Sunday, February 7, 2010

White-Balance Frustrations

I wanted to take a picture of the fountain pen I made over last summer. I liked how it looked when "posed" with the ink bottle it uses, so I took them together. The resulting crop excluded any of the actual woodworking, but I got the tip of the pen, which I think is more interesting.

Unfortunately, I've learned that the "incandescent" setting on my camera is basically just insufficient. I have a hard time correcting for that kind of a WB slip-up in Photoshop (although I didn't try it in Lightroom, which I think might do a better job), so when I revisit this, and do another shoot of the fountain pen, I'll probably just shoot it with a more neutral light color.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/2.6
Shutter Speed: 1 second
ISO: 80
Gorilla Pod



Also, I'll probably clean the bottle (especially the dusty lid) and pen thoroughly first. I keep forgetting that macro shots expose details regardless of how unpleasant they are.

So a somewhat disappointing shot, but I'm armed to get it right next time.

2 comments:

  1. It doesn't seem that "off" to me; but yes, they are generally easy to correct in Lightroom. I'm constantly correcting my WB and tweaking tones! The tip of the pen is nice and sharp and creates a really nice focal point in your still-life!

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  2. What's wrong with the white balance? I like the warm light. But if you're having trouble with the "incandescent" setting, try "fluorescent." If you have any kind of mixed lighting, that setting generally works pretty well in my experience.

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