Photography Question: (Better lens and jpeg photos) or (smart phone and RAW) for LSP photos? And other neophyte stuff..

[Citadelgrad]

Greetings.  I have finished my P 47 and am ready to move to the next project, BUT I want to give her a proper send off with some quality photos to document her condition at completions, as likely she will deteriorate from there.

 

I have a Nikon Coolpix that has a non replaceable lens, but a pretty beefy one.  It takes excellent photos.  It does not, however, take photos in RAW format.

 

I have a Galaxy Note 20 ultra, which takes excellent photos and it WILL take photos in RAW format, but with the inherent limitations of a phone camera.

 

I have a table top setup for now.  I have a T bar to hang a backdrop, and some LED panel lights (2) for offset lighting, presently experimenting with about 8 and 4 o'clock.

 

Both cameras are mounted in a tripod and use 2 second timer to eradicate shake from depressing the shutter button.

 

I know that there are a ton of variables in play, and I will do my best to only change one at a time, but I am running into an issue, I think.  Or a dilemma.

 

I have a white poster board backdrop and am only using the 2 LED panels, which provide 5600K of light.  The other lighting is not necessarily "daylight", so I turned off the overhead work lights, which are simple LEDs that look like shop lights, for the session.  Is this a sound lighting setup, or should I add the overheads back in?  How "bright" does it have to be to get good exposure?  With a tripod, the light levels are less critical, as long as the exposure is long enough, correct?

 

I have several photo finishing programs, most recently GIMP, Darktable, and RAW Therapee.

 

I have not invested the time to really get to know any of the finishing programs because of this thought.

 

Do you think I am better off using the "better" lenses in the coolpix, but without RAW, and finishing the jpeg photos in GIMP, or using the phone camera and working with RAW, albeit with a smartphone?

 

I am fine with investing the time to learn photo finishing, but had hoped to avoid learning both systems so I can then see which is "better".

 

I snapped some RAW photos at lunch with the above setup, but, on loading them into Darktable, they look way darker than they did when I took them.  Is this normal or should I increase the exposure manually?

 

Thanks

Bill    

[LSP_Kevin]

Tricky question! The difference between the two approaches will come down to more than just a better lens in one camera and support for RAW format in the other. You also have things like respective resolutions (megapixels), zoom capabilities, manual control settings (exposure, aperture, and shutter speeds), and the general quality of the optics. For the TL:DR version, I'd say the better lens wins out over the phone camera, as it's likely to be better in other areas too. And RAW is really only useful if you're wanting to make a lot of adjustments in post. For example, you should be able to take your too-dark phone images and adjust the exposure in software to something approximating what you were expecting. You can do some of this with hi-res JPEGs too, but RAW was designed for it. But if all you want to do is adjust brightness and contrast, and perhaps crop and resize the image, JPEG is perfectly fine - especially if you're main target platform is the web.

 

Kev

[Rainer Hoffmann]

14 hours ago, Citadelgrad said:

Both cameras are mounted in a tripod and use 2 second timer to eradicate shake from depressing the shutter button.   

 That's definitely a good idea!

 

 

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I have a white poster board backdrop and am only using the 2 LED panels, which provide 5600K of light.  The other lighting is not necessarily "daylight", so I turned off the overhead work lights, which are simple LEDs that look like shop lights, for the session.  Is this a sound lighting setup, or should I add the overheads back in?  How "bright" does it have to be to get good exposure?  With a tripod, the light levels are less critical, as long as the exposure is long enough, correct?

Yes, correct. As long as you shoot static subjects and the camera is on a tripod, the light level doesn't matter at all. You can always compensate low light levels with a correspondingly long exposure. Keep the ISO low, let's say at 200, for noise-free images.
More important than the light level is the light quality, i.e. soft or harsh light, the color of the light, light direction relative to the subject etc.

 

 

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I have several photo finishing programs, most recently GIMP, Darktable, and RAW Therapee.

I don't know any of these personally, so I can't help you here ...

 

 

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Do you think I am better off using the "better" lenses in the coolpix, but without RAW, and finishing the jpeg photos in GIMP, or using the phone camera and working with RAW, albeit with a smartphone?

Tricky, as Kev said above. I prefer RAW, but I also would go for a good quality lens. So you have a dilemma. Having said that, I really thought, that most Coolpix cameras offer RAW, so I'm a bit befuddelt, that your Coolpix doesn't shoot RAWs.

 

 

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I snapped some RAW photos at lunch with the above setup, but, on loading them into Darktable, they look way darker than they did when I took them.  Is this normal or should I increase the exposure manually?

No, this is not normal. If your images are too dark, you have to increase the exposure (longer exposure or larger aperture i.e. smaller f-stop number, but for models I'd prefer a longer exposure and a large f-stop number for large depth-of-field (DoF)). BUT: Is your computer monitor calibrated? If it's not calibrated, you may be on a wild goose chase when it comes to brightness, contrast and color rendition of the monitor.

 

Are you familiar with the histogram and how to interpret it in terms of correct exposure? If not, here is a link to my YT video: 

 

 

 

Hope that helps. If you have more questions, go ahead 

 

Cheers

Rainer

Edited November 16, 2022 by Rainer Hoffmann
Added remark on ISO-Number

[LSP_Kevin]

Terrific video, Rainer! Thanks for posting it. I can't believe your channel only has 24 subscribers. Well, it's 25 now, anyway.

 

Kev

[Citadelgrad]

Thank you for posting that video, Ranier.  You took the mystery out of histograms for me.  

[Rainer Hoffmann]

11 hours ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Terrific video, Rainer! Thanks for posting it. I can't believe your channel only has 24 subscribers. Well, it's 25 now, anyway.

 

Kev

 Thanks a lot, Kev!

 

Well, the channel is still quite new and I haven't promoted it much so far.

 

1 hour ago, Citadelgrad said:

Thank you for posting that video, Ranier.  You took the mystery out of histograms for me.  

 

That's great, Bill. I can't hope for more 

 

If you have more questions, shoot!

 

Cheers

Rainer

[Woody V]

What you're attempting to do is not easy and with little to no understanding of the complexities involved you are at a serious disadvantage. Being told what to do is not as helpful as knowing why you're doing it. 

 

I haven't read the answers so I'm just going to comment generally on the subject.

1. Get a real DSLR, a single focal length lens like a 35mm f2.8, and a sturdy tripod. 

2. There is no such thing as too much light as long as it's not a mixed source and it's arranged properly.

 

Here's my current setup which is essentially a box of light.

Three 3,000 lumen LED strip lights and smaller LED lights with home made soft boxes for fill.

White seamless background.

Notice how the light is evenly distributed within the box.

 

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Archer Fine Transfers

[Citadelgrad]

Thanks, Woody.  I am open to constructing some kind of light box, but I am at present trying not to have to buy a new camera.  

 

I think I can get some decent but not great shots using the phone.  I will improve the lighting, do something along the lines of a light box, and maybe get a camera at some later time. 

 

This is an improvement over prior, I just got a T bar stand for the backdrop, but this is using the poster board backing.  

 

[mozart]

I’ve got lazy! Despite having a decent camera, a Nikon D90, I take virtually all of my photos with my iPad. They’re not too bad:

 

 

[Citadelgrad]

8 minutes ago, mozart said:

I’ve got lazy! Despite having a decent camera, a Nikon D90, I take virtually all of my photos with my iPad. They’re not too bad:

 

 

That's far better than not bad.  What's your lighting setup please?

[Panzerwomble]

Sad to say I vote for ipad mini/ iphone as well ....and yes I have a DSLR ...

 

I like the way I can get in really close and easily with a small device, and happy to trade off for MP count . Also as they auto upload to the mac, I can shoot and then review on a big screen at the same time , and then adjust and re-shoot . Not professional in any way but works for me  for online .

 

Also I buy A1 sheets of cartridge paper in various colours so I can see what resonates with the model, sometimes, black , a blue or just white, but it's a 2 minute job to swap them . I used to shoot outside more which gave better light and often interesting backgrounds. 

 

Blue works well for silver IMHO

 

 

 

Black and white with white background and then vignetted

 

 

Black background to make it colder

 

 

In the garden with bushes in the background

 

 

Stone wall as ambiguous background

 

 

 

[mozart]

24 minutes ago, Citadelgrad said:

That's far better than not bad.  What's your lighting setup please?

Natural daylight my friend, can’t beat it! Just to add to Pw’s post above, my routine is exactly the same….shoot with the iPad (no idea why it gives such depth of field but glad it does) then tweak with a photo editor on the laptop……all Apple-based so auto-upload. Easy for lazy people! 

Edited November 18, 2022 by mozart

[Panzerwomble]

41 minutes ago, mozart said:

I’ve got lazy! Despite having a decent camera, a Nikon D90, I take virtually all of my photos with my iPad. They’re not too bad:

 

 

 

 

Sneaky early picture of the finished Gauntlet huh ?   C'mon , you can show us a few more

 

EDIT - must have missed the update a couple a days ago - lt's looking great Max

Edited November 18, 2022 by Panzerwomble

[mozart]

But not quite finished Pw! 

[Jboldt007]

just got the latest i-phone. It's great for getting in close and getting the right depth of field without any fuss.