[GandalfPC] My Collection

[acetofive]

It's easy to double check but I'm pretty sure all user selected wb settings are turned off in Auto Mode.

[GandalfPC]

I’ll compare my manual iso 250 shots to the auto and see if it still beats me - I have white/grey/black calibration cards and I have been using the grey - will try using the white

Figure I will try their daylight bulb setting as well…

[GandalfPC]

I left the iso on auto and it chose 100 for every shot, but on full auto it went with 125 (and there is no manual setting that fine)

The fluorescent daylight is obviously the worst fit - haven’t looked them over in detail yet to see which is best to me - I did toss the Tungsten WB choice as it was even worse then the fluorescent day setting and one example of bad seemed plenty

The settings auto ISO chose:

IMG_3557.jpeg (144.81 KiB) Viewed 74496 times

The settings full auto chose:

IMG_3558.jpeg (142.84 KiB) Viewed 74494 times

So, is Full Auto the choice to go with?

Perhaps it will not always do as well as custom WB depending on the scene and I should stick with custom?

I can always start with a full auto shot, then use those settings with a custom WB…

[kevork]

ISO at that low is great. It means your camera is taking in enough light so it doesn't need to compensate by increasing ISO and introducing noise.

It might make more sense to wait for the lightbox to have more control over the lights and then do some comparisons. Is the paper right underneath the post-it pure white? If so, full auto is introducing some reds it seems compared to WB - daylight and WB - fluorescent.

[GandalfPC]

This is all in the Lightbox

The paper beneath the post it is “Champagne Pink”

https://www.valspar.com/en/colors/brows ... nk-2004-4c

The white that is over to the left is antique white


Actually looks like the custom grey balance did better than the full auto…


Color value as per procreate is pretty close to the official color:

I am using a different larger grey/white card today - previously I was using small cards and I think it benefits from filling the screen more. This particular one is more handy than it is accurate, so perhaps I pick up a more accurate card to see how much closer it gets…

[kevork]

That makes more sense. I was accounting for that paper being pure white but nothing beats checking the actual values in software. These are promising results! So close to real and then you can always do those minor adjustments in post if it was absolutely necessary.

[GandalfPC]

Here is another color, the “confident yellow” - I checked the math and it looks like full auto was closest here, but grey custom is a very close second

Not sure if the color would have been closer if it had been the focus of the shot rather than at the edge - could be, especially with a low end camera…. Future color tests with the calibrated card (post below) will check for color at center and edge. It is notable that color will change with value of lighting, so it will read differently across the cards when they are upright in box like this - would be more evenly lit if they were laying flat and I took picture from top of box - which I think I will also do when I test next.

[GandalfPC]

We will see if the “Gold Standard” WhiBal card can do even better - will be here Wednesday (costs twice as much as the cheap set of white/grey/black cards of similar size I used in the earliest attempts - didn’t expect those to be more than reasonably accurate anyway - funny that I thought I would be satisfied with that…)

I got tired of searching, but it seems most cards are “in the ballpark” and this one is “calibrated” - they had a small one (this one) and a big one for more than I was going to spring for, and seemingly would only be needed at long distance

Today I used one of those fold up springy cloth ones, which seemed more accurate than the cards, but I would need retest - something I probably won’t need to do as this “card of cards” should be the go to, with that other one relegated to non card related distance shots

It was notable from my research that you only need a calibrated card if you want to reproduce truest colors - but for most photography that is not the focus, and you will be warming or cooling the shots lest they be too “flat”, making this card useless overkill in those circumstances.

[GandalfPC]

So far all the pics taken in the Lightbox were with the diffuser cloth in place to cut any shine - probably need that in some cases, not so much in others - took some top down shots for an “even lighting” test with and without diffuser - will wait until the calibration card arrives before doing much else…

The colors look brighter without the diffuser, but a quick check in procreate seems to show that they are less correct than the earlier shots - not ideal conditions for such a test though

Took these quick without a tripod, so they may not be the best - but gives an idea of how much more brightness we get without diffuser in the box

Note that I have not mucked with exposure settings in any of these - so using diffused lighting vs hard light might be more interchangeable, as need for shadows or quieting shine comes along, by tweaking the f stop up or down


With:

Without:

[kevork]

I've seen photography YouTube channels use something like this before: https://www.amazon.com/DGK-Color-Tools- ... 00F1YEEHA/

Helps with testing focus and white balance as well.

[GandalfPC]

Thanks - now on the way as well

Also don’t think that I reset the custom white balance when I changed the lighting from diffuse… so that will get its first decent test next week

[CourtCurator]

I am a commercial product photographer. This is what I use to set my custom white balance: https://a.co/d/gfPxUk9 What you just bought should work too, though. Adding a diffuser will change both the color temperature and the amount of light on your subject. You will need to adjust both your exposure and custom white balance any time you switch between your hard and soft lighting sources.

[Timmargh]

I'm just gonna pretend that I understand everything being said here …

[GandalfPC]

Ok, calibrating cards are in - these shots were taken without the light diffuser, brightness unadjusted - I took a few at various f stops and will do the same with the diffuser - monkey around with various things, check a bunch of colors - shortly I will get to taking actual pictures

The grey card read as 169,169,169
Black on the card was 6,6,6
White on card was 205,207,206 - not sure if this should have come closer to 255,255,255 as one imagines that depends on where I place it and what brightness is set it

White in upper left of background is 227,228,223 - would have been closer to white had I taken the WB reading there one imagines - I don’t think its too bad though

Some other shots with same settings - the joker shot used ISO 200 (I have it on auto ISO) and is much brighter than the other 160 iso shot of the Jack - figuring I will be turning off auto ISO and setting to the next higher setting than the auto chooses (which would mean 200 up to a small amount of zoom)

[GandalfPC]

Managed to find a little tripod that does the job of getting the camera into the box, close enough to not need zoom so I can keep the ISO lower, maximizing the light in any case - seems to do best focusing in macro mode without the zoom as well, certainly zooming too much and it cant focus at all in macro

Also added a little extra light source, which brings up the white on the card to around 225,225,225 in this case

Figure this is the last such shot, as it seems a fitting time to get knee deep and start taking some real pics - learn the rest in the field so to speak…

Clear and calibrated, about as good as I’m going to get with this camera in those areas…

[GandalfPC]

Figure the Sola-Chan deck is a good one to start with - don’t want to take 52 pictures for a deck so I aim to shoot 4 or 8 at a time, working up a multi card stand or laying them flat and taking top down shots (not exactly sure my tripod will manage top down) - I’ll sort it out…

Picked up 5 watercolors to go with the deck - this one being the hand over-painted version

[CourtCurator]

Just FYI, the upper and lower limits of exposure with detail are about 18 for black and 240 for white.

[GandalfPC]

Need to tweak the angles and such - a quick shot from the hip of the new digs…

[kevork]

Looks like you've nailed the color down! That last photo seems to be having some issues. Slight blurriness although it still looks really high resolution, and the lighting at the top is definitely stronger than the lighting on the bottom, leading to some unevenness. I'm only being so critical because of my desire to push you to get the best pictures you possibly can

[GandalfPC]

Yup - that last pic is just a quick auto shot to set the scene - didn’t have time last night to take a nice one

it does show the issue I will be fighting with lighting if I don’t lay them down - trying to get them at a good angle but I don’t think I can even out the light this way - might end up taking pics of just one shelf, but I think the real solution is to lay it down…

And if I lay them down I need to shoot from the top of the box - giving me a bit of a tripod issue - going to be a puzzler

[GandalfPC]

Silly me - I just realized - I don’t need to lay them down, I just need to flip the light box around so the bottom becomes the back and the little hole on top of the box is in front - and shoot away

That way the light will shine directly on the back, lighting all evenly

I realized that while I was browsing for some fancy tripod - just in time

[GandalfPC]

Now we’re cooking - think I need to drop the camera height down a bit to get all the cards as face on as possible and keep the perspective flat, but this is working well for lighting the lot

The main door to the box is now on top, making setting things up easy peasy

Going to try this again using the mini tripod inside the box - should produce a clearer pic (as I can get rid of the touch of zoom or cropping I need to use otherwise) - that will only work if the camera is lined up about where the hole is, so it doesn’t cast a shadow from the ring of lights behind it

[GandalfPC]

Camera in the box, added the diffuser back in to cut glare, ended up still having to raise the camera a touch to cut direct reflection and show the black nice and black - still need to adjust brightness and find best angle, and will try again without diffuser

Using no zoom, macro

IMG_3708.jpeg (44.86 KiB) Viewed 74154 times

Thought some pixels were looking screwy, but it was just a web thing…. Whew…. Must have uploaded a bit screwy, but image from camera is fine

Looking over the last one, outside the box without macro, and this one from inside with macro I think the outside the box shot was actually clearer - going to have to put the focus grid up and figure which is really best…

[GandalfPC]

Well, that was a lot of work, and it seems the answer is that with my lighting and my camera the best I can manage is two cards per shot - otherwise there are lighting/reflection or focus issues to deal with - plus, those shots seem to look clear posted here without having to click on them, while the other shots look blurry until you click them

Going to stick to 2, perhaps 3 cards per shot for the moment - will deal with the group shots later

—-

I think I see what flatbed scanners are for now…. But since most of the handmade cards have bends and I don’t want to risk pressing them flat, this will have to do - figure some lighting options outside the light box can manage to light a larger group better

—-

As for image size to upload - I am thinking that M2 is big enough for image format? (1600x1200)


Large (4608x3456)

Medium 1 (3264x2448)

Medium 2 (1600x1200)

Small (640x480)

IMG_3786.jpeg (137.39 KiB) Viewed 74131 times

—-

This was my attempt at a group shot of the Sola-Chan deck - bottom row second and third cards caught the most glare here

——


This is the best I can do on manual, with the exposure up one step, ISO 100:

And this is what the auto does with it (it lengthens the shutter speed to 1/100 of a second to brighten)

I hate to say it, but for all the trouble it looks to me that the Auto pic is the best - what say you?


After more playing around I think that an ISO of 200, a bit of brightness, and the light diffuser seem to do good - I’ll take a bunch of pics of the deck, and hopefully not make a mess of it…

[GandalfPC]

Took various attempts at it, and I think it can depend on the exact circumstances, but for this go round the Auto shots I took were just better - going to finish out the deck that way, and unless I learn something between now and then, continue with the Elaines and Karls - will do a W/B check on each and hopefully find the Auto behaving, otherwise will cross that bridge when I come to it


For this deck, the WB is just peachy looking to me, at 225,225,227 (the Auto bringing it to the aforementioned optimal it would seem - good dog…)

[GandalfPC]

I see the Jack of clubs and diamonds picture below went off a bit - auto does have a mind of its own every now and again - will try to remember to retake that one…. Hate to say it, but I think I need a better camera with more control…. For the time being I will make due

[Bradius]

Great job with these photos. I think you have the lighting down (to my nearly blind taste). I guess you will eventually have to get foiled surfaces down, which I am sure is just a whole other level of pain. However, for normal ink, these are just looking awesome. It looks like you are having great fun, which is the main thing. Thanks for sharing your journey and results.

[hsbc]

Hate to say it, but I think I need a better camera with more control…

You need a DSLR for sure - nowadays most(?) are mirrorless I think? I'd point you to DPReview but Amazon just recently killed it

Anyway yeah you're nailing the lighting and colors!

[brownsl]

All this photography info should be in its own thread. I bet others would find it very useful!

[acetofive]

Nice work GandolfPC. An observation if I may based on your notes: At f/2.8 (ie wide open on the 810) images may be in focus, but still appear "soft." (not due to lack of depth of field, that's a different issue.) This happens on many consumer lenses. Have you tried stopping down a bit (i.e. f/4, f/5.6...etc)? It will cost in lower shutter speeds or higher ISO (ISO you can adjust in Program Mode), or brighter lights, but this might help the image look sharper even when it's already in focus and on a tripod.