Digital Camera Rant

Gah!! My niece and I spent about three hours yesterday taking pictures of my jewelry pieces and pricing them...and only got about halfway through my completed pieces (two for each one, 190 pictures so far). I just downloaded everything to my computer, and the full-piece shots are ALL BLURRY! The detailed view of each one came out beautifully, but the ones that show the whole necklace SUCK! In my camera, they looked great! On a computer screen, it looks like I was taking them through a heavy fog. I cannot even begin to tell you how cross I am.
:cry :mad :*** :*** :*** :*** :mad

 

My idiot camera does the same thing. I can't be bothered to pay the heafty $$ they want for one that doesn't, but you would think you'd at least get SOMETHING for $150.

I feel your pain, honey

 

TBH, you've accomplished something awesome Close ups/Macros, are the most difficult to light and next to impossible to capture hand held. Kudos to you

As for the full frame failing I'm stumped. Depends on the camera, the lens and it's settings. May be stuck on Macro mode and unable to focus from a distance.
Truly a paradox!

Cheers..

 

Exactly!! I know I didn't pay ungodly amounts of money for it, but you'd think I could take something other than pictures of scenery with it.

I put it in macro mode for them! Hmm...now I wonder if I switch back and forth for the full-size shots and the close-ups....

Off to experiment, and thank you so much!!

 

I've had the same thing happen when I tried to take pictures of my jewelery. So I can understand your frustration.

What I did place was my earrings, necklaces, etc on a black, non-shiny background (I used a black computer chair). I found light colored backgrounds reflected the shininess of the crystals, contributing to blurriness. I noticed that sometimes the macro setting didn't always work and sometimes auto worked the best if I got very close to the earrings and held VERY still. A tripod would have been great like Tim suggested.

 

If it is a hardware issue, get a Panasonic Lumix.

My wife has one and it is amazing!

 

Camera's are weird. I've got a $50 Wal-Mart special that does great wide shots, okay video and bad close ups. My sister got a free Olympus that's the complete opposite. And doesn't do video.

 

I have 2 digital cameras and the cheaper model, Vivitar versus Nikon seems to take better close-up shots.
The Vivitar is an older 5.0 mpxl and the Nikon is about a 1 year old 12.0 mpxl. Go figure.

Then again, maybe I just haven't figured out how to use either of them properly yet?

Who needs instruction manuals when you have all those buttons??

 

If it was an option to spend even more money right now, I wouldn't have a problem. I've been on unemployment for the last ten months.

@ bigfurrykid: Mine is a Vivitar, 7.0 mpxl.

I'm diving into it again in a while here, hopefully it'll go better. About 1/3 of the shots I took yesterday were usable.

 

I feel your pain Sgt Tibbs. I work two jobs myself.

131 days until Christmas. :-D

 

Which is great, but I need the pictures before Labor Day. Plus, no one I know spends that much on anyone for Christmas. My family and friends don't have the disposable income to buy each other $300+ presents.

My niece is going to let me use her camera. It's much better than mine.

 

Sgt. Tibbs, look into the Fuji Finepix line of cameras. I don't remember the best model number, but these things take excellent macro photos, and can usually be found on the web for under $200.

Tripod and lightbox would be something to consider as well.

Something along this model, but again, I don't remember the exact model we used. But it did an AWESOME job with close up photos. http://www.google.com/products/cata...og_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CEoQ8wIwAg#

 

That's what I got,Fujifilm Finepix S1500 its just unreal you get a whole lot of camera for your money.It has two macro modes,super macro you can take 10mega pixel shots in perfect focus from 10mm from the front lens,most of its performance is down to the image sensor,its as sensitive as an expensive SLR with an ISO of 6400,don't think they still sell this model but there's similar ones with better spec.

http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/s/finepix_s1500/specifications/

I just took some close up pics of a watch in super macro mode,one with low light no flash and one with high light and no flash,everything set to auto,unfortunately photobucket reduced the image size and quality to 10X7 but you get the idea.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF1957.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF1949.jpg

 

Rikky, that looks like the photos I used to take with mine. It died, is off on warranty land. Damn good camera line. Amazing how the camera varies the flash output, even in the old models.

 

*sigh* I cannot afford a new camera. Probably not until next spring at the earliest. I am absolutely aware that there are better ones available, and that from some people's perspective they are cheap. However, anything over $40 being spent on any one thing at this point in my life means having to go without something silly like food.

The thing is, some of the pictures, both full piece and close up, are gorgeous. Some of them look like I smeared the lens with vaseline. Same camera, same lighting, same background, same position, same settings.

 

Sometimes you have to work with what you got. Have you tried with a tripod?

 

Sarge, what's the back ground- and is it a different object as opposed the the satisfactory ones? The camera needs some contrast to focus. Hypothetically, difficult shoot glass on glass, transparent on anything. Can you change the background? Since you got a lot right, the camera is good.
Cheers..

Cheers..

 

I haven't tried a tripod, but I almost bought one at the dollar store yesterday. My camera only allows auto focus. LOL

@ Laura: I may take you up on it! I'll see how it goes with my niece's camera in the next few days and get back to you. Thank you!!! :-D

@ sikvik:
This is what I'm talking about. Same camera, same background, same lighting, same settings, similar colours. One is beautiful, one is crap. The background for both of these is a tan sheet. I took some at my house with a white sheet and some with a black piece of fabric. Same thing happened.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/felix4067/example1.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/felix4067/greenbarrelgoldglassblackswirl.jpg

I do so very much appreciate all y'all taking time to try and help me figure this out! It seems like such a simple thing to be screwing with me so badly! I'm going to give up for a couple of days here, though. My other half is actually going to be in town for a bit for his birthday. I don't intend to be anywhere near a computer.

 

Looks like an auto focus problem. Do you have any lamps you can use? Sometimes they need a lot of light to focus properly.

 

Hmm, interesting problem you have there.

Ideally, in a controlled lighting/background scenario, you would use the same camera settings for every exposure, eg. f5.6/1/4th/ISO 100. This is hard or impossible to do with the majority of cheaper cameras.

These shots show f2.8/1/30th/ISO196 for the top photo and f2.8/1/21th/ISO 200. This looks about the same exposure, allowing for the darker necklace in the lower photo changing the metering level slightly.

Providing the camera has a tripod thread, you could rustle up a 1/4" nut and bolt, a small clamp and a piece of 90 degree angled metal, drilled to suit the bolt, you should be able to come up with a camera that will clamp securely to the back of a chair or similar. This should reduce camera shake (esp. if you can set the camera on self-timer) and, hopefully, give you much more consistent results.

 

Let's see. The camera was a lot closer to the subject, in the second. This will catch available light as opposed to a zoom in the first. That's my call, just looking, could be wrong!
If I've got it right, stick with the working focal length.
The best zoom lens in the world loose light, period. So try and come up close with your camera.
Also a rule of the thumb, when shooting, the shutter speed should at least equal the focal length, preferably more.
Cheers!!

 

Strangely, I found this works the best. I've gotten some great shots just by placing my camera closer to the jewelery.

This is a great site! If I ever get around to making more (which I doubt because I'm both busy and lazy, if that makes sense LOL) I will definitely use this info


I forgot to mention this earlier, do you have a scanner or access to one? I tried this before I figured out how to use my camera (LOL) and the results really pretty good.

Taken with the scanner:

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/6883/scan0012q.jpg

Taken with camera (using black computer chair as background):

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/6532/sdc13993m.jpg

Obviously, the one taken with the camera is much better quality but the one taken with the scanner, I don't think is very bad at all (mind you, crystal is very hard to photograph anyway and considering you use beads, I think yours would come out a lot better).
I hope that this helps you some.

 

I noticed that Tim is right. That upper shot needs a higher angle of attack. And turn it sideways.

The camera seems to have an auto focus that's a bit out of wack. Try standing up on a chair to get the shot. That should correct the focus issue.

 

Just Googled it,I can't believe how popular home jewellery business's are!If I were starting up a business and there were LOTS of 'whole' website's dedicated just to setting up that business I'd conclude there's already enough of them :-D

I'm not tryna burst your bubble Tibbs just sayin,must be a tough market!

 

@ Laura.. when I checked out your link I didn't bother to scroll down or anything. I just thought hmmm.. this looks helpful and then x'ed out so I wouldn't forget to list scanner trick again. Later on that night, when I had checked out the page entirely, imagine my surprise when the first things she mentioned was the scanner tip.. Boy do I feel silly LOL

 

The first batch of pictures I did last fall I used my scanner, since I hadn't bought a camera yet. LOL They came out OK, but I wanted something better. I may well go back to it.

I didn't zoom on any of the full shots, just moved the camera forward and back so the necklace fit within the frame. The only zoom I used was for detail (usually about four inches of the necklace), and most of those came out as pretty as you please.

I never used the flash for any of them, it's all natural light. The examples I posted were taken in front of a huge window, with an overhead light. I did some later in direct sunlight, and some in indirect sunlight (both outside), and they were even worse for the blur factor.

I think after the weekend I'm going to see if I can deal with it again. Right now I'm hung over and lonely (himself just dropped me off a bit ago) and I don't want to deal with it. But I've made notes of all the various suggestions and ideas, and will see what I can do.

I'm probably going to build a light box, and also find something better to put them on (right now it's a coffee can under a sheet I've been using...you work with what you have, right?). I've got some white and black foam core board, so I may do something with that and thumb tacks...or something else to hang them from.

@ Rikky: Yeah, there are a lot of home jewelry businesses, but the cool thing is that no one does the same stuff as anyone else. Which means you can get jewelry from 50 different people and have 50 completely different things, and the market can stand it. It's like shoes...how many shoe stores are in the mall? But they all do business, because they have certain things the others don't. I'm not looking at making this my living, just something I enjoy doing and can make a bit of money in the process.

 

Or how about buying a new laundry hamper? It might even be dual-purpose!

EDIT: And a clamp to clip the camera to a chairback?

 

No best of luck to ya I think anyone who has a go at something like that is awesome,even if its fails,I've never had the gumption to follow through with a business idea like that.

Much easier to sit in my armchair with the other 90% who never had a go say it will never work'Once I tried' demands infinitely more respect than 'I was gonna'

 

Should I mention that this is the second time I'm trying, then? LOL The first time around (about 18 years ago) I even got a resale license and tax ID and all that good stuff. This time I'm sneaking in the back way before going all out. :-D

 

God loves a tryer,or did he say quit while you still own your house?:-D

Its a pretty good business to start off,you don't need any significant starting capital,you have no overheads,you don't really need lots of expensive stock,I'm guessing once you bought the jewellery parts they don't go back?And any that don't sell can be broken up and reused so its not like you could go bankrupt and lose everything.

I think you need a gimmick 'One of a kind' is O.K I but I'm guessing many other people offer the same thing? Dunno what it could be:-D Something significant that only you can provide!

I'm just thinking out loud.

 

A friend of mine explained it like this: You are creating wearable art. Which means no one will make anything like yours. People who enjoy Picasso also enjoy Rembrandt. And people who know a particular artist's work will recognize it anywhere.

Basically, I'm not fussed about having a gimmick. The fact of its existence makes it a gimmick. :-D

 

Your style and craftmanship alone will sell them,I like it:cool