Photography for modellers

[Einion]

Originally posted by Avelorn
The camera depends on the correct exposure on a white background to determine the white balance. As what it does is to determine what is white. If that white instead has a slight cast of yellow from the lighting but at the same time is a bit washed out through overexposing the slight yellow turns to a pure white = The photo will have the wrong white balance.

I don\'t think that\'s right. I\'m pretty sure the camera doesn\'t care whether the sample is totally washed out from lots of light or whether it\'s under-exposed, it can still calculate the lighting temperature properly.

You can set white point on a grey card for example (has to be a perfect neutral); the camera doesn\'t care what value the sample is, only what temperature the light source is which it can determine based on the expectation of the neutrality of the sample.

Originally posted by Avelorn
You will have to do some work with every photo that is true. But what we are after should not need a lot of tweaking. Then it is either a question of ropey camera, setup or lack of skill.

I think that\'s fair. It is much better to shoot a good initial photo than to tweak for it later, in all respects - exposure, white balance, sharpness, you name it.

Originally posted by Spacemunkie
The bit depth of RAW images is much greater than JPEGs. You\'ll have PLENTY of data in the image that you won\'t see with the naked eye (and that won\'t appear in a JPEG either...).

This is entirely true, but I believe getting a little off-point. As mentioned, we don\'t all have the benefit of shooting in RAW where issues of tweaking are very different from working with a 8-bit image.

Originally posted by Spacemunkie
Perhaps it\'s just easier with decent cameras....

It is.

Einion