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How to light for a Truer Blue?

Nov 18, 2010

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    1. Ok, so the problem I'm having is that when taking photos of my girl her dark blue wig and jeans photograph black. The wig is JPop WinterNight. It's a dark blue/steel color.

      Taken with a Nikon CoolPix P100 (set to Auto exposure because I feeling lazy). I use photographer's spotlights with those big diffuser umbrellas... They're too bright if I get rid of the umbrella's.

      [​IMG]

      [​IMG]

      I can get a little more of a blue color with natural light, but parts still photograph black.

      [​IMG]

      Any suggestions on how to get this wig to photograph a truer color? Everything other color is spot on.

      -- Thanks.
       
      #1 Kymera, Nov 18, 2010
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    2. How many lights are you using? How are they set up?

      It occurs to me that you may want to add a hair light, a light targeting the top and slightly to the rear of the doll. This will separate the hair from the background and help it stand out more, as well as light up the hair of course.
       
      #2 gaiaswill, Nov 18, 2010
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    3. I've got two. One is high and in front and one level and from the side. My photo space is pretty limited (not many place to position the lights) and there's a sewing machine between the doll and the side light (so I'm not sure how effective that one is...). It's still better than incandescent lighting...

      Hmm. Thanks. I'll look into that. I guess my area could be too dark still. I'm in a basement so there isn't a lot of ambient lighting
       
      #3 Kymera, Nov 18, 2010
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    4. Have you tried adjusting your white balance?
       
      #4 Pink*Parasol, Nov 21, 2010
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    5. *pokes at her camera*

      I was shooting in full auto (lazy me), so the white balance was auto, too; I couldn't adjust it. But I'll keep that in mind and take the time to shoot in something other than auto.
       
      #5 Kymera, Nov 21, 2010
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    6. Sometimes auto isn't always the best option. I've learned that, not too long ago. It's always good to fiddle around with your settings just to see, because auto might not get what you ideally want.
       
      #6 writerm, Nov 29, 2010
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    7. This seems to me most likely to be a question of a combination of two things:

      • One, as has already been said, the white balance. Take it off auto, fiddle with it, see how you can make it reproduce the colour you want to see.
      • Two, the exposure. In the last picture you get a lot of black, since the wig seems to be largely underexposed.

      Rectifying the second item means directing more light specifically on the wig, to get it properly exposed along with the rest of the image.
      When doing this though, mind that the hair light is of the same colour temperature as the rest of the light in the image. If you shoot in daylight, use e.g. a reflector or off-camera flash as hair light, do not use a tungsten bulb. If you shoot in tungsten light, do not use a fluorescent lamp as hair light, and so on. This will help you avoid very strange effects with the white balance.
       
      #7 The Dragon, Nov 30, 2010
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    8. Thought I'd update this, since I took another photo shoot with the blue wig - same doll, brand new faceup. You can actually see that the wig is blue this time! :)

      I mostly just messed with the settings on my camera - manually set the ISO speed, aperture and shutter. I think I could have done even better if I'd had room to bring in extra lighting, instead of the incandescent lights. Still, these shots came out a heck of a lot better than the last ones. I tweaked the levels a smidge, but that's the extent of the post processing.

      Thanks so much, to everybody who replied.

      [​IMG]

      [​IMG]
       
      #8 Kymera, Feb 8, 2011
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