HOw do i take pictures without face glowing?

I don't currently own a doll, so I can't speak as someone in your exact situation, but I've got some general photography tips.

a.) NO FLASH. Ever.

b.) Unless you've got a crazy awesome lighting rig, don't take photos that you want to look naturally lit in artificial conditions- i.e., at night with a desk lamp. You want to be shooting in daylight if at all possible.

c.) Invest in Photoshop and shoot in RAW. The combination of these two can save otherwise unsalvageable photos.

d.) Buying a single bright lamp isn't going to make things better, at all. You've got a few options- shoot in daylight only, like I mentioned above, buy at least four or five sun lamps (i.e., not cheap fluorescent ones) and study lighting techniques and setups, or buy a lightrig.

 

I agree with not using the flash unless you're going to have some diffusion going on -- and that might be a bit too advanced for you starting out.

HOWEVER, there are quite a few good tutorials on single-lamp lighting or using a window during daylight hours to get cool pictures indoors. You just have to do some searching.

http://geekisthecolour.deviantart.c...68?q=sort:time gallery:geekisthecolour&qo=251

http://kyuugou.deviantart.com/gallery/7151457#/d1phso7

here are just a couple from DeviantArt users. I'm sure you could find a few others around if you googled ^____^

You also don't need a really great camera to take good BJD pictures. I used to take all mine - up until this June - with a point and shoot, outside in the late afternoon. It's just a little practice. Start out taking pictures during the day if you can though - once you get used to it, lighting might come easier.

If you do decide to do some lamp-light shots - then just go and buy an appropriate "daylight" bulb. Make sure it doesn't say 'warm, pearl or cool' on it - if you aren't sure, then ask someone for the right kind.

 

Mpregangel what kind of camera are you using? Does it have a pop-up flash? Can you set the white balance?

You could simply tape or hold a piece of wax paper or bubble wrap over you flash or http://www.instructables.com/id/Pill-Bottle-Pocket-Camera-Flash-Diffuser/ or http://www.instructables.com/id/Point-and-Shoot-Ring-Flash-Diffuser/

You'd be amazed at what you can do with tin foil, a potato chip can and a few desk lamps. http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveblackdog/

How far "down the rabbit hole" do you want to go?
Good places to do research are http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/ and http://www.diyphotography.net/

@ Krynnmeridia "No Flash. Ever!"

 

I disgaree about not being able to take good photos with a desklamp. I find it does fine for portraits (it isn't powerful enough to take full length shots). But remember to diffuse the light to prevent harsh shadows and bleached out highlights. I wrap a transluscent plastic bag, that polystyrene packing sheet stuff or bubble wrap loosely around the top of a bendy, halogen desklamp (be aware that bubblewrap does produce slightly dappled light, though) and it does the job fine. Using a sheet of white paper on the opposite side to the light to bounce back the light into the shadows will further soften and lighten them.

And it doesn't matter what colour bulb you are using if you have the facility to change the white balance on your camera. The best way to do this is by setting the custom white balance (but that is a whole tutorial in itself). Alternatively, your camera might have the facility to set the white balance to tungsten (or whatever you are using). This compensates for the yellow cast in tungsten and will produce the colours as true.

Example, taken with a 30W halogen bulb (which is equivalent to a 50W normal bulb, I believe) with a "bag" made of polystyrene sheeting loosely wrapped around the head of the lamp and a piece of white card bouncing the light back into the shaded side.



I do have "proper" lights and softboxes and all that gumpf, but it is fun to get decent shots with what is kicking arond the house. It presents its own challenges, which are fun to tackle and teaches you a lot abotu the principles of lighting. Embrace ghetto photography and experiment!

That is a handy thing with the Pringles tube, Mire Lapin. I wonder if I have a bulb small enough to go in one of those *hunts around*

 

I've been using the same two cheap desk lamps with GE Reveal lightbulbs (and a foil-covered piece of cardboard as a reflector) in them for years. My photos aren't great and they certainly don't look like they've been taken outdoors, but they are good enough I have never felt compelled to upgrade to a real lighting rig. Don't have space to store any equipment, so my workbench lamps do double duty.


I definitely want to try that Pringles tube trick too!

 

Flash is ok, you just have to move the light away from camera position. Try use a mirror to bounce the light to the ceiling for a start. Desk lamps are ok, but don't generate enough light on their own to eliminate camera shake, unless they are unusually powerful or you have multiple.

I think the best cheap solution is a tripod. A simple $15-20 one will do for basic use and will give your existing home lighting more mileage.

 

Yes, I should have added that I wouldn't try using desklamps without a tripod. But a tripod is an essential piece of photography kit, imo. As you say, they don't cost a great deal and I have used the same one regularly for the last five years and will go on using it for the next five years.

Another thing about going ghetto, which I touched on earlier but will reiterate here as, on reflection, I think it is a real selling point, is that it teaches you so much about lighting. Like the chap with the Pringles tube, I end up using strange bits of this and that, stuck together with gaffer tape, to try and get the effect I want. I try it out, and I see what the result is, and I tweak, and I try again. Yes, it is time-consuming, but it is fun. I spent literally hours trying to create a particular film noir lighting technique and then found that I had effectively reinvented the strip light. I could have saved myself hours of head-scratching and cardboard cutting by just buying one ready made. But I can't afford one, and I wouldn't have had the experience of creating the effect from basic principles. So, if I am ever lucky enough to use a real, purpose-built strip light, I will know exactly how it produces the effect that it produces and that will help me use it better.

There can be a lot of technical competitiveness in photography ("My lens is bigger than your lens"), but I continue to hold that, with imagination and some knowledge of the basic principles, you can produce as good a picture with bits taken out of the recycling bin as someone else could with hundreds of pounds worth of specialist equipment. Mr Pringle proves the point. Great shots from pieces of rubbish, effectively. My kind of photographer.

 

I'm also agreeing that desk lamps are fine

I usually have a little lamp with a dayglow (daylight?) bulb in it that works fantastic. That generally will give you natural color, or it may make it slightly blue-ish, but nothing overbearing that wouldn't be easy to fix.
This was taken several years ago with my old sony point and shoot and the same desk lamp that I generally use today. I went into my settings on my camera and had to change "exposure compensation" to get it to "behave" with the type of lighting I was shooting in. This was when I was still really early in photography, and I remember this shoot because I was just sitting around trying to get something to work, and I just decided to try this thing called "exposure compensation not really understanding what it did, and It turned out well So Just play with your camera, it's ok if you don't know what you're doing, once if figure out something that works, you can go figure out the reasons behind why it works and learn from that



I am about 75% sure that I took this at night in my room wih the lights off and using the desk lamp as the only light source. (the slight pink on his left shoulder is the cast of the edge of the light through the lamp shade, as it is pink :B ~ Be be careful of that when shooting! If you have translucent colored lamp like I do, you may get some weird colors on the edges of your photos XD
I didn't use a tripod as I didn't own one :B





Other have included good advice for flash diffusers and such, and I've never really used them, so hopefully you have a good chunk of information to try different things

^ This.

 

It is completely possible to take photos with one artificial light. I will second some people here and add maybe a couple of things.

1. Diffuse the light. It can even be with a white sheet of paper. Just set it a couple of inches away from the light. If you are using flash, diffuse it as well.

2. White balance. If you have that setting in your camera, use it! Table lamps can make it all pretty yellow and whereas it gives the pic a warm feeling, you don't want that in all your pics!

3. Tripod. If you want to take a decent pic, you need a tripod, especially for indoor pics.

4. Be aware of exposure. Overexposed pics are shiny.

5. Light and shadows. Keep the light at a good distance from the doll and mind the shadows that are cast on backgrounds. Keep the background at a distance too.

6. Mirrors and white boards/paper. If you have them you can set them up in a way that it creates more light.

This pic was taken with a desk lamp.

 

This was really helpful! I'm just getting into photography and this helped a lot! Thanks!

 

By all means follow the above, but remember to break them also.

6) Using a black or dark colored board/paper can block unwanted reflections and light from reaching your camera lens,
sorta focusing your light. Link is for a real person set-up but applys to tabletop photos also
http://fpucreative.blogspot.com/2010/09/hyper-sharp-high-contrast-portrait.html

5) If the light source is close to your subject and the background is not - the background will appear darker or black.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkleynoon/2068573624/

4) So blown out whites are not cool, but than place a doll with dark skin/hair/eyes against an all white background and
purposely blow out your white. http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkleynoon/278896574/

3) Books, an empty jar of Peanut Butter, Vegemite or a box of cereal and a few stones also can sub as a tripod.

2) This is my pet peeve, but if your white balance is off - you can get some cool effects.

1) Not diffusing your light source can crate hard shadows (admittedly, I see this more in portraits of men than women)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkleynoon/5763725405/

The really great thing about digital cameras, over film cameras, is that it cost you nothing to experiment!

Oh and just because it makes you think! http://guessthelighting.com/

 

(The following is just my opinion! Please don't hate me!)

Or...you can try using your flash, but get several feet away and use the zoom so you don't have that direct flashback, which is what's making the face glow. I do that a lot, because I have a choice: tell all Wiishu's little stories or spend the same amount of time photographing one. It's a hobby. I love the stories, so that's my primary goal. I also get some very nice photos.

I don't normally worry about perfect controlled lighting because I want that "snapshot" effect. Some have flash, some are backlit...it's all part of the story. A lot depends on the effect you're going for. If I use the flash, I do set the +/- so that it underexposes. This also helps keep the "glow" down and it's easy to resurrect the detail in the dark areas in the post-shoot processing.

I've also used the led headlamps you get in the hardware store, especially when I'm wanting story to focus on one doll over the other. It's a nice, cool, soft-edged spotlight. (It's also useful for fixing the plumbing!) I guess what I'm trying to say is, there's perfect portrait lighting...and then there's everything else. Flash is not an anathema, just another useful tool. (Ducking and rolling)

And while RAW is nice, there are a lot of beautiful photos out there that began life as simple jpgs. A good idea and solid composition will save almost any image. The rest is gravy.

For what it's worth, this is a completely unedited...well, I might have cropped it...image using the headlamp. I've just started using it, so I'm still working on that aiming thing, but I rather liked the effect.

 

Headlamp? I read this and think of cars. Is that the one you strap to your head for biking, caving and so on?

 

It's not quite bright enough for caving, altho I don't see why something like that couldn't work for lighting a complete shot. I have a small area to work in and I just wanted an occasional soft spot on the dolls to let the background go dark. I got these as a three pack at Costco.



What I like about it is I can follow Wiishu and Pookie around as they do their thing and I can pose them spontaneously. Because this straps to the forehead and looks where you do (it also tilts up and down) it makes it easy to gently lighten up one area. As I say, I'm still learning. The photoshoot for Pookie's box opening (of which the above is part) was my first real test with it. (I haven't posted the opening yet and it'll be a while...probably about 100 pics total. s/b pretty funny.) But the trick is to set your shot, aim the camera, then take the pic without looking so you can make sure you've aimed the spot where you want it. I had it for things like plumbing and electric...and I have one behind the TV and in the office for getting back there and messing with all the connections. As I say, tho, I'm not going for perfection, just fun.

 

This is genius.

I have one of these. Genius.

 

Speaking as an experienced photographer, it's generally the best decision to always use flash, HOWEVER when it comes to dolls I find that diffusing the flash is the best (unless you're shooting in an outdoors, sunny location) which is why I diffuse the flash, usually just using white card or a sponge held above the flash. It's a pretty easy fix that keeps your photos in focus and bright without having to spend any extra money.