Butterflies at a Museum

[darkpbstar]

At the Milwaukee museum they have a butterfly exhibit, where you walk in this room, and there are butterflies flying around you. It was alot of fun, and really cool seeing these up close, being able to really see and hold them (let land on your hand, not really "hold" it). I know they aren't perfect, for they are a little blurry, but alot of the time I had to tip toe to get the shot, used no flash, and I tried to hurry on the shots before other people came, so I tried my best.

 

[Bifurcator]

1, 3, 4, and 5 scream out for white balancing. No. 2 needs focus. I like no. 3 very much! If that's not a crop there's lots of potential there - especially if you have the RAW still.

 

[darkpbstar]

thanks, can you change the white balance in PP, or just in camera? I have my camera set on auto for white balance, I used to use cloudy, but I didn't know if that would be good for inside.

 

[Bifurcator]

PP? Photo Paint? Painter Pro? I dunno PP. My bad! But most paint and IMPs (Image Processors) will let you balance after. The problem with that is that you have to then go by memory and hues and tones are hard to remember - for me at least. But anyway, yeah, I guess your application will let you color balance.

 

[Bifurcator]

BTW if your camera has a easily accessible Custom WB convention that's really the best way to go! I carry an old credit-card sanded down to it's nice pure white plastic and take it out for shooting. With most cameras it's usually just a two button-press operation. Hold the card in front of the camera so that it's collecting the most light from the dominant light source in the scene, press the WB sampling button, press the "OK" button. It doesn't need focus or anything so zooming up on a card only a few inches away from the end of the lens barrel is a synch (cinch?).

 

[Overread38 1]

well altering white balance needs RAW mode I belive to be able to alter it well.
However if you run an auto levels over them there is a good improvment in the colours. Though after auto select the reds and on the lefthand side of the histogram at the bottom there is a slider - move it a little more to the right to lose a little more of the reds. I also lowered the temperature a little after to lose a little more of the red effect. Though it is tricky to stop things going to blue and green - more time would let you iron out the colours

here some examples: (hope you don't mind)

pp = post production - after the shot it taken, so using any editing software you have

 

[darkpbstar]

wow what a difference, thanks alot. Yes I was referring to post processing. I will deffinetly be adjusting white balance either before or after I take the photos from now on, well at least when they come out as "warm" as these did. Thanks alot

 

[Overread38 1]

DO you shoot in RAW or JPEG?
These I altered from thier jpeg, but you can get better results with RAW mode - essentially you don't have to worry as much about the white balance (course it is alwasy best to get it right in shot if you can)

 

[darkpbstar]

well I've been shooting in JPEG. If I shoot in RAW does it change anything, like can I still upload it regularly to my PC, or do I need other programs??? thanks

 

[Overread38 1]

Well all RAW shots have to be converted before they can be used - the camera should have come with its own software that will let you edit them and programs like photoshop elemnents, GIMP and others will either work automatically with that software or wil be able to download a codec to read the RAW.
Once you can do that you open the RAW in that program and you then have to edit the shot instantly - you can set the white blance, change the exposure (really helps sometimes this) and also colours, blacks, brightness and others. This can be done using auto settings or manually and then you open the image (don't save) into your editer and can further tweak the shot with things like levels and sharpening.
Once done you have to save the shot as something - like JPEG.
This means that RAW can take longer as you can't just take straight from camera, but the additional editing power is very nice to have as a backup for when you don't get quite what you want in the field.
The downside is that they are big files - around 10mb each so it really lowers how many shots you can take.
A case of quality of quantity.

 

[darkpbstar]

cool, thanks for the description. What about JPEG/Raw? My camera has somethign of this sort. I'll shoot in RAW once I get my new SD card, but right now I can only take just over 100 shots (I just got my camera and haven't yet gotten to buy one)