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Old 02-07-2007, 07:23 PM
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How do you take good color screen shots?

I hope this is not too far off-topic.

I have seen some great screen shots from others in this forum.

I'm using a Nikon Coolpix digital camera these days, and the live shots never come out very good. If I use a flash, of course the screen is washed out.

With flash suppressed and using a tripod, if I take a pic of the entire TV, the screen is too bright and often too blue. If I zoom in to capture only the screen, then you can't see the rest of the TV (duh).

I have a couple of small photo lights on stands, but if I use those to bounce light around the general area, that doesn't really change the basic equation.

This is an automatic-everything camera. With flash suppressed, it usually picks an exposure time of 1/8 or 1/15 depending on how much of the TV I'm framing.

In the early days of my website, I used my trusty old Nikon 35mm SLR to create photos, but I'm too impatient to wait for film development these days, and I'm not sure the results would be different, anyway. On the other hand, it does accept a blue filter to correct for shooting pics under indoor lights with daylight film.

I'm wondering what equipment and/or tricks people use to get good screen shots . . . .

Phil Nelson
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Old 02-07-2007, 08:12 PM
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1. Try to look for settings for TV pictures. Some digicams have 'em. If you use a "daylight" setting, chances are excellent that the TV pic WILL look blue, as they're usually set to a too-high (=blue) color temperature unless they're calibrated for a 6500K white balance.
2. Make sure you use a tripod.
3. If you can select a shutter speed? Make it 1/30 second or slower. 1/15sec is very good for TV pix.
4. You may have to turn down the TV pic brightness if you keep getting overexposed shots...
5. ... or try a camera setting for snow or sandy beaches. Then the camera will compensate for very bright images.
Good luck!
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Old 02-07-2007, 09:16 PM
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Waht menu items does your camera have? Besides setting the shutter to 1/15, look for these:

Does your camera have a setting for center-spot metering instead of averaging? If centered on the screen, this should give a proper exposure. Same question for white balance - your camera may have a white balance feature somewhere in the menus that will set whatever is in the center spot to white when you press it. Another possibility is if it has a manual white balance setting for "shade".

Another thing to look for is exposure compensation +/-, which is used most often when turned to + to brighten backlighted subjects, but when turned toward (-) will darken the exposure.
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Old 02-08-2007, 07:10 AM
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Old 02-09-2007, 09:41 AM
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The kind of shot you want to get really requires a dual exposure: one with the lights on for the cabinet and another with the lights off for the screen. Sonny Clutter uses this method with stunning results:

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Old 02-09-2007, 11:57 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David Roper
The kind of shot you want to get really requires a dual exposure: one with the lights on for the cabinet and another with the lights off for the screen.
It's a decades old professional procedure I saw implemented with film cameras. The pros exposed the film twice, each had a different f-stop and exposure. I wonder if a moderate cost digital camera is versatile enough yet to make the process possible.
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Old 02-09-2007, 01:22 PM
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An interesting idea, which would be easy enough to do with my film camera.

Since you need two photos taken from exactly the same vantage point, it probably wouldn't work with my digi-camera. If I turn it on and take a photo, then leave it unattended for more than about 30 seconds, it turns off to conserve battery power. Which zooms the lens back to resting position, so your chances of re-zooming back to the exact previous position are fairly slim.

I have done something similar in a couple of cases. When I got a good shot except that the screen was too blue, I captured the screen portion, changed it from color to monochrome, then pasted it back into the screen. I suspect that Sonny did that as well. I don't like doctoring photos in general, but that was the only way I could figure out to present what the TV actually looked like when playing.

Phil
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Old 02-09-2007, 05:53 PM
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I have good luck using my Panasonic camcorder which also has a still photo function. Something different in the shutter speeds I think. I still have to play with the brightness on the set to get what I want.

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