Help: Camera settings for Beam Shots

DaGunn

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Jul 27, 2004
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Ok, I have never taken photos in the dark and need some help in what settings my digital camera should have when snapping pix. I have a 3 megapixel Nikon CoolPix 990. Also when posting these beamshots should I just use 72 dpi with 600X600 photo size? Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Dave
 

jtice

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May 21, 2003
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West Virginia
Dave,

The most important thing is to make sure the camera is on the same settings for each pic.

If you take a pic of two different lights, on two different settings, the two pics are meaningless when compared to each other.
This means you can NOT use the cameres auto settings.

The main thing is the exposure,
I like to set mine to the brightest light, so it is just right.
You dont want your brightest light to be TOO bright, so its one huge beam, instead of being able to see the hotspot, and corona seperately.

if you cant set your camera to a fixed manual setting (which i am sure your camera can) the trick is to take one pic, with both beams in the same pic. So, that way, they are at the same setting.

Like I said, just make sure that the setting you use, is the same for all your shots, that way, when you compare them to each other, they will be correctly exposed.

-John
 

DaGunn

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Jul 27, 2004
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John,
Thank you for the information, very helpful. And, wow you have alot of nice photos of your lights on your web site too! You have a SF Beast?!?

Dave
 

jtice

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May 21, 2003
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Dave,,

I WISH I had a beast /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
Not all the pics on my site are of my lights.


Glad I could help you out. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

-John
 

evan9162

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Apr 18, 2002
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Boise, ID
Also make sure you lock your white balance setting. I typically use daylight. Otherwise, color differences can by masked by the camera adjusting the white balance to the available light.
 

Wingerr

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The 990 has manual exposure capability, so you'll want to use that, as mentioned.
It has a histogram function which you can use after the shot to check that it isn't overexposed, causing saturation and loss of information. Just adjust the exposure until the peak level on both is at the maximum without too much saturation, and use the same exposure and locked color balance for both shots.
 

TrueBlue

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Mar 5, 2004
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For a light with a longer throwing beam I like to use outside shots at, of course, night! I use the same view at the same angle and use a tripod. I always set my cameras for an E.I of 200, f/2.8 for 4 seconds. Of course there is no flash. I've found that the image the digital camera takes at this setting is very close to what I was seeing in the dark.

I use the highest megapixel setting the camera has because I'm lazy and it it too dark to fiddle with the settings. Later I resize the picture in a computer to 600 pixels using a graphics program. 600 pixels is used because I know it will fit a web page.

alx_beamshot.jpg
 
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