workshop photography

For Christs sake Gray, throw some chips on the bed.

Hi Norman,

This is becoming a challenge!

I tried local equalisation in Corel (I hadn't used it before) results were good with larger sizes, but there were Jpeg squares apparent and artefacts around the edges. I imagine this would give the 'HD' look one a less processed original.

I then tried histogram equalisation with preserve colours checked, and then made a tiny tweak to the gamma to bring out the yellow around the shield. Still not perfect, but much better than my tries at manually adjusting the tone curve, saturation etc.

Not off topic, because I shall use these new-found ideas on my workshop photos!

Neil

One of the issues with workshop photography is getting adequate depth of field when taking closeups, so that everything you want to show is in focus. If your camera has the option to have an Aperture Priority mode then this can be used to set the aperture to f16 or f 22 which should give a good depth of field. Exposure time will go up accordingly so use of a tripod is pretty much essential but you can also increase the ISO speed of the "film".

I've got  an LED ring light which fits on the front of the lens which I find very useful, it gives a softer light than flash and gives very even close up illumination

Rod

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 26/05/2013 12:23:27

The camera that I use, for better or worse, is a SonyDSC- W5, its 6 or 7 years old now, and Is a 5.1 Mega Pixel type, I got it because it uses 2 AA Nickel Metal Hydride batteries, and it has a 2.5" screen, which was large at the time, I could get a better? camera today for less than half the price. The web cam that I got, when I got my new computer is 12 Mega Pixel, the 5 seems quite OK. Ian S C

For real close-ups I bought one of those inexpensive USB microscopes, it has almost zero DofF but still very useful for imaging at a micro scale.

Hi, I have a choice of two digital compact cameras or two DSLR's but I mostly use the compacts for posting photos on this forum.

The first digital camera that I ever bought is an Olympus Camedia C-3020 zoom which is a 3.2 MP. It has a macro facility and can focus as close as 200 mm. It was boasting USB auto-connect and 7.5 X seamless zoom optical + digital, which was impressive back in 2002 when I bought it. Still a good camera, but the downside is it uses SmartMedia memory which isn't sold much anywhere now, so every now and again I have to save all the photos somewhere else.

The other compact I have I got in 2006 and it is a Casio Exilm EX-Z70 and is 7.2 MP. The macro facility on this will focus as close as 100 mm and the flash intensity can be adjusted by two positions up and down the normal position. It's a fairly slim camera, only 22 mm at the thickest part and easy to use and handle. This one uses SD cards, so now I have a little pile of full ones, which I might never save anywhere else.

My two DSLR's are Canon's and allthough I have some photos in my albums taken with them, they are for more serious photos, but alas, my favorite zoom lens I have is stuck on the wide angle and has to go away for repair when I get around to packing it up safely.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 26/05/2013 16:17:31

Nick,

Not by any chance a 28-135 IS USM is it? Had two, both had the zoom control crap out.

David

Hi Nick - I feel your pain!

I have a 70 - 300mm zoom lens bought some years ago in the time of " real" photography and only used a few times. The current lens for my DSLR is a Zeiss 16 - 80mm which is so good it lives on the camera all the time. A while ago they came to replace the weather cock on the church next door. They don't look big from the ground but the vane is about 6ft. long! When the guy came to replace it he was on top of a scaffold tower on top of the church tower! - a photo opportunity I thought so I dug out with the 70-300 to capture that "decisive moment" as the new vane was put into place . I fired off a couple of shots and then the autofocus locked up solid **!!**!!! Expensive shots and, as I've only used it half a dozen times in the last 10 or so years, not worth repairing I guess.

Grrrrr!

Norman

Edited By NJH on 26/05/2013 17:06:28

Hi David, no, it's the EFS 17 - 85 mm IS USM. I'm guessing that it's just a screw or something that has come loose and preventing the mechanism travelling, as it will move everso slightly and it feels like it's hitting on somthing else. Luckily the Canon mounts are backwards compatable on both my cameras and I can use my EF 28 - 80 mm ultrasonic lens from my "real" photography camera, as Norman has put it, as an acceptable substitute for the time being.

Hi Norman, don't you just hate it when that happens, like myself yesterday when I got a nice line up on train hauled by a steam loco that was visting in the main line station in the town near me, when somebodys elbow and forearm nudged into view just when I was ready to press the button, had to reframe quickly so as not to miss a reasonable second good shot, good job it was only plodding along slowly so it could then reverse into the station ready for it's return journey.

Regards Nick

Hi Chris, those USB microscopes are handy, for checking how close one gets their drilled holes on the scribed mark for example, as shown below.

This is a 4 mm countersunk head machine screw.

Regards Nick.

Hi, those USB microscopes are good for making those close up photos that you used to see very often years ago, where you had to see if you could tell what the object is. Like this one.

Can you tell what it is yet?

You may only know if you live in Great Britain.

Regards Nick

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 26/05/2013 20:17:06

> Can you tell what it is yet?

To coin a phrase! Have you tried photographing a leaf with it yet? Use reflected light and you should be able to see a lumpy landscape of individual cells and hairs.

This is with the macro on my bridge camera (not maximum closeup). Unretouched, just cropped down to 10245 x 768.

Neil

I agree the USB Microscope could be very usefull in the Workshop, it would be great or checking out the cutting edges on all sorts of tools especially very small drill bits .
I don't know about the rest of you but i hate it when i get one of those really fine metal splinters in a finger as you can feel it but not see it to remove it - wonder if this would help ?

Ian

Sandwiched between my tertiary studies, I spent a couple of seasons engaged in a short course in photography. The lecturer told us a tale about an exercise when he was studying for his photographic qualifications.

The exercise was to photograph three brand new steel balls placed together under a conical light tent, and to adjust the lighting to produce the most even illumination possible. Just in case you haven't heard of a light tent, you poke the camera lens through a hole in the top with the camera pointing down vertically. The tent is translucent, and floodlights are placed around the outside of the tent shining inwards.

It was a trick really because as the specified lighting conditions are achieved, the balls disappear.

BTW, my current photographic fun is cleaning up some rather dusty (now digitised) colour slides which I took in Holland in 1962 on Kodachrome (probably 64 ASA). I was using a friend’s Leica M4, mostly hand-held, and although the slides have tended to fade slightly towards a blue tint, with Adobe Photoshop CS3, I’ve been able to bring some of them back to life.

If you want/need to use flash, better results are obtained with the flash off the camera. Depending upon your subject, start with the flash about 45 degree to the right (or left), AND raised by about the same angle to the vertical.

It falls under the category of modelling, so (tongue in cheek ), it’s not too far off model engineering.

Regards to all,

Sam

Sam,

How did you go about digitising the Kodachromes? I ask because I recently spent some time doing quite a few of mine; I found them hard to scan (much harder to get the colours to come out accurately) than E6 films. Eventually I found the only satisfactory method was to photograph them using a Bowens Illumitran slide duplicator.

As for the blue tint, Kodachrome is often regarded as an exceptionally stable slide film. This is true is if is kept wholly in the dark, but on exposure to light it is really very susceptible. Even a few minutes being illuminated in a slide projector causes noticeable deterioration.

David

I do have a USB microscope, and it does what is supposed to do quite well. However, for vastly better convenience and ease of use (and also much better image quality) you should try using a decent optical stereo microscope. The quality will blow you away compared with any USB microscope I have seen, and you don't need a computer to use it!

~David

Hello Everyone, Talking of shrapnel,in ones fingers, a pair of binoculars used in reverse are very good.One eye only, unless you have very wide spaced eyes. You need to get very close to your target. Regards, Bear..

When I retired recently I knew that I would miss the stereo microscopes at work, partly for the reasons Ian mentions. My old colleagues very kindly gave me an Amazon token and I bought one of these . The quality, for the price, is astonishingly good and I also got a photo adaptor for one of the eyepieces.

Rod

Hi David L and Gentlemen,

I'll respond tomorrow, with a somewhat lengthy posting and some photographs.

It's tea time in Melbourne, and I'm ready for a rest.

Regards to all,

Sam

Hi all,

For me, good lighting is so important for taking photographs. A high level of light is needed so that reasonable speeds and/or small apertures that give a good depth of focus can be used. Also some form of modelling light is helpful to give an impression of depth and dimension. My best investment recently on this front is a cheap self-contained LED light source that gives plenty of illumination at the colour temperature of daylight. It is a 64 LED photographic light available from Amazon UK for £16.99. The 4 x AA batteries last a long time. It is very useful for photography as the effect of moving the light around can easily be seen on the screen of digital cameras. I use a mixture of tungsten lamps, reflected daylight and the 64 LED; letting the auto white balance of the camera find the best setting. My camera is a Canon digital Ixus 800 which copes with white balance quite well. I gather that all digital cameras are not the same in this respect. In that case it is best to set the controls to daylight, tungsten etc. and see what looks best on the screen. I also use the 64 LED as a work light on the lathe and mill. For this, the light is held on a magnetic base with swivel arms and placed near to the work. It is probably the most useful work light that I have.

I use a tripod to take photographs as the level of light indoors almost always results in slow shutter speeds. I find it helpful to keep the camera mounted on a tripod in the workshop to prevent me being lazy and attempt to snatch hand held shots.

For most pictures, I try to get as far away from the subject as my telephoto lens will accommodate. This helps to avoid distortion and can give a larger depth of field. If I remember correctly, “glamour” photographers use a medium telephoto some distance away from the subject for the same reason. Needless to say, sometimes the macro setting on the camera is required for small objects. This introduces some distortion with my camera so I try to avoid it if possible.

I certainly agree with the positive comments on USB microscopes and perhaps some will have read my observation on the topic in Model Engineer No. 4454 pages 574-577. However, I agree that the stereo microscope gives a vastly superior image and have one set up permanently on my mill.

Happy snapping

Ray