Today Brian and I stopped in at Classic Retro @ Pete’s in Saint Paul. I was looking for some possible candidates for wall lighting in the kitchen and found a mid-century table tulip lamp instead. Lamps are a weakness. I used the lamp as a subject as I experimented with my camera. The room where I’m shooting is green. The lamp has red fiberglass shades. The tulip leaves are red on the outside and whitish on the inside. The only light comes from the lamp, which has two 75 watt LED bulbs.

[F/4, 1/60 sec, ISO 100]

This was the first picture. I’m not sure why the settings were what they were. A few more bad photos followed. Then I watched this video to get a baseline. [11-15-2020, Unfortunately the YouTube video that was so helpful to me is no longer available.]

[F/22, 1/2 sec, ISO 400]

[F/22, 2.5 sec, ISO 100]

We’re starting to see that the wall is green. That’s something.

[F/16, 2.5 sec, ISO 100]

[F/16, 1 sec, ISO 100]

[F/16, 1 sec, ISO 100]

[F/16, .77 sec, ISO 100]

[F/16, .62 sec, ISO 100]

[F/16, 1/2 sec, ISO 100]

[F/16, .62 sec, ISO 100]

[F/16, 1/3 sec, ISO 100]

[F/16, 1/4 sec, ISO 100]

So I thought these were generally getting better. Then I realized I had paid no attention to the white balance setting. When I took video classes at MTN, I remember the instructor stressing setting the white balance. I always think of him whenever I see a video where the subject might have an unflattering bluish skin tone. So, I checked my Nikon D3300 for Dummies and made some adjustments. Given that there were no pre-sets for LEDs, I made a guess to get an idea of the effect. I’ll have to look more closely at the instructions to learn how to set the white balance with direct measurement (i.e., using white card stock). As far as I can see, adjusting the white balance brought the green wall closer to its natural color.

[F/16, 1/3 sec, ISO 100]

[F/16, 1/3 sec, ISO 100]

[F/22, 1.6 sec, ISO 100]

[F/22, 1.6 sec, ISO 100]

[F/22, 1/2 sec, ISO 200]

In the end, I think some of the pictures are pretty cool. But I’m not sure any of them really capture how cool the lamp is. I’ll have to keep practicing. Plus, once I start taking pictures in RAW (right now I’m mainly sticking to JPEG), I should have some post production options that might help bring these to life. For now, I’m just trying to get my head around the basics!