HELP: Getting good photos of props in a museum

[sjanish]

I went to the Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit this past weekend in Wichita, KS. I tooks lots of pictures, but was disappointed in many of them. I was trying to get close up shots of greeblies on the models.

The lighting on some of them is extremly poor. You are allowed to use flash, but you run into reflection problems. I have a lower end camera (~$100 Sony). It works great for me and most of the time gets the job done. My philosophy turned to snapping as many as I could take in hopes that some would come out good. The strategy worked good, except for some where the exact shot that I need was blurry every time. It looked okay on my camera display, but was blurred beyond use on the computer.

Now, I have a couple of problems. The probe droid for example. It's legs are almost totally in the dark. I took a small flash light and shined on them...it helped some I was nervous I would be busted by a power hungry museum employee.

I am planning on going back before the exhibit leaves at the end of the weekend. Does anyone have any advice for taking close up reference photos behind glass in poor lighting with a cheap camera?

 

[Shylaah]

A few suggestions, hold the lens against the glass to eliminate reflections, pretty much forget using flash as it is fairly useless under even the best of conditions, it annoys other visitors and in most places isn't even allowed.

Make a little set up at home, something poorly lit behind glass and practice going through all the exposure settings on your particular camera--the + exposures, macro, night lighting try everything your camera offers and make note of which settings gives you the clearer and sharper results.

Sometimes just letting the picture come out too dark, underexposed, is the better option, then you can bring up the details with your image editing program by adjusting levels, brightness, contrast, etc. If you overexpose it, the details are just not there to recover.

And even though things are digital now, WYSIWYG isn't always true going from the tiny preview screen on the camera to the computer monitor, as you pointed out, it will look okay on the camera but you find the details lost in the blur when you load them onto the computer.......try some of the old school photography tricks from back in the day you when didn't know what you had until your photos came back from Photo Hut and the event was long since over ......bracket those important shots at several exposure levels, distance zooms and angles.

Does your camera have the ability to zoom into the preview pic? If it does, take advantage of that. Zoom in to see if you're getting the detail and sharpness.

Shylaah

 

[Shylaah]

......a couple of other things.....

Even cheap cameras have a lot of options these days. Make sure you are set on the highest resolution your camera offers. Also, take some short vids, just hit record and move around the case. Sometimes that will capture an angle or item you failed at getting in the stills. And vids just give you a different "feel" for what you're seeing than do stills, seeing an item in changing relationship to its surroundings is a great thing to have for reference images, a perspective that you can't get from static images.

Shylaah

 

[vaderdarth]

I seem to do well when I shoot about 45 degrees to the side when using a flash thru the glass. The flash doesn't reflect right back at the camera. I much prefer no flash and just auto correct later at home.

 

[sjanish]

Lots of good sounding advice here that I wouldn't have thought of on my own. Thanks!

 

[moffeaton]

I've also had luck with a dark fabric "hood" that you can tent your camera /head in, to eliminate reflections on the glass from what you or others are wearing, nearby. You look like a crazy person though

 

[sjanish]

A few suggestions, hold the lens against the glass to eliminate reflections, pretty much forget using flash as it is fairly useless under even the best of conditions, it annoys other visitors and in most places isn't even allowed.

This idea rocked! It worked really well every time I tired it. Even some of the models that were in the dark came out looking nice and clear. It even seemed to lighten up the pictures. It even worked great with a flash. Flash was allowed and I do not normally have this attitude, but I was not concerned with annoying others. There are only so many chances to get this kind of reference and I will use every tool in my box.

I also discovered a couple of things on my own. Someone would have probably told me how boneheaded I was being if I had thought to mention it. I was trying to zoom in as far as I could to get the pics. I discovered on my own that there is no need. I am taking a 12 megapixel picture from 1-3 feet away. There really is not much need to zoom. I can zoom on my computer and see lots of detail.

Now another thing I found out is that my video camera can really zoom in. It takes low quality photos, but I was able to zoom in on a model all the way from the far side of a case and get some nice details, even though the resolution is low. The zoom on my still camera was put to shame by the video camera zoom. I was able to get shots today that I could only dream of a week ago.

Thanks everyone for all of the suggestions.

 

[moffeaton]

Scott, it sounds like you had a blast! Any time someone does this, the community benefits, so thanks again, since (and I am just speaking for me) I really appreciate it! I took an OM-D with 400 film into the exhibit at the NASM in 1997, and got tons of pics. I think I lost that film in a move somewhere along the way... kills me. I was just dreaming of making models like we do now, back then.

 

[jk55092]

Another thing to consider -- you said you're consistantly getting blurry photographs? How are you holding your camera? There are many webpages out there with diagrams of how to hold different camera shapes -- it really can make a big difference.

Another reason the picture is blurry is because the camera is compensating for the lack of flash by a lower shutter speed. That's good for most normal purposes, but for getting details on props, it's probably not necessary. Try turning that off, and see what the results area like. (Yes, that will mean that the photos look so dark that you can't see anything, but it's jaw-dropping how photoshop, or gimp, or what have you, can fix that. )