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I've taken a few pictures of some models i've done using natural light and A3 paper for background but the light is so inconsistent. Sometimes I get a blueish hue and then the next its way too bright and it reflects off of the paper. I did try artificial light but that is too shadowy any advice would be greatly appreciated as getting quite frustrating now!

Im no photographer, but the thing causing the blue / yellow tints is the white balance on the camera, it being set to auto most likely causing the variations as its changing its mind based on whatever.

The glare can be solved by using 'soft' lighting rather than hard lighting... hard to explain what that means; remember school photo day? (however long ago that may have been) ... well they had lights pointing backwards at a white screen with odd black umbarellas around them.. all that jazz creates soft lighting. But it can be done on the cheap have a google around it a bit.

Get a large cardboard box (50x50x50cm is ideal), cut out most of 3 sides & cover with baking or grease proof paper to act as light diffusers.
You're aiming to make a home made version of this:

Next you need at least 3 desk lamps with daylight bulbs if possible.
You also need a tripod & either a remote release or timer on your camera.
Instead of getting as close as possible & using the macro setting I set up my camera about 1 meter away & zoom in - I find that this cuts out the parallax error.
Find a free image processing piece of software to crop, rotate & correct any colour issues.

I didn't think most cameras - at least modern ones - would have a parallax error problem - at least most common point and shoots are now using either live view on the back or live-view in the viewfinder to show the frame content.


That said standing further back and zooming in to the subject will mean that the depth of field (area of the photo that is in focus and sharp) will increase. This means you don't have to use the smallest aperture (bigger f number) on your camera (if it allows you manual shooting/aperture selection).


That aside bubber is correct; what you need is a light box/tent construction. What this does is soften the light and also gives you a good even distribution or light all over the subject.

Softening light is done by making the light source bigger. When you reflect light or shoot it through a surface like the side of a soft box what happens is that the light source relative to the subject is the sides of the box or the reflected surface.

As a result the increase in size softens the light upon the subject. Similarly a smaller sized light source produces a much harsher light; which is why the popup flash on most cameras produces a very hard and harsh light on the subject.


The white balance side of thing is more tricky, but in general so long as you use a light box setup you should get an even distribution of light and colour; you can help this by reducing the other ambient light sources in the room (easily by turning them off). At that point the auto white balance should give fairly standard results each and every time

 DarkHero wrote:
I've taken a few pictures of some models i've done using natural light and A3 paper for background but the light is so inconsistent. Sometimes I get a blueish hue and then the next its way too bright and it reflects off of the paper. I did try artificial light but that is too shadowy any advice would be greatly appreciated as getting quite frustrating now!

If you're using a point-and-shoot camera or a phone it can be REALLY hard to expose properly on a white background. Your light meter think that what you're shooting is neutral grey. So it sees a large area of white as an overexposed area of grey and adjusts accordingly. Finding something that isn't black and isn't white would solve a lot of problems, I think.

As for natural light, it's fine if you shoot in shadow. On a bright day just set up somewhere outside of the direct sun. Or put something between your mini and the sun to that you don't get harsh shadows.

Some sound advice here.

Also, if you are showing images online, remember you only need a max resolution of about 1920 x 1080 so if you've got a large Mexgapixel camera, don't fill the frame with your model and crop it.

Also, I can't recommend using point and shoot camera or phone. I recently picked up a 2nd hand 9 year old DSLR (Canon 350D) and it is about 1000 times better than any modern non-DSLR I've tested.

Older DSLR camera bodies are pretty cheap. The lenses rarely are, though. Still, it's worth a look.

I recently purchased a Nikon D3200 (upgrading from my D300) so that I could do video in addition to my still photos.

True. Guy I bought mine off of had moved to full-frame SLR so didn't have a use for his lenses and I got them pretty cheap.


OP: Also, if you are getting harsh shadows, don't use a flash or position an LED or fluro desklamp to illuminate the shadows and put some tissue paper or the like over it to diffuse (soften) the light and brighten up the darker bits.

For a background I usually use a light grey bit of mid-weight card. Don't get harsh white bouncing light around everywhere.

Note if you use tissue paper (or another similar medium) to diffuse light remember that diffusion comes from an increase size of light source relative to the subject. If you just use paper around the same size as the light source all you're doing is reducing the actual power of the light source rather than spreading the light around to soften it.

As a result you'd still get harsh shadows; or you'll block so much light that you'll get apparent softer shadows, but only because the light source is then only contributing very little to the scene (sometimes that's all you need is a little fill light like that to lift the shadows a touch).

I've been using an iphone which is a nightmare so far but I will try with a digital camera. Thankyou for all your advice !!

A lot of the problems I see with photos people take are of 3 kinds;


1) Light - dim indoor lighting in the dead of night makes for very little light for a camera to work with (esp without flash). So the light box/tent and good lighting helps massively

2) Focus - people get the camera as close as they can and sometimes so close it can't even focus on the subject - making the subject blurry which is not ideal. So do check the focus and sometimes step back a bit more and zoom in to get the shot (or crop).

3) Blur from hand holding - another factor of low light is the need for slower shutter speeds which makes for blurry photos. Again avoiding this is easiest done with good lighting and in this case also a tripod.