Photographing outside

Dianna Fish · 01-04-2003, 08:39 PM

I took the advice about photographing my paintings outside - on the north facing side of the house at midday. All of the photos turned out sort of blue. I tried them again at a different time, but still the same bluish tint.

Am I doing something wrong? Please help!

Thanks,
Dianna

Mike McCarty · 01-04-2003, 10:00 PM

Dianna,

I don't know much about digital cameras but you might check to see if you have a "white balance" setting that you need to establish on your camera.

For those digital camera folks, you might want to state what type of camera you are using. Also, you might want to give some idea of what colors you were expecting. White background?

I assume you were taking your picture in the shade.

Dianna Fish · 01-05-2003, 01:07 AM

Dear Mike,

This portrait is graphite on white paper. I am using a Toshiba PDR-M5 digital still camera - 2.1 megapixels. It is a very simple camera - I am not aware of any settings other than red-eye, timer, and flash.

Thank you for your response, though.

Dianna

Will Enns · 01-05-2003, 01:27 PM

Dianna,

I think Mike is right, and white balance is your culprit.

Photographing something in north light is really about color temperature, which has no bearing on grayscale images such as graphite on white paper.

Considering the simplicity of your camera, and the fact that graphite is a grayscale medium, I suggest you simply convert the existing image to grayscale in your photo editor, to look like this.

For what it's worth, I would expect the same kind of shenanigans from my full featured digital.

Dianna Fish · 01-05-2003, 02:23 PM

Mike & Will,

Thank you for your responses. I got out the manual to the camera, and it does have a white light setting. I tried it again today, but it is still blue. I decided to try it inside and use light from a window (west-facing). It seemed to work much better. I don't know what it is about outside. Maybe I'm in too much of a shadow - the roof is very steep, which creates a very large shadow area. Oh well, I've ordered 2 Chromalux lights with halogen lights and stands. Maybe that will work better.

Thanks again,
Dianna