I just opened this up and read it very quickly because I have to leave
for a few hours. But it's clear to me that I haven't made myself clear
on a couple of points. First, NO NO NO aperture preferred mode. Fully
manual exposure only. Secondly, I'm not sure you've got this white
balance thing down yet. I'll be back in a few hours for some more detail.
Chuck Norcutt
On 9/29/2010 5:28 AM, Olaf Greve wrote:
> Hi Chuck,
>
> Thanks again for the two additional explicative e-mails: they are
> great and I shall save them for having them as back
> reference. These e-mails make the exact problems, and paths for
> solutions very clear; excellent explanations!
>
> So then, to summarise matters somewhat, I agree that it is more than
> worth a go to use the OM gear I already have; that also gives me a
> very, very good feeling, as it pains me to see it all unused in the
> closet.
>
> It does mean, however, that I need to work on the set-up. I have two
> semi-broken video camera (rather light) tripods which I can use to
> improvise umbrella stands, if I can find the custom made ones again.
> If not, other things could be improvised, such as firing through a bed
> sheet (possibly clumsy due to the size) or through the paper that
> clothes designers use (I don't know the proper English word for it) in
> order to diffuse the flash. I'm leaning towards the idea of giving
> both a go, see what works best, and then create some two wooden frames
> with the material of choice in between, so as to be able to more
> easily put them in place, without having to suspend them from
> something. As a beside, a thing I forgot to mention is that when I did
> some home-studio-experimenting, I used to tape off the windows with
> that type of paper too, so as to prevent outside light coming in
> harshly, and having it diffused.
>
> Indeed a BIG advantage of the digital era is that the exposure can
> directly be previewed for being more or less correct. Actually
> downloading a picture to the computer and checking it full size (as
> the LCD seems to give a brighter display then what I see in the end
> results!) should very quickly give a good indication for good
> settings, distances, etc.
>
> I may choose to not go for three flashes, but rather to just use the
> two T32s, at a 45 degrees angle from both sides of the object in
> question. I think I can then get away with it. I did at one point in
> time experiment a little bit with the T28 directly on the E-500 firing
> t manually. Even when fully stopped down that gave me an almost
> completely white picture. Totally overpowered. This then directly
> makes clear that one or two layers of diffusing material will be
> needed, so the bed sheets or transparant paper might be a better
> alternative than having it bounced in my custom made umbrellas. The
> semi transparent ones you mention sound good though. Particularly if
> they come cheap and complete with stands. A thing I shall be keeping
> my eyes open for.
>
> With that as intended set-up in mind, I can put the T32s in the T20
> autoconnectors for easily mounting them on the tripods. Hooking both
> up with the OM TTL cables (i.e. not the manual cables, which I don't
> have) to the three socket distribution block should then take care of
> the simultaneous firing of the both. I think, and that is, I'm just
> about 99.99% sure that I also have the proper hot-shoe cable to hook
> the distribution block up to the camera (IIRC, when using the 4Ti for
> this, I used to hook it up to the socket on the front, so as to be
> able to use a longer cable for that).
> Then, both T32s could be set to half-power (a thing achieved on the
> back of the flash with the switch panel, IIRC) and the camera should
> then probably be set to force flash usage (which setting is best? you
> mentioned something about the highest sync speed possible... is that
> something like 'lightning x4' or so?). Once configured correctly, the
> set-up could be tested, using a variety of ISO and aperture settings.
> The camera could then possibly be set to aperture preferred mode,
> hence getting a more consistent DOF too.
>
> Then, if the above is correct, a thing I'm still not 100% certain
> about (exposing my noop knowledge of the fine details of digital
> photography ;) ), is the theory behind proper WB setting. My reasons
> for wanting to switch to a white background would be that it tends to
> be more reflective than 18% gray (i.e. on the often round-shaped lying
> down items it helps to light somewhat from below, hopefully preventing
> side shadows (perhaps this is a flawed theory, as shadows shouldn't be
> an issue if the light is diffuse enough) and also to be able to more
> easily do the digital post processing, by having the pictures work
> towards getting a completely white background, as easy visual
> reference. Sounds good or flawed?
>
> Then, as for setting the WB properly... How can I best do that? Does
> this get done once in some custom mode, against a 100% subject (such
> as the intended backdrop?), and can that be locked into the camera for
> all subsequent shots?
>
> Once I have gotten all those techniques mastered, and once I have a
> suitable set-up going (a thing which I may not get around to until at
> the very least this weekend, and then there's TOPE too to finally get
> launched soon...), I will undoubtedly have some follow up questions as
> to how to best use Paint Shop Pro for the digital post processing.
> I've been a long time user of it, and I tend to like it better than
> the de-facto bloated and over-expensive Photoshop. In fact, PSP
> supports plenty more advanced features than I will be likely to ever
> need for the post-processing. All the stuff like tweaking curves,
> brightness, contrast, colour balances are there; possibly a bit less
> flexible than in PS, but it should be possible to get this figured out
> correctly too. IIRC one can also record some macros (or otherwise
> create pre-defined bulk processing options) which would be really
> great: I could then work on defining a standard set of tweaks, which
> can then simply be applied in bulk to possibly hundreds of pictures
> per shoot, after which the only manual work would be to possibly tweak
> rotation, cropping, and actual image selection.
>
> Sounds good -in theory- so far? :P
>
> Cheers,
> Olafo
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