FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[trtlman]

I didn't know where to post this so I thought here would be fine. I have read all I can find on this site about photographing minerals and learned a lot but haven't found info on what color to use as a background. I see photos on here with Black some with White. I usually use black but when I photograph a black mineral it's harder to see, and if I use white then it is harder to see a white mineral. Is there any in between color that can show off any color of mineral or do I need to switch between backgrounds?

I am trying to construct a small photo area like the ones professionals use while photographing people but smaller. I think I have the lighting figured out from reading other posts, but any tips as to how to go about this would be greatly appreciated I want to be able to create photos that look good, thank you

[Jordi Fabre]

Daniel,

I moved this thread to "Micros & Macros" section.

Please read the thread: "Photographing minerals??" -> https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=446 you will find a lot of answers there.

[trtlman]

Thank you, I read that post but I didn't scroll all the way through it though. I thought I read all the replies but missed a bunch of them

[John Nash]

I like to use a shooting table that has a flexible white sheet of plastic (got it on EBay), then sometimes a sheet of dark plastic (from Home Depot) or glass over it. You can get a lot of variable lighting effects then depending on how heavily you light the material. I've attached two photos shot with a Nikon macro lense using two 75W floodlights with diffusion screens in front of them. In the first one (an amethyst phantom in smoky quartz I found in the Thunder Bay district) you can see the brown color of the plastic sheet I use over the white shooting table. In the second (fluorite and quartz from Peru), I used the exact same background but didn't light it as hard (lower the lamps on their tripods and aim the light more horizontally, less light going straight down), which caused it to be basically black in the finished photo. For small pieces, shooting on an 18X18 inch piece of dark or light marble or granite floor tile can be pretty, too.

John

[Ray McDougall]

A couple of additional practical thoughts to add to the excellent references in the thread Jordi has linked (Jeff Scovil's book is an excellent key read on the subect, in my view).

Some of the answer to your question is really a matter of your own personal taste and style as a photographer, and of course for many of us this evolves as we take more photographs.

Some photographers strictly limit their backgrounds to neutral. Black can be wonderful with certain minerals but dead for many others - really depends on the specimens you want to shoot. White can be great for illuminating a specimen for purposes of recording its attributes, but can also be fairly harsh, aesthetically speaking. The neutral gradational background Wendell Wilson refers to (in the article linked in that thread) with a white plexiglas surface can be achieved nicely with various materials - one of which, easiy acquired, is the rectangular insert for an overhead fluorescent lighting panel.

I personally would encourage you to experiment with coloured backgrounds. My own preference is neither to impact the colour of a specimen nor overwhelm it with the background. The challenge is a matter of choosing a background that suits the specimen and your taste. If you are adopting a setup like the one Jeff Scovil uses with a glass platform (as described in his book) it is easy to substitute various coloured art papers as backgrounds, and you can do this once your lighting for a specimen is at least generally arranged, so you can see what will work in a given situation. Experimenting will likely help you to get a feel for how various colours will come out in the image - depending on how a background is lit and how far it is from the subject specimen, the same background can produce rather different photographic backgrounds/effects from one image to the next. But gone are the painful days of having to know what you were doing before shooting roll after roll of slide film and then getting it all back to see how much of it you got right and wrong - digital imaging really allows flexibility to learn as one goes. I wholeheartedly agree with Pete Richards in the other thread - explore, be patient, and enjoy the challenge. And when the reflectors you just spent 20 minutes setting up around your specimen all go down like a line of dominoes, know that you are not alone. :)

Best of luck!

R.

[trtlman]

Thank you all so much for your help here is what I was thinking, I have built a little studio out of cardboard from coke boxes it is a very simple construction project. I plan on getting some backdrops and from what I read backdrops of different colors and reflectiveness is the way to go. I also need good lighting I just have the over head lighting in my place also I just have a sony cybershot 14.1 Megapixel and can't afford anything better. All I need now is color to add to it and some good lighting thanks once again and here is a pic to leave you with, a stone I found while in the mountains.

[Debbie Woolf]

Hi trtlman

Love your avatar !

I often take my photo's outside in natural sunlight & use the grass as a background colour. It's hard for me to capture as good quality when I try indoors.

Just wanted to point out or you may have already noticed how the differing coloured backgrounds in your photo detract the eye from the specimen.

Good luck & I look forward to seeing the next version :0)