Today I wanted to talk to continue on the theme of taking great pictures. Last week I posted about the set up here. Today I want to talk about camera settings.
Another important step is having the correct settings for your camera. I have a digital Sony Cyber Shot Camera 7.2 Mega pixel. Nothing fancy or expensive.
The settings that I use the most are the EV setting. The EV settings adjust the light to lighten or darken the subject. Then there is the white balance. The white balance pretty much stays the same in the area that I take my photo’s. The only reason I would even change it is if I were to go in another room or outside with different lighting.
You can get to your settings usually through a menu button on your camera. The way I learned about this was I spent a day reading the manual. I don’t like reading manuals, but how else was I going to learn, even though I did research online, it still helped to read the manual. I went in and just started experimenting…I was surprised at what all this little camera can do.
For the white balance setting I have mine set on daylight and I do not use a flash. The other white balance settings range from cloudy to incandescent to fluorescent. I thought at first I would use the fluorescent setting because I use that type of lighting in the room. But I ended up using the daylight which looks better to me.
This is something you will have to experiment with until you get it the way you want. It takes time and patience.
After my post, Meet the family, I thought you should meet my model Valerie, I call her Vintage Valerie…lol:) She is a great model and does everything I tell her to. Although it would be nice to have a live model sometimes….I will save that thought for another post.
After reading Fredrick_Nijm blog post on Tips to insure You are putting Your Best Photo(s) Forward I decided to share how I get my best photos.
First of all I’d like to say it took me quite awhile to learn how to do this. I tried and failed many times, but I kept trying until I got it right.
I used many background colors and textures until I came up with the one I’m currently using now. I used sheets ,curtains and different fabrics. I decided that a gray paper backdrop for clothing items was the best for me.
I bought a roll of gray paper from an online business. I did not have a stand to put it on so I had to get creative and come up with a way to attach it to the wall…I happened to have 2 wooden curtain rod holders that are in the shape of a U and screwed them to the wall. I used a piece of PVC pipe to run inside the roll and then place it on the holders and Wha’La!
For the lights that I use I bought open shop light florescent fixtures that have a pull chain and I also use the silver reflector light fixtures with a clamp. The bulbs I use in the long fluorescent fixtures are the Daylight 5000K wattage and the bulbs I use in the reflector fixtures are 100W florescent bulbs.
I had to play around a bit with the distance of where to put the fixtures and also I had to play around with the settings on my camera, this is important too! That in itself will require another post. Now that I have my settings right for taking pictures of clothing, I feel that I need to learn more on taking pictures of smaller items…I still do not have that nailed down…I know that probably sounds silly, but it is true. I hope to get more tips and tricks from my friends. Do you have any tips you can share with me?
Last week we were inspired in our Addoway group to write a post on our blogs that are connected with our Addoway stores…which is pretty cool by the way and below was the post I submitted.
For today's post I thought I would introduce you to my family. From top left is my future son in law Gabriel and my oldest daughter Amber. To the far right is my youngest daughter Ana. The bottom left is my daughter in law Katie and my son Nathan. Then to the far right bottom is my husband Alan and myself.
That is my post for today…he…he..!
