Church Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 Hope this is the right forum for this - seemed appropriate! Since I started my grow, I've wanted to take many pictures of the growing babies, but find HPS lights produce pics with so much green and yellow in them, detail is hard to see... I have a Sony DSC-P31 digicam, only 2 Megapixels - had a 7MP Fuji but work took it off me when they fired me for being an invalid(!). So my Sony is a pretty old, pretty cheap camera with 1600x1200 max res - but it works fine... however, won't take filters. I have a lovely SLR, but no way am I taking pics in to be developed! I've done quite a bit of photography over the years, even had a portfolio once... Having removed Photoshop and ImageReady to make room for Battle for Middle Earth , I have to use Microsoft Photo Editor to resize the pics and colour correct (will come back to that later) The pics tend to come out like this (reduced size to fit 150k limit) without colour correcting them (note how I cunningly put CDs over the rockwool to make photography REALLY difficult): Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VRG Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 The simplest answer is to take your pictures with the lights off, using the flash. Alternatively, take your babies out of your GR, and photograph them in natural light. Look forward to seeing some pics! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Church Posted March 3, 2005 Author Share Posted March 3, 2005 So what I've been doin to improve the pictures is to load em into MS Photo Editor (I removed Photoshop to put Battle for Middle Earth on!) then follow these steps: Resize image to 55% of original Select <Balance> from <Image> Menu Lower Red Brightness to 40 Lower Green Brightness to 40 Lower Green Gamma to 0.75 <OK> that, the pic looks like this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Church Posted March 3, 2005 Author Share Posted March 3, 2005 BUT last night, I discovered a little bit of magic. I haven't been able to find my ordinary sunglasses for going into the growroom, but I have some Killer Loop shades from some years ago, and they really make things a lot easier to see.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Church Posted March 3, 2005 Author Share Posted March 3, 2005 So I thought to myself... hmm what if I put them in front of the camera lens... surely the camera will see better too!!! So I held em in front of the lens for a pic.. Here are the results - 2 pics, resized but not rebalanced in any other way... Pic 1 is without the glasses, Pic 2 is with... I think they work rather nicely! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Church Posted March 3, 2005 Author Share Posted March 3, 2005 Anyway, today when I got back from hospital, I thought I'd do a little web research, find out HOW TO take pictures under sodium lamps... found this thread on photo.net, thought I'd share it with you (I've cut out a lot of crap!): 1. Sodium discharge lamps will probably give you a strong yellow/green colour cast with any film, positive or negative. I found it impossible to fully correct and get decent prints, not surprising as there is very little bandwidth and therefore virtually no colour information to be recorded besides the yellow/green. Best results have been with B&W film (Tri X rated @ 320 ASA) for slightly flat negs that print well with a bit of contrast correction. You could probably add more colour after the fact in Photoshop this way than you would get using colour film, depending on your digital darkroom skills. 2. High-pressure sodium vapor street lamps are one of the pitfalls of photographing after dark. Used to light many city streets, sodium vapor lights are amber with strong, difficult to correct, emissions in the green, yellow and orange region of the spectrum. Singh-Ray Lucalox filters, named for the GE sodium vapor lamp, are the only tools available that yield faithful color reproduction of these scenes. NOTE: Lucalox filters are formulated for use with Ektachrome Tungsten (Type B) film. NOTE THE LUCALOX FILTER REF!!!, possible smile coming up... 3. what are you trying to accomplish Johnathan? Maybe the thread needs that info. Some are responding trying to help you accurately correct your lighting for an accurate image, which i think is silly under these lights. If you want to make a different looking photo by taking advantage of this different spectrum, then everyone is now right and wrong. No one has mention the kelvin differnces in high pressure and low pressure sodiums either 4. One last thing: I have shot thousands of chromes using sodium vapor lighting. I got paid a nice amount for it. All the other suggestions you are getting are off the wall, period. They will not work. Anyway back to the Lucalox filter.... Look familiar to anyone?!?!?!?! So how happy am I? I now have magical Sunglasses/DIY Lucalox Filter... guess who's going into the GR later to take lotsa pics? Anyway, thought I'd post this 'workshop'- hopefully someone will get some use out of the info... although I don't imagine many of you have a pair of Purple Killer Loops hangin around.... Lord Churchfield Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlad (the impala) Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 just use the flash! (you'll have to switch it on - "force flash" normally................) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Church Posted March 3, 2005 Author Share Posted March 3, 2005 just use the flash! (you'll have to switch it on - "force flash" normally................) 318233[/snapback] Nah, tried it with little success.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Peppi Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 (edited) Nah, tried it with little success.... 318244[/snapback] photos always look better in natural light ( ask any photographer) get them out in some natural light peppi ps jay and silent bob love those films ! Edited March 3, 2005 by Peppi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bu Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 I would remove the CDs mate. You don't need that much reflective material under the leaves as they photosynthesize from above. Also, if you get some monster tree trunks you are going to smash them off with a pair of pliers. But you're going to say you just did it for the pics aren't you! Cheers, Bu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Church Posted March 3, 2005 Author Share Posted March 3, 2005 I would remove the CDs mate.You don't need that much reflective material under the leaves as they photosynthesize from above. Also, if you get some monster tree trunks you are going to smash them off with a pair of pliers. But you're going to say you just did it for the pics aren't you! Cheers, Bu 318335[/snapback] Nah Bu, they're only on to keep the rockwool clean and moist until they go into the NFT Tray. That's gonna be covered completely, so the CDs'll be gone then... Reason why I thought I'd try improve my lit growroom photography is that the growroom isn't that easy to get into, so taking stuff in and out is a bit of a hassle... Having just loaded Photoshop CS onto my PC, I'm a little gutted to find out that, after my wonderful eve of research, there's a filter to compensate for Sodium Lighting automatically apparently Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincent Vega Posted March 4, 2005 Share Posted March 4, 2005 try turnin the light off for a wee wile and then when u turn in on take as many as u can b4 it fire's up fully , Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest south east toker Posted March 4, 2005 Share Posted March 4, 2005 i know what your saying bud,i take pics with lights on....from above & remove one to show it natural light to give folk the idea what they all look like. heres one out and the others under the light! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Church Posted March 4, 2005 Author Share Posted March 4, 2005 Well, no need for the 'lucaspecs' anymore - my plugin for Photoshop works a treat... Before Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Church Posted March 4, 2005 Author Share Posted March 4, 2005 And After Very pleased with the result - Kodak Professional ROC filter, automatic settings. Didn't change a thing. Ah well, the CDs are gone now as it's Traytime in the Shrine! NFT here we go... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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