Photographing Tea

[brandon]

Brandon has been inches away from opening a Photographing Tea thread. There is a lot of camera talent on this forum.

What a fantastic idea! Let's work together to raise the bar on our photography here.

Useful resources:
Tea photos on flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/tea/
Alex's blog, full of some brilliant compositions: http://anotherteablog.blogspot.com/
Lighting 101: http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html
And of course the daily TeaDay posts from Salsero.
More Photo Links: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech.htm

[Salsero]

OK, does anyone have anything useful to say about reflections and the illusion of depth in liquids? I'm just happy if it works out, but I have not idea how to get what I want on the surface of the tea liquor.

[ABx]

OK, does anyone have anything useful to say about reflections and the illusion of depth in liquids? I'm just happy if it works out, but I have not idea how to get what I want on the surface of the tea liquor.

I would just really love some tips on photography in general. I'm clueless when it comes to photography. Getting decent lighting for the shots with my point-and-click-with-manual-settings-too camera has been something of a pain for me. I usually end up trying to use light coming in through the window but that usually ends up being a bit too much, making taking pics for my blog kind of a pain (I would probably have more posts on by blog by now if I could get one decent pic in under an hour of trying).

Thanks for the link on lighting, Brandon. I'll be reading through it. At first blush it looks a bit beyond me ATM, but may give me a starting place anyway.

[Space Samurai]

This guy has a lot to say about photography in general. I found his site when I bought my D40.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/index.htm

Abx, I use blinds on my windows, open them enough to add more light, but not enough to add shadows. I find this gives me control over how much natural light I get. Often times when taking pictures of a tea session, i'll experiment back and forth, pull the blinds up all the way up and let the sun in and take a few pictures, then drop the blinds and so forth.

[Photiou]

First try with E-3 and home made 'light tent' - 4 A4 sheets around the pot and flash behind the sheets.

[brandon]

@ ABx:
If you can control the shutter (aperture, speed), you can also adjust the amount of light in a photo without changing the actual lighting at all. A faster shutter speed will collect less light into the exposed image. A smaller aperture (higher f/) will have the same affect. By adjusting these two you can bring the light closer to what you would like.

A longer shutter will of course collect more light in a darker room, but in this case you will want to use a tripod as after a certain speed any movement will create blurring.

HTH

@ Photiou:
Awesome! The DOF is very pleasing.

[brandon]

A note on white balance:

If you are using a point and shoot, you may or may not have much control over the flash. An important thing to realize is that a flash is pretty close to putting out pure white light, while the lighting in your house is not even close. Tungsten puts out orange light, while florescent is green, and daylight is white. To get the best color in your photos you will want to avoid "mixing" these colors. You can end up with a photo that has a weird orange tint.

There are some easy ways to fix this -- if you plan on shooting with the tungsten lights on and a lot of light is coming in the windows, close the blinds and turn off the flash. If you really want to use the flash, you can apply a thin orange film that matches the flash to the average tungsten bulb. Then your camera will adjust the "white balance" of the entire image to reflect the orange light and it will look perfectly normal on the computer screen.

Going the opposite way is easier, turn out the tungsten and open the blinds -- flash already matches the color of daylight. If you can do it, you may have better results manually setting the white balance on your camera between "tungsten" and "daylight" rather than leaving it on auto.

Detailed reference:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2008/05/li ... gsten.html

[Salsero]

OK, this Q is tangentially related:

How do you make it so you can click on the photo in TeaChat and see a larger copy of it like Photiou did?

BTW, nice shot, Photiou, and very creative light tent invention.

[silverneedles]

the most important effect of changing aperture is the change of depth of field.

small aperture = ex: f8, f11, f22 creates a larger depth of field = more objects are in focus.

large aperture = ex: f2, f2.8, f4 = small depth of field = only a small part will be in focus. = this will give you a blurry background beyond whats in focus.

the depth of field at the same aperture is also affected by the amount of zoom, and the distance of the object from the camera.

[silverneedles]

to make a photo clickable in teachat:

you just need to write this in your posting:

Code: Select all

[url=http://thewebsitelinktoyourBIGimage.jpg] [img]http://thewebsitelinktoyourSMALLimage.jpg[/img][/url]

thats all in one line theres no spaces

[Salsero]

Thanks, but let me make sure I understand: I need to have two copies of the file uploaded? And do I need to use that Code button?

[Photiou]

Thanks, but let me make sure I understand: I need to have two copies of the file uploaded? And do I need to use that Code button?

ImageShack at least makes thumbnail pictures automatically, just copy their 'forum code' (similar to what silverneedles posted) to your message.

[Beidao]

Salsero, you asked about avoiding reflections. I know there is filters for that. Someone knows more about it?

[trent]

If anyone wants to make a light box, here's one way that you can.
http://www.studiolighting.net/homemade- ... otography/

Salsero,
What exactly do you "want on the surface of the tea liquor?" If you just want to decrease/eliminate reflections, you could use a polarizing filter

[olivierco]

I guess it is the right place to ask:
I might buy a camera (if I don't find any cool teaware to buy instead ).
What are the technical specifications I should take into account?

I would also like to be able to use my camera to make pictures of insects and plants.