Hi Guys I like what you guys done for dave n so I thought I would ask what can I do to get a better picture from my Nikon 4300 Here is a picture I took in the manual mode with a F10 stop. I am using a 500 watt shop light.
Mike: I use a Nikon 4300. What shutter speed did you take the picture at? With the 500 watt shop light, you have great light in the front of the photo, but that light isn't distributed in the background. I would position the light so that it diffuses the light throughout your field. You are losing the color of the rock work behind the loco. What would happen if you used overhead light and didn't use the 500 watt shop light? Stay cool and run steam....
Wow Bob..... Let's see if you can help me with this problem now All this info I am getting from the picture metering:matrix mode:m shutter:1/8.0 aperture:f10 exp+/- :0.0 focal length: f14.2mm focus: mf forgot to say I don't have any lights yet that's another post for me " what's the best lighting for layout's"
Mike: The best lighting is color corrected flourescent tubes ( Natural light tubes with a 5000-5700 K range). You can get them at Home Depot or Lowes. In your photo, the glare from your 500 watt bulb is throwing the camera metering system off. That's why your rock work behind the loco's is all washed out. and the background gets dark in the back of the photo. How is the light positioned? From what I can tell from the photo, it behind you when you're taking the photo. Less light is much better in digital photography. With more light there is too much glare. Also use a tripod if you're not using one. This will allow you to increase the time exposure and not get a blurry photo. Stay cool and run steam.....
Mike: The best lighting is color corrected flourescent tubes ( Natural light tubes with a 5000-5700 K range). You can get them at Home Depot or Lowes. In your photo, the glare from your 500 watt bulb is throwing the camera metering system off. That's why your rock work behind the loco's is all washed out. and the background gets dark in the back of the photo. How is the light positioned? From what I can tell from the photo, it behind you when you're taking the photo. Less light is much better in digital photography. With more light there is too much glare. Also use a tripod if you're not using one. This will allow you to increase the time exposure and not get a blurry photo. Stay cool and run steam..... </font>[/QUOTE]Actually, F10 is about as high as the Nikon Digis can go. I use the 8500 for my digital photography. While the light could be better in the photo, it actually isnt that bad and is not causing the whiteout on the rock face. Although a "key" light would clear it up a little bit. The main reason is the settings for the camera. With an F10, you should have a longer shutter speed than 1/8. Swith the camera to A mode, and not M and set it to F10, it should give you a "proper" speed of 2-4 seconds in green on the bottom left of your LCD screen. Also, switch your focus to Auto and not MF. Nikons have a very good AF and also make sure it is not cet to "center" so you dont get just the locos in sharp focus, as we see here. The Nikon Matrix metering system is very very good, but seems to be metering off of the rock face and not the top left corner. Set your camera to meter lock, and then meter off of something that is slightly darker in the photo but under the same light, this will help to give the photo the proper ballance and also clear up the rock face, and the cars towards the rear of the train. Also, try switching the camera to macro, and then zooming in. The zoon bar in the lcd will turn green when you are in the proper focus zone. Great photo and make sure to take more!!!!
Ok now it's time to get back to the camera now that I have my lights up What I am not sure on is... what I need to set the shutter speed to???? after testing I think that 1/2 and 1/4 is what i find works anyone???? I am not sure what the lights are as far as the 3000K or ???? so any help would be Great!!!
Hi, It isn't so much what the shutter speed is more the aperture setting. If you have aperture priority settings on your camera, set it to the highest number it will go,. i.e f11- f22 - f32 or what ever your camera allows. Daylight Fluorescent Tubes are what I use on my ceiling and have 9 at 18" intervals. Hope you don't mind, but I cropped and altered colours on your photo below. Here is what I am talking about. The best Depth of field possible always looks better in model forum, (IMHO) . This was taken at f22 using my Canon 350D rebel. with a shutter at 2 seconds. Camera on a tripod. Cheers Paul [ August 14, 2005, 04:57 AM: Message edited by: Paul Templar ]
I did some checking on that Coolpix 4300 and it looks like the smallest aperture setting is F13.4 at telephoto and increases to F7.6 at wide angle. The smaller the aperture (larger the F number) the more depth of field you get. See Paul's photo above. It also appears that the 4300 does not have an aperture priority mode, but it does have a manual setting so you can set the aperture to the highest number possible. Your shutter speeds should be quite long, a second or two - but the camera should give you some sort of indication how long it should be. You need a tripod for this! Also - you can use incandescent or fluorescent lights. Remember to set the camera for the type of lighting you are using. It is possible (as Paul has done) to correct this with your computer, but it's just as easy to make the change in your camera.
Thanks Paul and Rob....First I am using a tripod and I did try the three settings for fluorescent lights. Then the next problem I had is with the shutter speed I did try many and on some the picture was black?????? Paul that picture you did looks better Thanks!!! Now if I can learn how to take pictures as half as good as you
Depth of field? Otherwise, it looks pretty good to me. I would say you need a higher number on the f stop. Is everything on the camera settings on manual? I usually shoot that way so I can control things.
Hey Jeff..... The first thing I do is use the zoom so my F stop goes to 13.4 I will try taking another pic with no zoom and see what that brings. If all else fails I will bring camera down to your place for some classes
Now that SP picture looks very good. Much better depth of field. Also, no worries. The film is cheap and the advice on this forum is even less! Besides, I like to see the photos!
Let's see this pic I used zoom and had f stop at 13.4 shutter 1/2 sensitivity 100 focal length f24.0mm this pic f stop 7.6 shutter 1/2 sens auto focal length f8.0mm
