Photos are too dark?

[Zordana]

Hey guys, im trying to take photos of a miniature with dark brown skin and they keep coming out really, really dark. The contrast is so dark I can\'t even fix it with photoshop, when I try to lighten it to the point where the skin looks like it should, the whole thing is just washed out and my gradient paper is white.

Would setting the white balance manually fix this or is there something else I should be doing?
I have a coolpix 3200 and two daylight lamps.

Cheers

 

[green stuff]

What\'s your lighting rig?

 

[airhead]

I suspect that you have a bright background? This could be causing an under exposure on the image.

Can you change the background to something more neutral? (a 30% or 40% gray card comes to mind)

Can you change the metering to read from the middle of the shot as opposed to averaging the whole shot?

Can you \'auto bracket\' the photo? The shot with more exposure would be better.

Are you lights pointing at the subject from not overhead, but at an angle? (Less light on the background, more on the subject)

 

[Zordana]

Thanks for the replies.

My setup is just a gradient background with two lamps with daylight globes in them

Airhead the background is bright yes. I think ill try printing out a grey one tomorrow and see how that goes.

The lights are pointing at it from an angle, is this bad or good?

Im not really sure what your other points mean

Ill let you know if the grey background works tomorrow.

 

[green stuff]

You might want to work in a third lamp and direct it towards the face.

 

[airhead]

Auto bracket is a feature that takes 3 pics. One at where the camera thinks they should be, the others are set one f-stop each way from that, so one is underexposed and one is overexposed according to the camera. I have a little +/- button on the top of mine to manually set it an f-stop darker or lighter than the camera wants.

Metering refers to how the camera sees the incoming light. Most are set to average over the whole picture. Some cameras can be set to only meter in a smaller portion of an image. This would be the ideal situation for you.

Lights should not be overhead, but at a slightly higher plane than the camera and outboard of the camera and pointed at the mini. Notice a portrait studio. The lights are not overhead, but are on stands above the subject\'s head, but not vertically above. They are also offset to shoot at about a 30-45 degree angle toward the subject.

The dark background should help. If you really don\'t like the looks of it, change it in photoshop after you get a decent pic.

 

[Zordana]

Well I printed out a grey background and I also fixed the white balance on my actual camera.

The grey background has helped a LOT.

Thanks heaps guys!