Decent PC builder/Modder - Terrible with photos!

[stealth80]

Hi guys,

                 I've done a few project logs now and whilst I feel my PC modding skills have moved on a lot from my first and not very well known mod (for good reasons haha), I feel my photography skills are not doing my builds the justice they deserve. I have a Nikon D3200 DSLR camera with no fancy lenses, just the lense it came with. What I'm finding difficult is taking pictures through a side panel or when there is any back light, like in my current build. Heres a couple of pictures I have taken previously which I think are decent:

 

 

 

 

Here are some of the types of photos that I feel I need to improve with:

 

 

 

 

 

In each of these photos I get either one or both of the problems that cause me issues:

 

1) reflections/flash reflections or the flash overpowering the case lighting and colours

 

2) Focusing on the lights within the case which seem to wipeout the colours and don't accurately reflect real life viewing

 

Does anyone have any tips on how to overcome this?

 

Thanks 

[anfor68]

You may have figured out the issue by now, but diffusing the light source hitting the glass side panel, or having the case in such a way that it doesn't reflect off the glass will help somewhat. As for the flash, same principle of diffusing the light - and you don't have to purchase those fancy lightboxes that are way overpriced for glorified nylon paper - having a piece of paper over the flash will do just fine in most cases.

 

As for color, you may want to try and fidget with the white balance settings in the camera (if you use JPEGs straight from the camera) or use a RAW developing program (if you shoot in RAW at all) to adjust white balance.

You *can* adjust color with photo editing software for JPEGs, but I personally don't recommend it, especially if your camera shoots in RAW, and there are free RAW developers out there.

 

You certainly do take better photos of computers than me though! ^^

my pictures from my build log looks terrible (it is from my phone, but stil...)



I do photography as a hobby, but it's mostly fine art stuff, and not really "product photography," so I would take this with a grain of salt, but I hope it helps!



P.S. how did you bleed the top rad? I seem to have some air still trapped in there, after about 18 hours of initlal filling.

[stealth80]

8 hours ago, anfor68 said:

You may have figured out the issue by now, but diffusing the light source hitting the glass side panel, or having the case in such a way that it doesn't reflect off the glass will help somewhat. As for the flash, same principle of diffusing the light - and you don't have to purchase those fancy lightboxes that are way overpriced for glorified nylon paper - having a piece of paper over the flash will do just fine in most cases.

 

As for color, you may want to try and fidget with the white balance settings in the camera (if you use JPEGs straight from the camera) or use a RAW developing program (if you shoot in RAW at all) to adjust white balance.

You *can* adjust color with photo editing software for JPEGs, but I personally don't recommend it, especially if your camera shoots in RAW, and there are free RAW developers out there.

 

You certainly do take better photos of computers than me though! ^^

my pictures from my build log looks terrible (it is from my phone, but stil...)



I do photography as a hobby, but it's mostly fine art stuff, and not really "product photography," so I would take this with a grain of salt, but I hope it helps!



P.S. how did you bleed the top rad? I seem to have some air still trapped in there, after about 18 hours of initlal filling.

Nope still haven't sorted it, which I actually need to address as I have just painted the ram sticks which has raised the issue again. I will try the paper over the flash trick, I wasn't aware of this. 

 

As for the top radiator I just run the rig on full speed for around 3 - 4 hours and tip and tilt the case with the res cap off until i'm happy it is bled. Once I've finished I just rest the cap on the res so air can still escape during normal use

[stealth80]

14 minutes ago, JayKay3000 said:

Do you need to use the flash?

Well this is the problem, if I use the flash It washes out the colours, if I don't it focus's on the RGB and makes the white look an off peach colour

 

gonna have a play now

[stealth80]

Well seems the tips are working, but only with my phone so far ..

 

 

 

[anfor68]

the photos look amazing!

 

much, much better than the ones you posted first