Advise on product photographing

[TT Tim]

In my business I need to occasionally take product shots, i.e photos of books or novelty items.

I'm having a real problem getting a decent colour balance under artifical lights.

I'm using an Olympus E10 and, at present hallogen lights, but even though I'm white aligning the camera before shooting I'm still getting a yellow cast.

Any advise on what is the most economic/easiest solution?

Are daylight bulbs available for hallogens?

Here are examples of before and after processing:




Thanks

Tim

>>> Edited by TT Tim on Thursday 19th February 12:51

[jeremyc]

I know next to nothing about photography, but what about trying to take the shots outside, in natural light?

Weather permitting, obviously.

[luca brazzi]

You seem to have fixed it properly in software using a colour cast correction tool. Can you set the camera to a different colour temperature, light flourescent, or tungsten etc.?

If not, software is a good solution.
LB

[srider]

Are you using custom white balance? If not, get one
of these Then use it to set a custom white balance. Can't remember how on the E10, but if you get stuck I can find out.

>> Edited by srider on Thursday 19th February 13:51

[TT Tim]

I can colour correct in Photoshop okay, it's just time consuming. It would be a lot easier if shots were okay as they came out of the camera.

Having done some reasearch it looks like a Portaflash Tungsten Digi Light might be the answer, just thought I might get away without spending another £150.



I can set the temp on the camera but can't adjust for lighting type.

Tim

[srider]

TT Tim said:

I can colour correct in Photoshop okay, it's just time consuming. It would be a lot easier if shots were okay as they came out of the camera. Having done some reasearch it looks like a Portaflash Tungsten Digi Light might be the answer, just thought I might get away without spending another £150. I can set the temp on the camera but can't adjust for lighting type.

You can using a grey card, see above. I think it's manual WB on the E10. How does it look with the WB set to 3000K?

TT Tim said:

Tim

[TT Tim]

srider said:

You can using a grey card, see above. I think it's manual WB on the E10. How does it look with the WB set to 3000K?

thanks for the tip - makes for an interesting experiment, I need to sort out the exposure but this is a comparision of the temp settings available on the E10 and the effect they have:



Thanks again, a bit more experiment in order I think.

Tim

[srider]

TT Tim said:

srider said: You can using a grey card, see above. I think it's manual WB on the E10. How does it look with the WB set to 3000K? thanks for the tip - makes for an interesting experiment, I need to sort out the exposure but this is a comparision of the temp settings available on the E10 and the effect they have: Thanks again, a bit more experiment in order I think. Tim

Without hassle of setting a manual WB, 3000 or 3700 look closest. How about setting one of those and doing a PS action to tweak it a bit (as it'll be consistent with a WB set)?

[simpo two]

Hmm, all the above look like mud!

In the past (photographing laptops for a training manual) I was amazed how good PS Autolevels (Ctrl/Shift/L) was at restoring colour balance in these cases. However, if the quantity makes this too tedious, and bearing in mind the 'simple is good' theory, I'd move your set-up to a nice big window with good (but not direct) light and carry on.

Or send 'em to me of course!

[leszekg]

Don't know whether your camera takes filters but if so have you considered using a colour correction filter? There are filters for both daylight and artificial light correction which are normally used for compensating for using daylight film under artifical light and tungsten balanced film used in daylight. Don't know whether these would be of any use with a digital camera assuming you can't find a way using the features of your camera.

[Mad Dave]

Whenever im photographing indoors, i just use a light blue Cokin filter - all my shots seem to come out spot on when doing this.

Apparently you can also get 'indoor' film that has a blue cast to counteract the yellow cast you get if you use outdoor film indoors.

[TT Tim]

Thanks Dave, but i'm using digital. so unfortunately i don't have the luxury of different film types - thanks all the same.

Tim

[Bacardi]

Just looked at the specs for the E10 on DPreview, apparently you can shoot in RAW format. This would be the answer to your problem. Shooting in RAW ignores the CT settings of the camera. Shoot a grey card in the first shot then batch process all the files in a RAW converter, matching grey balance, curves, sharpness etc, to the first file. You can also process straight into CMYK (assuming you want to go to print) bypassing the the crap sRGB colour space giving you more accurate colour.

Not sure what software comes with the E10 but it's most probably rubbish. If you are using PS CS it has Adobe RAW converter built in, not sure, but I think that would process the E10 files.

Check out Russell Brown's Image Processor tutorial which uses Java script to batch process files:

www.russellbrown.com/body.html

HTH

[stevieb]

When i took some indoors photos over xmas, i found the ones in the kitchen to come out best.

I put this down to the kitchen having Halogen lights. Try and light up the area a little with Halogen lights and see what it comes out like but do not directly point the lights at the target or you will get light spots on the target.

Could be the cheapest way to try and solve it if you have a few halogen desk lamps around your house.

Also what camera are you using as on my dated minolta i can change the lighting tyoe.

Steve

[simpo two]

I still maintain soft natural light is best - halogen will give you fierce shadows.

[srider]

simpo two said:

I still maintain soft natural light is best - halogen will give you fierce shadows.

Done properly, product photography is very tricky. Ideally, you want consistent omni-directional light, like you get on a cloudy day. Something like this is ideal (from www.lastolite.com)



As with most things photographic, it can get very expensive, very quickly

[te51cle]

leszekg said:

Don't know whether your camera takes filters but if so have you considered using a colour correction filter? There are filters for both daylight and artificial light correction which are normally used for compensating for using daylight film under artifical light and tungsten balanced film used in daylight. Don't know whether these would be of any use with a digital camera assuming you can't find a way using the features of your camera.

That'll be an 80A filter. You can get screw-in ones if that's the only filter you'll ever use, or get a Cokin filter holder, adaptor ring and 020 filter for a few quid more and you'll be able to add others such as a FLW (fluorescent light correction) easily too.

That said, the cheapest way is to find a north-facing window and take your photos at midday.

[srider]

te51cle said:

leszekg said: Don't know whether your camera takes filters but if so have you considered using a colour correction filter? There are filters for both daylight and artificial light correction which are normally used for compensating for using daylight film under artifical light and tungsten balanced film used in daylight. Don't know whether these would be of any use with a digital camera assuming you can't find a way using the features of your camera. That'll be an 80A filter. You can get screw-in ones if that's the only filter you'll ever use, or get a Cokin filter holder, adaptor ring and 020 filter for a few quid more and you'll be able to add others such as a FLW (fluorescent light correction) easily too. That said, the cheapest way is to find a north-facing window and take your photos at midday.

Filters won't work with a digital camera set to Auto White Balance, the camera will just try to correct for them.

[te51cle]

srider said:

Filters won't work with a digital camera set to Auto White Balance, the camera will just try to correct for them.

Agreed, but judging by the before and after photos at the beginning of this thread I don't think the auto white balance is doing what it should. A blue filter would help get rid of that orange tint without so much post processing work being necessary.

[simpo two]

I guess another answer would be a diffused flash... diffused to soften the shadows and flash as its a higher colour temperature.