Basic Macro Photography


Photographing Electronic Equipment

When taking photos of electronic equipment, you'll likely encounter equipment with a display. Often, the requirements for a good quality photo of the display don't match the requirements for a good photo of the rest of the device. For some cameras, there is no difference between long exposure/low light and short exposure/bright light. It appears that's not the case for other cameras that use noise reduction for long exposures. The noise reduction reduces the sharpness of the photo. To avoid the noise reducton, you must use the flash.

If the accuracy of the color of the display is important, you would need to use 'daylight' lamps. If you use the white balance function to compensate for other types of ambient lighting (incandescant, fluorescent...), the color of the display is likely going to be skewed.

This image was taken as above but here I used the flash. I had no diffuser on the camera but the flash fired through the piece of paper so it was diffused before it hit the bowls where it was further diffused. As you can see, the flash helps bring out the brilliance of the stones but with virtually no reflections on the gold, the band looks uninteresting.

 

Notes:
  • I'm not a professional photographer. If you have suggestions that will help me to improve this site, please email me.
  • You are free to use the images on this site for non-profit, educational purposes. If you want to use them for commercial projects, please contact me.


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