I'm trying to take pictures of products like stuffed animals for an electronic catalog. I have a limited budget and am trying to get the best quality with the equipment I have. I would be willing to make an investment if you feel it would vastly improve my results.

Currently, I am using an AGFA ephoto 780. I have set up a little studio in the basement. I am using a blue blanket as a background and industrial two 500 watt halogen lights, like the kind a painter would use the kind you can get at Home-depot for $20/a piece. The lights are bright, but I am having a few problems.

- The blue blanket background comes out with a lot of shadows making it very difficult to select and cut-away the product from the background. - The images are not very clear and they have a yellow tinge to them, I am guessing from the halogen lights?

Anyway, I would GREATLY appreciate feedback from any experienced photographers or if anyone has a suggestion. The images are going to be used on the site Tele-Mania.com to sell tv merchandise, in case you are curious. Thanks, in advance for your response.

David Edelstein Tele-Mania.com

-- David Edelstein (dve@bignet.net), May 03, 2000

Answers

Diffusing the lights would help with the shadows, you'll have to find some kind of fabric or material that won't burn(!), maybe white plexiglass, something to smooth the light source. That will kill most of the harsh shadows and you might have to add a small backlight to evenly illuminate the backdrop. You need a camera with programmable white balance to offset the color temperature of the halogen lights. You'll have to look at the features of the camera to see if it just has presets (indoor,flash,outdoor....) or if you can white balance the camera with a card. I've used the Nikon 950 which is more affordable than ever, with the card white balance, and offsetting the color cast of the halogens is pretty simple. Not to knock Agfa but you might need more camera, I think the 780 is giving you the bulk of the weird coloring effects, I tried a Fuji DX10 to take pictures of some circut boards and and the color was awful. Oh yeah, one handy thing I found useful was setting the camera on a tripod (duh!), running it off AC for product shots (no dead batteries), and using a monitor hooked up to the Video out port of my camera. I bought a Commodore Amiga 1084 monitor for $25 from a pawn shop and set the monitor on a swivel table. I can then leave the camera on, spin the monitor and look at the monitor while I arrange whatever I'm shooting ( I built a seamless background) so then I can see the composition without running back and forth, kind of like a 13" viewfinder. Works prefect. Then I go back to the camera and take the shot, no suprises. You can use any TV or monitor with composite video in with most digicams over $400, so make sure you get a camera with NTSC video out and programmable white balance. Good luck, hope that helps.

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), May 03, 2000.

Lee filters do a spun fibre diffuser material that's fire-resistant, or you could use fibre-glass matting of the kind used for boat and car repair. It needs to be suspended some way in front of the lights to get any appreciable differ effect. Use an A to D (Artificial to Daylight) blue filter over the lens of the camera to get rid of the yellow cast. These are obtainable at any decent photographic store. The lighting set-up you're using sounds horrible, if you don't mind me saying so. I take it you're trying to do something like chroma-key with the blue background, and that will demand very flat lighting, giving very poor modelling to the product. Forget it! It's totally unnecessary for stills. Ditch the blue, and use a more neutral background like black or white, they're both much easier to cut and paste from. Better yet, get (or make) yourself a proper translucent curved plexiglass product table. You can light this from behind, leaving your product "floating" on a perfectly white background.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), May 04, 2000.

Bugger! The end of that second sentence should read "to get any appreciable diffuser effect."

Sorry!

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), May 04, 2000.