Yes, I often stop down to 1 1/2 stopss too, depending on if I'm seeing a lot of light areas in the image. In fact, I don't have a whole lot of time and a big garden, so I have to be efficient. Not knowing what mood I'll be in re depth of field when I look at them later on, I'll take multiple pictures in multiple f stops and in each of those f stops, I'll usually take multiple bracketed exposures, if I explained that right. It's not unusual for me to take 200-300 pictures on a 30 minutes walk around the garden being really efficient! The problem I'm having now is that my lens is too slow and I'm getting lots of slightly blurred images. I need a faster lens, which is too expensive for the moment. Re the reds, if you use the magnetic lasso in photoshop you can isolate areas that you want to have a separate exposure. Also, there is now very exciting new technology by Nik software where you can just click on any area and change that area. I'll definitely be getting that at some point. In the meantime, if it's really a problem, I'll isolate the part of the image I need to change with the magnetic lasso or just manipulate the exposure with levels, but I don't like super saturated reds, so I'll underexpose the reds by a variety of settings to be sure that there is detail in the bloom later on. Working with the exposure should help with the color. If not, you can always manipulate the individual color tones.

Thanks all and patwood, great info in a few short words. Dan did go into many areas. He did bring up calibration of monitors but I told him that that was not the main issue. Back when I was scanning in film photos, for my doggie ads, I calibrated my monitor, scanner and printers using color cards. I don't find that as much needed now days (mainly because I don't need the colors "that" true and there seems to be many more settings (small files to instruct devices) that help so much in that area. In addition I do think newer monitors, scanners, printers are just plain better at giving truer colors.) Because my friends "photos" are going to print in magazines all of the calibration is necessary for him. The digital files he sends for publishing include all the calibration info needed. It's a great program that does it automatically for him. In addition he does need more calibration for his web page. In our case so many people have so many different monitors and display cards too much tinkering on originating end probably wouldn't do any good. Also, in relation to REDS, it seems to be a universal problem for most of us just capturing them to begin with. I haven't had time to "play" yet but I have dragged in several REDS to the dining room to shoot them together and/or play with white balance. One of the best pieces of advice that Dan gave me was to get out the manuals for my cameras and research them thoroughly. geekgranny=alice

Hester, your butterfly bush is so pretty! Maybe someday I will find a spot for one. That white blooming plant is an alibertia. Mine is blooming now too and it is a great plant. You know I'm not fond of white, but when I saw it 2-3 years ago I had to have it, and it has not disappointed. Mine has only bloomed in the summer, but it is very eye-catching. Of course, I planted it it the very back of my property and I wish I hadn't. It's the color that made me do it. It does root at the nodes, but very slowly, so the expansion is quite pleasant and desired. I think I will have to find a better place for mine where I can see it more. Also, it is very cold-hardy and the foliage is disease-free and always looks nice. Great plant! I also love your bowtie and wish I had a spot for one, but no, notime soon. I will enjoy it at your place. Anna

Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 18:24 FOOD PHOTO TIPS: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance Hi everyone! For those who are learning to use their cameras, I hope you are still interested in my little tutorials. As I mentioned previously, I'm recounting only what I've learned or read in the past years while playing with my cameras. But I hope I can help those who haven't had the chance to experiment as much as I have and who are still struggling with the manual. So let's go once more to look at setting up by a window in daylight. I'm continuing with the numbering of photo examples in case I need to refer back to any one of them by number. Side Lighting - Daylight To continue with indoor daylight exposures, let's move the tripod around to the side and see how the subject looks with a light from the window, coming from the left side...(tomatoes and peach haven't shrivelled yet thank heavens). That's also a very beautiful lighting and it has been seen in many paintings of old masters, such as the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (remember Girl with the Pearl Earring) where he creates mood magic with light falling from a left window onto household objects and people. We may need a little practice to get the same effect but here you see the highlight on the left side of the tomatoes in the LCD screen Fig. 9. At this moment the camera is in PORTRAIT mode which is found on the SCENE menu with the icon of a girl's head. Portrait mode is meant for capturing subjects that are fairly close to the camera ....imagine someone sitting on a chair in front of you and you are going to take their portrait. In some, if not most digital cameras, portrait mode has a slight warming effect which is meant to enhance skin tones. So it can also be good for taking food shots. If you are without a tripod, hold the camera firmly and brace your elbows against your sides, remembering to press the shutter button halfway to let the camera focus, then smoothly press the rest of the way down. Fig. 10 shows a short tripod good for tabletop photos. At this short distance, there will be some slight distortion of the subject. If my table were a little longer I would probably move the camera back a little and zoom in. Fig. 11 shows the same with a piece of white paper at the right to reflect light onto the dark side. You can see the difference it makes in Fig. 12 where the paper was removed. Look especially at the plate underneath the bowl. Where it is bright in the first photo, it is shadowy in the second. I would need a taller piece of white board or foam to be sure and get the bright reflection on the contents of the bowl as well, although you do see some light reflected on the tomato. Since the camera is so near to the subject I would stay in PORTRAIT mode and add an option to the camera setting by clicking on my TULIP ICON which activates MACRO. (Have I scared you with this?) Sorry. Macro can come later then, but if you have seen that little tulip on the back of your camera,.... well as long as you know that it's for taking closeup photos. It can usually be added in to most other camera settings.Fig. 13 shows the photo the camera took at that position on the tabletop tripod. WHITE BALANCE or WB You may have seen WB or AWB somewhere on your camera menu as you were searching for something else. It's a pretty important part of setting up your camera for taking photos in all light conditions. Nowadays however digital cameras are pretty smart and with SCENE modes, the manufacturers have tried to think of every possible photo situation you may have, from night shots and fireworks to cuisine and have programmed those settings into the camera. However nothing can equal the human eye and cameras sometimes misjudge the type of light in a scene. That's why as well as the always present AUTO, you have adjustable options for telling the camera what type of light you have. Fig. 14 shows the window setup using a normal tripod and the camera in Portrait mode. I'm going to take some photos to demonstrate WHITE BALANCE. In Fig. 15 you see what comes up after I press the MENU option on my little Olympus Stylus 800. You see the letters WB as the bottom option. Pressing the bottom button would bring up the White Balance menu. Fig. 16 shows that WB menu open on my other camera, and there you see there are seven options to choose from. (Oops....you can see my messy desk.) AUTO - not hard to figure that out. You let the camera decide what the light temperature is... (warm to cool). SUNNY - with a sun icon, this is one outdoor setting to choose when you have sun and want to be sure the camera knows that. CLOUDY - with a cloud icon, this option is also for overcast skies but is nice to use indoors by a window like this one when the light is not too strong. I nearly always take my food photos indoors by a window with CLOUDY as the white balance setting. BULB - with a light bulb icon, this is the setting to use under an incandescent, standard light bulb. Failure to use this setting in evening photos under lamplight will result in the photo having an orange hue. Using it in daylight will give a strong blue cast to your picture. FLUORESCENT 1, 2 & 3 - If you've seen and wondered what these centipede icons are on your camera, now you know. Someone had the bright (no pun intended) idea that a fluorescent bulb icon should look like this. Well whatever, we have to accept that it represents fluorescent bulbs. There are three on my cameras, denoting different temperatures of fluorescent bulbs. I find that the first is warm and adds a nice cosy glow to a photo, despite that it may be daylight with no light bulb in sight. The second appears more neutral and the third adds a mauve cast to a photo. I'm speaking now of a comparison of the effects that setting has in a daylight situation. If you are in an office or shop where there is fluorescent lighting, you could perhaps find your white balance menu and try out those three options. The nice thing is that you can see the difference in your viewfinder while you scroll through them before taking a photo. AWB...stand for auto white balance, which you may see on a screen or in a menu. I've taken some photos to demonstrate these differences in white balance. I will leave the first seven as thumbnails. But you see as they are a little darker, the differences in the colour temperatures of the WB settings are quite pronounced. They follow the order of my list above, starting with AUTO and ending with FLUORESCENT 3. You see the heavy blue of photo 4 in both series. That's the result of using the incandescent bulb setting when you are actually photographing with daylight. It's the correct setting however for under a lightbulb when no daylight is present. 1. Auto 2. Sunny 3. Cloudy 4. Incandescent lightbulb 5. Fluorescent 1 (warm) 6. Fluorescent 2 (neutral) 7. Fluorescent 3 (mauve cast) The next series of seven photos are full size, with the camera setup just as in Fig. 14, using a white paper SWEEP (that comes later) as a seamless background. I've also increased the EV ...( exposure value or exposure compensation) a little to brighten the pictures and give the 'heavenly' effect to the backlight. (EV comes later too...don't get scared.) Since I've raised the exposure value (opened up the lens a bit more) the following photos are quite bright and the differences in the white balance is not so noticeable: Well I hope this hasn't been too much at once. If so, please just ask me to slow down or explain anything that's not clear. Next time we'll get into lighting by artificial light, how to use a sweep (other than a broom) and correcting the exposure to lighten or darken your photos with a push of your finger on the EV button. Until then, thanks for joining me. I'll have the next instalment ready soon. Sharon (Canarybird) (All text and photos copyrighted) Follow-Up Postings: o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by shaun (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 20:58 You are incredible!!! o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by trsinc (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 21:02 What shaun said!! Thank you so much for all of the time and effort you put in to these posts, Sharon. Very generous of you!!! :-) o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by deborah_ps (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 22:18 I've had company for the past month and so have been unable to check in until today...what a treat to see your tutorials Sharon :) I'll be off to the Caribbean this Friday and your lessons will certainly help! Gracias :) o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by sooz (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 22:52 Totally awesome and sooooo helpful and step-by-step (that's how I learn!). Thank you!!!!!! :O) Sooz o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by momto4kids (My Page) on Thu, Jul 16, 09 at 9:53 I've been threatening to take a photography class, but no one gives a class way out where I live! This is SOOOOO perfect and completely addresses my needs! Sharon, you are so patient and so amazing! I feel like you're talking directly to me in terms I can totally understand. I am very grateful. I cannot wait to put it into practice! o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Sun, Jul 19, 09 at 13:05 Thanks everyone...I'm glad you're finding it easy to follow. The next one will be about using a sweep (seamless paper backdrop) and how to correct the lighting with the EV button. I think that will be enough for one time, so taking photos under artificial light will come after that. Back soon, SharonCb :-) o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by kathleen_li (My Page) on Mon, Jul 20, 09 at 0:26 Thank you, Sharon! You are a wonderful teacher! Monique told me about the macro, never knew it was there!