White Balance

Finished the cardboard box light tent. Joanne suggested we just wrap the muslin on all three sides with a single strip of cloth. That worked better than three separate squares.

Set it up and adjusted the clip on lamp. Then shot off some pictures of my small test subjects. They looked ok in the LCD.

They didn’t look ok when I moved them to the computer. They were red/brown like my earlier ones, using a high intensity desk lamp. Seems like the Reveal bulbs may not be as full spectrum as I thought. Back to the internet.

I knew I would, sooner or later, have to address color temperature. There wasn’t total agreement on the web concerning the reveal bulbs. Other than it is close to an incandescent and it filters out the yellow.

Took out the manual and figured out how to create a custom setting. This would be the technique for using a white or gray card. The light tent has White Bristol Board for a floor and walls. I pointed into the empty box as the white reference. Camera thinks it is 3000K. That’s pretty close to the internet findings. I went with that.

The second test shots cured the red/brown problem. But the figures seem darker.

It looks like I need more of the same light. And I may have to mess with the exposures.

Zooming Along

Loaded up the software that came with the camera. I already have Paint Shop Pro on my machine, but I wanted to see if their application had any interesting features. I’ve only started to explore the options.

The main reason was to try to transfer photos from the camera. I don’t know if the software is required but it doesn’t take up a lot of disk space.

The camera behaves a lot like a jump drive. My operating system, XP Professional, treated the camera like a removeable drive. You "stop" the USB device the same way you would a removeable drive.

After I got the directory structure set up to my likeing, I zoomed in on the photos. You can’t really tell on the preview LCD, even though it is large 2 x 1.5 inches, how well the focus came out. The auto focus works well. Most of the photos are sharp. Some were taken in ambient light and the shutter speed couldn’t compensate for my movement.

My subjects are stuffed animals and bookcase shelves. You can really tell the depth of field differences. I suspect my default settings have something to do with that. So, that may be my next line of inquiry.