I need to tidy up my rig and get some new pics.
Nice pics, especially for a first try
I dunno much about photography either, and I don't have a dslr, but I have some basic laws:
- No flash unless it's dark like the night and you have to.
- Lowest ISO with higher exposure owns Higher ISO with lower exposure
- Tripods rock. Gorillapods too
- Use time delay so your press on the button doesn't influence movement.
I follow these rules with my point and shoot and get some pretty good shots. Here's a bunch more suggestions for great pics with household items. I feel they're relevant for this thread since anybody can benefit from them while taking pics of their PCs. I'm very amateur, so correct me if I say something wrong.
Lighting:
- Avoid direct light. If you have to shine a lamp on something, then diffuse it with some wax paper or a thin piece of white cloth.
- Try "bouncing" light off of walls and such. Any white or off-white surface should do. Other colors work, but they will color the light. Sometimes that is desirable.
- Use pieces of cardboard on the sides of the lights where you don't want it bleeding out (ie: keep it from hitting your lens). Also try cereal boxes and such to create "spot" lights.
- There's all sorts of fun to be had with lighting using household items and some creativity so just experiment!
White Balance:
- Use manual white-balance, where you point the camera at something pure white and then tell it that's what white is.
- Do this every time you change lighting or location. Try to put the white object as close to where your subject is/will be so it gets the same lighting for more accurate adjustment. - For best results, object should have a flat surface without any color variation.
- Don't use a plain piece of paper, light bleeds through easily and it won't be a pure white. - Thicker materials like cardboard or matte board are better. I like to use the top of a scanner bed that I glued on to a cardboard backing. Also makes a great mouse-pad
Backdrop:
- Easiest is just to drape a plain white sheet over something and then pull the bottom out so it makes a nice curve without any wrinkles (should look kinda like a vert-ramp for skating and such). Leave enough slack at the end to flatten out so you can place your subject without pulling down on the sheet and ruining your nice curve.
- The other way is to make a box. Get some big pieces of cardboard, matte board, poster-board, etc. any nice thick board all the same color (white is most versatile, but other colors can be fun, although with white it should be easy to change the color in software).
- All you need is three pieces; one for the bottom and then two sides. This is generally easier to deal with than a sheet since they don't wrinkle, but the down-side is having to buy the boards instead of just using something you already have lying around.
- Don't bother with a backdrop when you're only taking macro shots close enough that it won't be seen anyways.
I'm forgetting a lot of stuff I'm sure, and I know that's all stuff dealing with the environment rather than the camera, but it's equally important and can make almost any camera produce nice results.
Most importantly, EXPERIMENT!!
And to stay on topic, here's the most recent pic of my board that I took when I started cleaning my case a few weeks ago. It's crappy and the case was still dirty when I took it.
Now I just got to come over and tidy up your cables!
![[Ion]](https://tpucdn.com/forums/data/avatars/l/75/75675.jpg?1443792369){kind=avatar}
