Rodnik Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 I take SaintRigger's approach. I create a different colored gradient, depending on what I want. I place it behind the mini I'm to photograph (actually, I *slope* the gradient from under the mini up the backstop). I shine TONS of light on it...and take a picture. The light is the *most* important thing in any photograph...assuming that the image is in focus, of course. You can take really decent pictures with any camera provided you understand/have enough lighting. LIGHTING LIGHTING LIGHTING folks. Get some lights. You can buy the entire set up at Home Depot/Lowes for about $25 bucks. Did I mention lighting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kheprera Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Warning!! Do not read if you don't like TMI!! I'm weird about backgrounds. No primary colors. In fact I'll tend towards neutral colors, gray, slate blue, and grayish brown. The reason for this is color. A strong colored background can fool an automatic printer (which most places use these days) and I've seen them fool digital cameras as well. Primary Red, Blue, and Yellow can throw the automatic printer/sensor into overdrive and it overcompensates. A red background will produce an odd cyan cast. Blue will produce yellow, and yellow will produce blue. Also (especially since I use film) if I shoot with a photographer's "gray card" as my background (Yay, I found mine this last weekend) then if I take the negatives to a custom shop all they have to do is match the background to read on a machine a certain way. Too much information? Let me explain. A photographer's gray card is a specific gray color that can be read to read 0 Cyan 0 Magenta 0 Yellow. Anything above or below 0 means the color is off. If you include such a card in your photos then anyplace that uses such a machine to balance their developing and printing machines (the one hour lab I managed used such a thing and we balanced everything daily) means that 1) most likely their chemicals are in good condition and balanced and 2) that the color balance for the film is balanced (and each film type needs to be balanced, depending on speed of the film and brand). Also, if you shoot in a studio setting (everything from lighting to camera settings are identical) then it's easier for the lab to print everything so it looks identical. I did such things on a daily basis. Okay, now that I've babbled and spouted probably more information about the photographic film developing industry than you've ever cared to know, at least you somewhat understand my reason for not using colored backgrounds and why most professionals have such plain, static settings or backdrops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pae Posted July 22, 2004 Share Posted July 22, 2004 For what it's worth, Ary, I use a grey card to calibrate the white balance in my digicam. I used to use a grey card as a background for my minis when I used my older digicam. That way, I could easily adjust the white balance to get pretty good results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kheprera Posted July 22, 2004 Share Posted July 22, 2004 Good for you!! If more people did that there would be less problems. Kellyn, if you're reading this, get a gray card. They aren't that expensive, around $10-$15. More information can be found at kodak.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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