I'm not sure where to post this, but felt it would be most beneficial to PLOGgers.


Tricks to get better digital photos of the video from your projector


1. In order to get accurate color I highly recommend you manually set your white balance if possible.
a. Let your PF’s bulb get completely warmed up to it‘s “normal” color temperature.
b. Project just the light from your PJ on your “screen” with NO other lights on; set your white balance while aiming your camera at the screen.

2. Most cameras have a “night scene” setting; this setting turns off the flash and adjusts the exposure expecting to see a certain amount of darkness. By using the “night scene” you provide yourself with the best chance of a good exposure.

3. Use a tripod OR set the camera on a flat surface and use the self timer, by doing so you will minimize the amount of blur that could appear from camera shake.

4. Set your camera’s film speed setting at 400, this provides a good compromise between graininess and light sensitivity.

5. Try to fill your viewfinder with the screen, having background in the picture can be distracting, and can cause the camera’s meter to be inaccurate.

6. Take notes on how you took each photo, each camera is different and while you are trying to learn your camera these notes can be helpful in two ways.
a. The notes can provide guidance on what to do differently for your next photo attempt.
b. After you figure out what works best these notes can help you replicate your technique with future photos.

7. Remember if your colors don’t look accurate, no matter what you do, Adobe Photo-shop has an excellent auto adjustment setting to correct color/brightness.



Hopefully this information will be helpful, please feel free to reply with suggestions for this guide. Mods if this belongs someplace else please let me know.

Regards
FS

nice instructions!

That is very nice FS,good job,(and cheers for your help! )

Thanks,

Looks like there is enough interest in this so I plan on expanding on this quick write up with some more detailed information.

FS

I think this ought to be pinned...

Topic moved to "reference and tutorials"

If your camera lets you do it, setting a higher exposure time will greatly improve your pictures. You'll need to use a tripod to get good focus, but setting the shutter speed between one to two seconds should give you a fairly accurate comparison to what you're seeing in real life (at least it does on my digital camera at around F4.5).

(Note: I'd love to make a "what shutter speed do you use?" poll in this forum, but it looks like polls are disabled)

When taking a picture of your screen, place someone in the picture. It gives an excellent idea of picture size. There is something almost unbeleivable with screen shots just by themselves. No perception of real size. Good post fastscirocco.

Pics are great but can take up alot of bandwith, PLUS you may not want to see EVERY pic someone posts.

As an option try posting thumbnails that link directly to the full size photo, this way the viewer gets a faster loading page
and can have full size pics if they desire.

Go to www.photobucket.com and open up a FREE account, you can upload and store your photos there.
After uploading your pics you can select the pics you want to share, and then on the bottom of the page you
can click the button labeled "generate HTML and IMG code", and a page will open with that code.

The third box down is the IMG code with thumbnails, copy that and paste it into your text like I did below:



as an example the text looks like this

URL=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v48/chrisanjenn/leeelu3.jpg][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v48/chrisanjenn/th_leeelu3.jpg[/IMG

I had to modify the above IMG code so that it would appear as text by removing a couple brackets like these ] [


But by posting the complete IMG code the following thumbnail appears.



And I can post more than one pic




And it will appear as clickable thumbnails (hopefully)

Hope that made sense

I posted this in SamuraiJack's plog, but I think it belongs here (slightly edited and expanded):

Digital Photography 101
(abridged)

ISO= The gain applied to the CCD signal. Lower ISO settings give you lower noise, but longer exposure time or larger aperture is needed for the same exposure. ISO numbers double for each step. (25,50,100,200,400,800,1600)

F-stop (Aperture) = The area of the hole the light shines through. Higher F-stops let through less light, increasing depth of field (the range of distances from the camera that are in focus), but requiring more exposure time or higher ISO for the same exposure. F-stops double alternately. (1.4,2,2.8,4,5.6,8,11,16,22,32)

Shutter Speed = The length of time the CCD is exposed to light. Higher shutter speeds freeze action and reduce the effects of camera shake (hand held) but require higher ISO or larger aperture (smaller F-stop) for the same exposure. F-stop steps approximately double for each step. (1/8000,1/4000,1/2000,1/1000,1/500,1/250,1/125,1/60,1/30,1/15,1/8,1/4,1/2,1,2,4,8,15,30)

ISO, F-stop and Exposure have a simple relationship. Each step of change in one value must be compensated for by one of the others to maintain the same exposure. For example: You have a perfectly exposed picture taken at ISO 50, 1/30s shutter speed and F2. If you changed your ISO from 50 to 100 your exposure time would have to drop from 1/30th second to 1/60th second or your F-stop would have to be raised from 2 to 2.8 to maintain the same perfect exposure.

For the best quality pics of projected images:

Take your picture at the max aperture, (smallest F-stop) because depth of field is unimportant with a fixed distance from the camera to the screen, and you'll get less speckled, grainy noise. Caveat: most lenses, especially zoom lenses, are sharpest at or near F8. Test your camera and use your judgment here.

Use the lowest ISO setting. CCD noise (usually) increases dramatically at higher ISO settings. Some newer cameras do an excellent job of reducing noise, however, very low ISO settings make for long exposures and more noise because it's harder to compensate. Test your camera and use your judgment here.

Adjust the shutter speed until you get the right exposure. ALWAYS use a tripod or table or whatever to keep the camera from moving while taking the picture. You probably have a self-timer on the camera. Use a time delay to let the tripod stop shaking while you take your hands off. Long exposures can increase CCD noise as well, but usually not as much as a higher ISO. Now that your camera isn't moving, pause the show so Leeloo stops moving.

Each step in aperture and exposure time represents double or half the amount of light hitting the CCD. Each ISO step is double or half the gain (sensitivity). This means that your camera is a light meter!

If you can see what settings your camera is using before or after it takes a picture (EXIF data), you can use this information to get an idea of the relative change in image brightness when you are making changes to your projector. Take a reference shot of a white screen (the screen should fill the image with no borders around it) and record the ISO, F-stop and shutter speed. Don't change the zoom or position of the camera. When your modifications are completed, take another shot and compare the settings with the first one. Your light has doubled for each step your shutter speed drops or aperture closes (bigger F-number). Caveat: Your camera's light meter is probably center-weighted, meaning that the light levels in the middle of the image have an effect on the exposure than at the edges. An adjustment that only effects the corners will be largely ignored by the camera's meter, even though it greatly alters the total brightness.

You could (possibly) use your camera as an absolute light meter by setting the exposure relative to a known source (sunlight on a white surface?) and comparing to a fixed projection area. I'm gonna have to think about that one.

Unabridged Link that doesn't suck:
http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm

One note about the flash while using point & shoot cameras to photograph the PJ itself (enclosure, components, surroundings), rather than the projected images:

The flashes on most basic cameras point directly at the subject, often washing out whatever's closest to the flash while underexposing everything else.

One way to counteract that is to manually reflect the flash's light up towards the ceiling, so that it can bounce back down evenly, resulting in a much more diffuse result.

The way I typically do this is to grab whatever spare cd-r is lying around (finally, a use for those coasters your cd/dvd burner has frustrated you with!) and hold that in front of the flash with it angled upwards to the ceiling. You may need to take a few shots, depending on how careless you are with the cd placement - that hole in the middle can prove to be a pain sometimes.

That's the completely cheap way to do it. I once had this great reflective gift card that I carried with me in my wallet which worked great, better than the cd - then I spent it, and the cashier took it from me. Oh, how I miss that gift card.

I would use ISO 100 not 400 and a much longer exposure time around 1 second or more. Th noise will be much less.

Full auto works for my PJ but I'm not normal. In fact I have never used a tripod yet.