or sharpness.

I tell ya it is smarter than me.

[shmax]

ISO:
- probably don't need to worry it if you're not seeing grain, but the lower the better

White Balance:
- got any presets? Try "Tungsten"
 
Exposure:
- you should have something controlling this. I get the feeling that your raw photos are pretty dark, and you're simply hiking the brightness in Photoshop. One trick is to increase your camera's exposure, so that the shutter stays open for a bit longer and what light there is bakes in a little more. What wattage bulbs are you using?

what's the model of your camera? I'll look up the manual and see if I can't help you in more detail...

[LongHaul]

my bulbs ar 100 watss on the sides, and 150 on the top since its the furthest away.
Camera is a Nikon d60. I dug out my manual and will be reading it today, i hope.

Whats a tungsten preset? I have some icons that are like a guy w star, a flower, runner, guy with a hat?, mountains, woman w a hat, and a volatge(flash) with no sign on it. Then an auto and also a M, A, S, P selection.
I have a nice camera, but I think it will woop my ass in the end.......

[shmax]

my bulbs ar 100 watss on the sides, and 150 on the top since its the furthest away

Sounds good. And those are all GE Reveals?

Camera is a Nikon d60

Lots of bells and whistles on that one! The interface and all those buttons do look pretty intimidating at first, but there are only a handful of features you need to fiddle with to get great results. Some suggestions:

1. "A" (auto) shooting mode should be okay (use the mode dial)
2. White Balance - you don't have the "Tungsten" setting, but try "Incandescent" (a little picture of a light bulb)
3. Flash - Off. Always.
4. Exposure Compensation - try a value of around +1.0. This should get you that bright white background. Take the time to figure out how to use this feature--it's much better to do this than to try to dramatically increase brightness in Photoshop. I believe you can adjust this value while pressing the +/- button only.
5. Set ISO to 100.
6. I believe you said you're using a tripod? To make the most of it, use the "Self-Timer" function as well, so that you can snap the picture without touching the camera.

That should all be enough to get you withing the ballpark. Just for fun, please post  one of your old raw photos, and a raw photo taken after making these adjustments.

Thanks much!

[shmax]

my bulbs ar 100 watss on the sides, and 150 on the top since its the furthest away

Sounds good. And those are all GE Reveals?

Camera is a Nikon d60

Lots of bells and whistles on that one! The interface and all those buttons do look pretty intimidating at first, but there are only a handful of features you need to fiddle with to get great results. Some suggestions:

1. "A" (auto) shooting mode should be okay (use the mode dial)
2. White Balance - you don't have the "Tungsten" setting, but try "Incandescent" (a little picture of a light bulb)
3. Flash - Off. Always.
4. Exposure Compensation - try a value of around +1.0. This should get you that bright white background. Take the time to figure out how to use this feature--it's much better to do this than to try to dramatically increase brightness in Photoshop. I believe you can adjust this value while pressing the +/- button only.
5. Set ISO to 100.
6. I believe you said you're using a tripod? To make the most of it, use the "Self-Timer" function as well, so that you can snap the picture without touching the camera.

That should all be enough to get you within the ballpark. Just for fun, please post  one of your old raw photos, and a raw photo taken after making these adjustments.

Thanks much!

[LongHaul]

Umm i dont know what the hell happened here but i need some help now, cause im in big trouble!!!!
The first picture has a white background, this was with the old settings.
The second picture now has a blue background, with the new camera settings.

[LongHaul]

ok oops second one is original cause i forgot to upload it(lol)

[engledogg]

Any chance that your camera, instead of being on Auto, is now on Blue or Sepia?

Other than that, I'm not sure what's up.  

MIKE
engledogg

[LongHaul]

think i got it now.

[LongHaul]

think i got down, atleast for now, on trading cards. How is this?
no editing, other than cropping, and reducing size down below 250k.

[shmax]

How about showing shooting the same toy as before in the same position with the new settings? We can't really tell much from a mostly-black trading card that fills the whole frame.

[LongHaul]

Sorry bout that. Me n engledogg were working it out in emails cause we went thru like 8 pictures n stuff. U just approves the final result after a reset on the camera. Apparently the lighting setting was on fluresent. So I think I'm in better shape now than before. I will post them up tommrow in here so people can see.