joel@peora.UUCP (03/01/89)
I just got a VGA compatible board for my PC and I was looking for
some advice on how to photograph the screen either with a 35mm
or a Poloroid camera. My previous experiences were not that
successful. I haven't seen any articles discussing this in computer
magazines, even in review of presentation graphics software.
Has their been any discussion of this in photography magazines?
I remember seeing some ads for hoods that you can use to cover the
Monitor while you are shooting. Do these help? Could I make something
just as good with a piece of cardboard? Where do I get them?
Does a Poloroid camera work well in photographing the screen? Do I have
to use a particular model to focus that close? How about making slides?
I would appreciate any advice anyone could give me.
--
Joel Upchurch/Concurrent Computer Corp/2486 Sand Lake Rd/Orlando, FL 32809
joel@peora.ccur.com {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd,ucf-cs}!peora!joel (407)850-1040jerry@starfish.Convergent.COM (Gerald Hawkins) (03/02/89)
From article <3779@peora.ccur.com>, by joel@peora.UUCP: > I just got a VGA compatible board for my PC and I was looking for > some advice on how to photograph the screen either with a 35mm > or a Poloroid camera. My previous experiences were not that > successful. I haven't seen any articles discussing this in computer > Joel Upchurch/Concurrent Computer Corp/2486 Sand Lake Rd/Orlando, FL 32809 > joel@peora.ccur.com {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd,ucf-cs}!peora!joel (407)850-1040 - - I have had occassion to do this at times. There are two big problems: 1. Glare! You can end the glare problem by making a hood of cardboard or cloth or photographing in a near dark room. You will have a slight problem getting the exposure right on some cameras. Use an exposure time longer than two screen paints (ie, 1/30 or 1/15 second) to be certain that you don't see any scan-effects. 2. Linearity! The things on the screen which your eye assures you are straight are not. I don't know of any special lens you can use. If you're photographing full time you could dedicate a monitor just to photography and pincushion it to appear linear to the camera. Now the good news. If you are made of money, PC Magazine just ran an article about slide makers for the PC, which contain a tiny monitor and lens and get everything perfect for you. They cost from about $3500 to about $15000. I hope your company has lotsa bucks. Rainy Days and Automatic Weapons Fire Alway Get Me Down. These opinions are mine. Jerry. (jerry@starfish.convergent.COM) -----
lbr@holos0.UUCP (Len Reed) (03/02/89)
In article <3779@peora.ccur.com> joel@peora.UUCP writes: >I just got a VGA compatible board for my PC and I was looking for >some advice on how to photograph the screen either with a 35mm >or a Poloroid camera. My previous experiences were not that >successful.... If you shoot a picture of a TV screen, you have to use a slow shutter speed, 1/60 or less. 1/30 or 1/15 is a good choice. Otherwise you get caught in the middle of a scan. I suspect that much the same is true of a VGA screen. Set the camera on a tripod. Oh, you're not using a flash, are you? :-) -- - Len Reed
optical@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (03/02/89)
In article <3779@peora.ccur.com>, joel@peora.UUCP writes: > I just got a VGA compatible board for my PC and I was looking for > some advice on how to photograph the screen either with a 35mm > or a Poloroid camera. My previous experiences were not that > successful. I haven't seen any articles discussing this in computer > magazines, even in review of presentation graphics software. > Has their been any discussion of this in photography magazines? > > I remember seeing some ads for hoods that you can use to cover the > Monitor while you are shooting. Do these help? Could I make something > just as good with a piece of cardboard? Where do I get them? > > Does a Poloroid camera work well in photographing the screen? Do I have > to use a particular model to focus that close? How about making slides? > > I would appreciate any advice anyone could give me. > -- > Joel Upchurch/Concurrent Computer Corp/2486 Sand Lake Rd/Orlando, FL 32809 > joel@peora.ccur.com {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd,ucf-cs}!peora!joel (407)850-1040 I have done some work in photo am using a Pentex model P3 with automatic exposure speed and a 28mm - 80mm zoom lense. The pictures I have taken were fairly good. I used both negative film and slide film, and they worked fine. Since the display intensity of monitors is not very high, I used higher speed film (200 or 400). The shutter speed is automatically selected by the camera (usually somewhere around 1 sec to 0.25 sec, 1 sec is better due to the display refresh). I am not professional in this area, just wanted to take some pictures for my paper. If you really want high quality photoes, you better consult some photo experts (I don't have enough $$$ to pay them). By the way, I shoot my pictures during the night hours with all lights off, so there is no interference. Qiwu Liu University of Kansas
davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (03/02/89)
In article <3779@peora.ccur.com> joel@peora.UUCP writes: | I just got a VGA compatible board for my PC and I was looking for | some advice on how to photograph the screen either with a 35mm | or a Poloroid camera. [...] Here are some ideas which I got from a professional (he was taking my picture, not offering advice) and which has worked reasonably well for me. Camera on a tripod, cable release, dark room, long exposure (i use 1/2 sec). If you have telephoto and room, back the camera away from the tube. This seems to help make the curvature of the tube invisible, although if you have one of the fancy Zenith FTM monitors you may not care. To take a picture of a room with a screen: Dark room, camera as before, use a flash and leave the shutter open. The flash illuminates the room, and then the long exposure fills in the screen. I have a neat picture of a group of us around a PC taken that way. Play with f-stops and monitor brightness until you're satisfied. Your milage may vary. I use Kodak ASA100 color film and a Cannon w/ 70-150mm zoom, if you think it matters (I have also used a 200mm telephoto). -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
dennisw@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM (Dennis Ward) (03/02/89)
To: joel@peora.UUCP Subject: Re: Photographing PC Screens Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,rec.photo In-Reply-To: <3779@peora.ccur.com> Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Vancouver, WA. Cc: Bcc: Photographing CRTs is our business! Of course we have a solution for quality, color photos of VGA screens! Look at the 1989 Tektronix catalog, pages 512 and 513. The C-4 Polaroid camera with Option 12 (PC hood) should work fine for standard PC screen sizes. You can use 669 color print film or 691 for color transparencies. Tell'm Bob & Dennis sent ya! -- Dennis Ward dennisw@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM C1-820 (206)253-5428
murphy@pur-phy (William J. Murphy) (03/02/89)
In article <1891@holos0.UUCP> lbr@holos0.UUCP (Len Reed) writes: >In article <3779@peora.ccur.com> joel@peora.UUCP writes: >>I just got a VGA compatible board for my PC and I was looking for >>some advice on how to photograph the screen either with a 35mm >>or a Poloroid camera. My previous experiences were not that >>successful.... > >If you shoot a picture of a TV screen, you have to use a slow shutter >speed, 1/60 or less. 1/30 or 1/15 is a good choice. Otherwise you >get caught in the middle of a scan. I suspect that much the same is >true of a VGA screen. Set the camera on a tripod. > >Oh, you're not using a flash, are you? :-) >-- > - Len Reed If you are using a monitor that is not a flat screen monitor, you will find that there is distortion of your photograph due to the curvature of the screen. In an Amazing Computing magazine (Nov. 87 I think), there was an article discussing photographing your monitor. The author suggests that you use a telephoto to reduce the distortion due to curvature. Also suggested is to turn down the brightness and contrast of your monitor to make the colors a bit more true to life. Elsewise you end up with a photo that looks like a neon sign. The last tip was to use lots of film and to appropriately bracket your pictures by using multiple shutter speeds and F-stop settings. I would suggest that you forget your Polaroid and use a 35mm SLR which is not one of the point-n-shoot types. I use a Canon AE-1. The bracketing is the most useful of all these tips, I wasted a few hours running simulations to be photographed, just to find that I had seriously underexposed my film. If I had more $$ I would have bracketed properly. Happy Snapping, Bill Murphy murphy@newton.physics.purdue.edu
vail@tegra.UUCP (Johnathan Vail) (03/02/89)
In article <3779@peora.ccur.com> joel@peora.UUCP writes: >I just got a VGA compatible board for my PC and I was looking for >some advice on how to photograph the screen either with a 35mm >or a Poloroid camera. My previous experiences were not that >successful.... I worked on the firmware for a new terminal deign once and spent a day at a commercial photographer's studio. I was there to "put stuff on the screen" for the shoot. I learned a lot as commercial photography is a lot different from amateur or news-type photography. The tecnique he used for shooting the terminal was to set everything up then turn out the lights in the studio. The calculated exposure was made by counting the number of manaul strobe flashes. Several different exposures were made of each shot that bracketed the calculated optimum values to provide different contrasts. For each exposure thought the shutter was left open in the dark studio for a few minutes, with just the text of the terminal exposing the film. This same tecnique can be used with most SLR 35mm cameras on the 'B' setting. As a previous poster pointed out, the key is to have an exposure longer than the scan time. An exposure of several seconds at least with a darkened room and a tripod should give good results. I would also recommend trying different exposures for each shot. Hope this helps... "Everything that gives us pleasure gives us pain to measure it by." -- The Residents, GOD IN THREE PERSONS _____ | | Johnathan Vail | tegra!N1DXG@ulowell.edu |Tegra| (508) 663-7435 | N1DXG @ 145.110-, 444.2+, 448.625- -----
curci@stat.uucp (Ray Curci (scri)) (03/03/89)
In article <3939@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> optical@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: >In article <3779@peora.ccur.com>, joel@peora.UUCP writes: >> I just got a VGA compatible board for my PC and I was looking for >> some advice on how to photograph the screen either with a 35mm >> or a Poloroid camera. My previous experiences were not that It is not necessary to have very fancy equipment to get good color photographs or slides from a computer screen. The main thing is to use a tripod, make sure the shutter speed is slow enough (at least 1/15th sec or longer as a brief exposure will catch only part of the scan). It is best to darken the room in some manner to avoid harsh reflections on the screen. If you use an SLR you can check this through the viewfinder. If your camera has a self-timer or you have a cable release, use them. Use the video screen as your light source (no flash), and when you measure the light do it from the camera's location because of the inverse square law will give you misleading readings especially at close range. curci@nu.cs.fsu.edu
jmacdon@cg-atla.UUCP (Jeff MacDonald) (03/04/89)
In article <7454@pyr.gatech.EDU> curci@stat.fsu.edu (Ray Curci (scri)) writes: > ... Use the video screen >as your light source (no flash), and when you measure the light do it >from the camera's location because of the inverse square law will give you >misleading readings especially at close range. This is not quite true. The inverse square law is not what causes the problem. When working close up there is loss of light to the film due to lens extension. If you don't change the focus from where it will be when you fire the shutter you can take close-up readings with no problem. Of course, it DOES get very hard to see what you're taking a reading of sometimes... but, what the hay. -- Jeff MacDonald ([decvax|ulowell]!cg-atla!jmacdon) Agfa/Compugraphic Division 200-2-9F 200 Ballardvale, Wilmington MA 01887 (508) 658-0200, extension 5406
m2@insyte.UUCP (Mike Arena) (03/04/89)
In article <13278@steinmetz.ge.com> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: >milage may vary. I use Kodak ASA100 color film and a Cannon w/ 70-150mm >zoom, if you think it matters (I have also used a 200mm telephoto). >-- > bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) When I took a computer graphics course, we used Tungsten film. The professor said it preserved the colors of the screen better than ordinary film (and the colors do look good). It has been a while, but I think it was slide film with ASA 64. -- Michael J. Arena (617) 965 8450 | UUCP: ...harvard!linus!axiom!insyte!m2 Innovative Systems Techniques | ...harvard!necntc!lpi!insyte!m2 1 Gateway Center, Newton, MA 02158 | ARPA: insyte!m2@harvard.harvard.edu
dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (03/15/89)
In article <7454@pyr.gatech.EDU> curci@stat.fsu.edu (Ray Curci (scri)) writes: >Use the video screen >as your light source (no flash), and when you measure the light do it >from the camera's location because of the inverse square law will give you >misleading readings especially at close range. This is just plain wrong. You do need to fill the light meter's field of view with the image (so you aren't measuring the black area outside the screen), but other than that the distance just doesn't matter. The intensity of light from a particular point on the screen does fall off with the inverse-square law, but the area of the screen being measured increases as the square of the distance between the meter and the screen, so the two effects cancel out. This is the same reason that the correct exposure for an object does not depend on distance from the camera (unless you are doing macro photography).
donl@glass.SGI.COM (donl mathis) (03/21/89)
In article <17769@onfcanim.UUCP>, dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale) writes: > The intensity of light from a particular point on the screen does fall > off with the inverse-square law, but the area of the screen being Pardon my sarcasm, here, but you folks seem a little bit confused about something! Perhaps there is a difference between measuring a light source and something illuminated by that light source. Perhaps the inverse-square law only applies the latter! When i get two feet away from my monitor, it sure doesn't *seem* to be four times as dim as when i'm one foot away! And when i'm several miles from Halfdome, it sure doesn't seem any dimmer than when i'm right at the base. And a light bulb doesn't seem to get any dimmer when i back away from it. -- - donl mathis at Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA {sun,pyramid,adobe,decwrl,ucbvax,allegra}!sgi!donl donl@sgi.com