Light

My greatest photography problem seems to be light - too much outdoors, not enough inside. With my digital cameras, when the light’s wrong, the focus doesn’t always work correctly.

My travel camera allows you to alter the light exposure, so the problem of too much light can be mitigated. Of course, you have to get the settings right. As my pictures taken on my trip west of Albuquerque show, a certain amount of experience is required to develop an instinct for those settings.

However, experience is one of those things one can get. It just requires patience and time.

The problem with not enough light requires non-human resources, especially since my close-up camera has no light control. As I looked at my failed pictures of sample rocks taken in the house, I recalled those images of fashion photographers at work with banks of lights in a room and what look like umbrellas in front of the lights to diffuse their effects.

I decided my problem with photographing rocks is that I lacked enough diffused light at table level. I went to the hardware store with some vague idea of a 25-watt lightbulb on a cord somehow set on a low stand, maybe one of those clips they sell for mounting work lights.

As I walking though the lighting department I noticed those gooseneck lamps magazines are always marketing to people of a certain age whose eyes now tire. They claim their array of low-wattage lamps produce something like daylight and imply a panacea for aging.

The store happened to have a desk top model with a light that sits about 11" above the surface. For $15, it was worth a test.

It’s not quite voila yet, but the problem has been changed from helplessness in the face of changing conditions, to learning how to use a tool. Depending on the rock, I have to move it nearer or father from the light. Sometimes, I’ve tried draping a white plastic bag over the top to adjust it a little.

To illustrate my problem I took a stone I picked up in a neighbor’s yard that was the right size to throw at a threatening dog. I quickly realized it was a keeper.

I first got a decent picture of it with my travel camera (picture 3). I then turned off the lamp, but left the altered light settings (picture 2). I next let the settings revert to the default problem (picture 1).

I then took out the indoor closeup camera. The lamp was too bright to show the detail of the rock, and so I used different sheets of colored typing paper as shields (pictures 4 and 5). As you can see, the biggest problem after focus is color reproduction. This is a grey and clear rock, with only a hint of a golden hue to the naked eye.