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F30 Color Flare - How Can I Take This Shot?

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bhjazz

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Greetings all dpreview readers,

I am currently enjoying my Fuji F30. I have ancountered a photo situation that seems to confuse the sensors in this camera, giving me wild color flaring. The picture is of a piece of audio gear I built. It has LEDs below the case and mounted behind the volume knob.

As you can see, the LEDs overwhelm the shot. I have tried adding extra light into the shot to give the sensor something to balance with, but once the shot get's balanced, you can't see the blue light!

I have fiddled with exposure compensation and a few other things on teh camera, but this is still about as good as it gets. The glow from the lights should be blue, and in fact the one behind the volume knob is tucked in pretty far: you cant see it unless you are standing over it.

Photoshop does not seem to be able to compensate either as it's just too blown out.

Any idea how I can get my F30 to get this one correct?

Many thanks for any help you can shed on this!

bhjazz

 
Hmmm, you have too much contrast between light and dark in that shot for the sensor to resolve.

Have you tried maybe a weakish ambient light source at various distances from the amp to see if you can get the right mix of ambient vs. LED lights for you?
 
Are you using a tripod for this shot or trying to handhold? Try spot metering on the reflection of the one LED on the side of the casing of the audio gear - should meter with a shorter shutter and do its best to save highlights. Try shutter priority as well. Both of these options will require you to bring up shadows in Photoshop; in which case you should probably take your shot at ISO 100 and use a tripod.
bhjazz said:
Greetings all dpreview readers,

I am currently enjoying my Fuji F30. I have ancountered a photo
situation that seems to confuse the sensors in this camera, giving
me wild color flaring. The picture is of a piece of audio gear I
built. It has LEDs below the case and mounted behind the volume
knob.

As you can see, the LEDs overwhelm the shot. I have tried adding
extra light into the shot to give the sensor something to balance
with, but once the shot get's balanced, you can't see the blue
light!

I have fiddled with exposure compensation and a few other things on
teh camera, but this is still about as good as it gets. The glow
from the lights should be blue, and in fact the one behind the
volume knob is tucked in pretty far: you cant see it unless you are
standing over it.

Photoshop does not seem to be able to compensate either as it's
just too blown out.

Any idea how I can get my F30 to get this one correct?

Many thanks for any help you can shed on this!

bhjazz

Click to expand...
--
Fuji A310, F10, & F30
 
Definitely something I need to take some time with: adding light. I've tried various sources in the room, but maybe I'll have to try some others. With too much light, however, the blue just disappears and the whole glow look loses it's coolness. I just want to capture the whole look. Thanks for the suggestion!
 
Are you using a tripod for this shot or trying to handhold? Try spot metering on the reflection of the one LED on the side of the casing of the audio gear - should meter with a shorter shutter and do its best to save highlights. Try shutter priority as well. Both of these options will require you to bring up shadows in Photoshop; in which case you should probably take your shot at ISO 100 and use a tripod.

I am using it handheld. I'll try throwing it on the tripod over the weekend.

How do I use spot metering with the F30? I know how to do it with my old Minolta X-570 film camera, but this new one...oy! So many features to exploit!

Many thanks!
 
Hello,

I think your shot is well exposed, at least, it is how I would like it to be exposed for my own taste.

And yes, the sensor is totally overhelmed by the color, and I have the same problem which annoys me when shooting dark scenes, such as this one:



The three intense lights in the middle have exactly the same problem as yours...
 
you'll have to use 2 frames, one with spot and one with normal (paritial) mettering, they must be shot at the exact place with a tripod and with same aperture
then you'll have to mix them in photoshop
best regards
 
One with the LED off and expose for the kit (headphone amp?)
One for the LED then blend it in Photoshop or similar
--
Dave H
I can only help one person each day...
...and today is not your day!

(tomorrow doesn't look good either!)

 
Yours was the only post I didn't read before I blundered in with the same answer
--
Dave H
I can only help one person each day...
...and today is not your day!

(tomorrow doesn't look good either!)

 
daniel_falin said:
you'll have to use 2 frames, one with spot and one with normal (paritial) > metering, they must be shot at the exact place with a tripod and with
same aperture
Click to expand...
Isn't the idea of spot metering to get the sensor to set to a different aperature? I suppose it could also mean shutter speed as well...

How do I use spot metering with the F30?

Thanks!
 
--
Dave H
I can only help one person each day...
...and today is not your day!

(tomorrow doesn't look good either!)

 
I solved the problem, but had to resort to some things I hadn't expected to. The solution was this:
Aperture mode and shutter mode
some ambient lighting
Adjusting white balance.

Yes, the real trick to getting the camer to not blow out the LEDs was to set White Balance to Incandescent. Suddenly everything clicked together and I got shots I was hoping to get. Attached is a photo that only passed through Photoshop for a resize and a hair of brightness.

Anyway, problem solved! Yay!

 
bhjazz said:
I solved the problem, but had to resort to some things I hadn't
expected to. The solution was this:
Aperture mode and shutter mode
some ambient lighting
Adjusting white balance.

Yes, the real trick to getting the camer to not blow out the LEDs
was to set White Balance to Incandescent. Suddenly everything
clicked together and I got shots I was hoping to get. Attached is
a photo that only passed through Photoshop for a resize and a hair
of brightness.
Click to expand...
This does indeed look a whole lot better. And I suppose it depends what kind of result you are aiming for. My personal preference would be to have some deeper blacks / shadow areas in the picture.

I tried a quick adjustment using "levels" in PS Elements 3. These are the settings I used:



As you can see from the histogram, there is a gap at the left, indicating a lack of really dark tones.

I hope you don't mind me posting this suggestion, I've not posted the result, as it is after all your picture and I don't want to take liberties with someone else's work.
Best regards,
Peter
 
Question, are you suppose to see the flares on the LCD screen? Everytime I point the camera at a bright light, I can see light rays across my screen.
 
Hi,

this was not a controlled test but I set my f31 on auto and shot at a dark corner with a monitor blazing at the major light source. I then held a polarizer in front of the lens and took the same shot.

I believe that if some effort was put forward to mounting this polarizer on the body it might be a very good way on controlling the flair.



wj
--
various cameras
 
Peter,

I don't mind at all! Thanks for fiddling with it and giving me the histogram breakdown. Yes, I, too, would like better contrast and better blacks. An hour after I posted it, I realized that maybe the picture had only conquered one problem and left others in tact. So I do realize that there are other things to get right with that shot. Your post is encouraging, and I think if I spend some time with PS should get it closer to being a good shot.

The headphone amplifier I built (that's what the photo is of) is a model that is available through a particular forum. Lost of fun and smart people there. When people get done with projects, they post photos to say, "Hey, I'm done!" so the quality of the shot doesn't need to be perfect at all. Still, I want to present my little project and have it look it's best.

Thanks for the help, everyone. I like this place!

Brian
 
No kidding! Gee, I've got a nice circular polarizing filter for my Minolta. Maybe I could rig something up using the tripod mount and some hand-made brackets....

Nice idea. I'll give it a shot!
 
Difficult to tell. I am finding that the LCD screen is pretty close to what ends up on the shot, so I suppose some effor should be made to minimize those flares. I made some test shots in Aperture mode with spot metering and was able to remove much of them, but then the rest of the shot gets pretty durn dark. At least I'm not wasting film doing this :^)

bh
 
What kind of headphone amp is that?
Some of us are probably addicted to those forums as well ;-)
 
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