Canon SX 160 on sale

[thewishman]

That looks nice and focused to me. I'm waiting on my tripod and SD card to come tomorrow... Hurry up, UPS!

 

[Dan Masshardt]

That looks nice and focused to me. I'm waiting on my tripod and SD card to come tomorrow... Hurry up, UPS!

Where does one find a decent tripod reasonably priced?

 

[thewishman]

http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-60-Inch-Lightweight-Tripod-Bag/dp/B005KP473Q/ref=zg_bs_499310_1

I got this one for $21.49. (Looks like I got the last one) I'm planning to use it in my basement, so I didn't need anything too light or too heavy duty. I wanted a pan head and a quick release - after using a borrowed tripod and camera, the screwing and unscrewing of the camera got old really fast.

The reviews look good. I'll tell you more about it when I get it.

 

[BruceA]

Any ideas for a quick-release method?

Wishman, you bring up a good point - having to mount and then unscrew the Canon SX160 to "any" tripod - the door for removing the SD card necessitates removing the camera. There's no angle it can be turned while mounted that gives enough clearance to open the battery/SD card door.

Can anyone make a recommendation on some kind of mount that would work as a quick-release plate but doesn't cover the SD card door?? Some kind of male/female plates that mount between the camera and the tripod top...

 

[Sylvanite]

Wishman, you bring up a good point - having to mount and then unscrew the Canon SX160 to "any" tripod - the door for removing the SD card necessitates removing the camera. There's no angle it can be turned while mounted that gives enough clearance to open the battery/SD card door.

Can anyone make a recommendation on some kind of mount that would work as a quick-release plate but doesn't cover the SD card door?? Some kind of male/female plates that mount between the camera and the tripod top...

It wouldn't be that difficult to fabricate a 2" standoff for the tripod screw. It's a standard 1/4"x20 thread. I'd go ahead and make one for myself, except that I've taken to using the USB cable to connect the camera, rather than taking out the SD card.

Regards,
Eric

 

[thewishman]

Yeah, that was my plan, too. Forget taking the quick release plate off, just hook up the cable to the port on the side of the camera

 

[dogcatcher]

I use a mono pod, homemade version of a shortened walking stick, that the top 2 inches screw off reveling a 1/4-20 shaft. It works while we are out side as a camera mount, and have used it inside also. Not as good as a tripod, but better than nothing.

 

[thewishman]

I REALLY like this tripod. It arrived about 30 minutes ago and I almost loaded it on the quick release plate before I remembered that I needed to install the SD card first. The plate pops off with the release of a latch and is easily removable with a tabbed screw from the bottom side.

At full height it seems plenty sturdy and can be very easily moved into about any position. Well worth the $21.49 price.

 

[woodyoureally]

I had been shooting my pen pictures with my smartphone and a DIY lightbox and was getting less than ideal results. I grabbed one of these and purchased a cheap light box on Amazon. I am still play with settings, distances, etc but I am Much happier with what I am getting now. Any C&C is certainly welcome.

 

[farmer]

pen pictures

I had been shooting my pen pictures with my smartphone and a DIY lightbox and was getting less than ideal results. I grabbed one of these and purchased a cheap light box on Amazon. I am still play with settings, distances, etc but I am Much happier with what I am getting now. Any C&C is certainly welcome.

#3 is underexposed, I really I thought all of your photos were a little dark to be honest.

I don't why you guys are hell bent to use lighting that has electromagnetic polarized light in it without filtering out the polarized light.
So when the polarized light strikes ANY non metallic SMOOTH surface IT is not TURNNED INTO POLARIZED REFLECTION AKA GLARE.

You cannot control angle of reflection in a tent.......................
You cannot control polarized light inside a tent inless you make another tent inside Made with linear polarized film, and if that is the case you wouldn't need the light tent after you made the linear polarized tent inside.

If you use a LED flash light you do not need to us polarized filters because LED lighting doesn't emit polarized light.
If you use LED lighting to light up your light tent, by defusing the LED light then you once again created polarized light.

To use LED lighting and you don't want Polarized light in it the LED lighting needs to be direct.

Other words shine the LED light directly on the pen, do not defuse or reflect the LED lighting.

Or use a CPL on you lens and linear polarized film over your tungsten flash lighting system.

Best is buy the book Light science and Magic and figure it out yourself so you fully understand how to control light and not have light controlling your pictures Exposure.



The Book Light science and Magic will educate you on understanding light

 

[Sylvanite]

I don't why you guys are hell bent to use lighting that has electromagnetic polarized light in it without filtering out the polarized light.
So when the polarized light strikes ANY non metallic SMOOTH surface IT is not TURNNED INTO POLARIZED REFLECTION AKA GLARE.

Let's discuss what "polarization" is, and how it occurs. Light emitted by most sources (including Incandescent bulbs, fluorescent bulbs, LEDs, and the Sun) is not polarized. It can become polarized either by passing through a polarizing filter, or by reflecting off certain surfaces. Unpolarized light can be thought of as consisting of two equal amounts of light polarized perpendicularly to each other. When light polarized in one direction is removed (by the filter or reflection), then the remaining light is polarized in the other direction. Non-conductive surfaces, such as water, glass, or glossy plastic finishes, tend to produce polarized reflections. Conductive surfaces, like metal, generally do not.

Now, about glare. Glare itself is not necessarily bad. It provides the specular highlights that give shape and depth to curved surfaces. It also reveals the quality of a high-gloss finish. The trick is to show the right amount of glare. Glare can be either polarized or unpolarized. A polarizing filter can remove polarized glare, but not unpolarized glare.

Either way, a light tent's purpose is not to control glare. Rather, it is to provide illumination from a very wide "family of angles" (to use a phrase from the book "Light - Science & Magic". Surrounding the item to be photographed with light from all directions helps show off curved reflective surfaces - such as the metal components of a pen. If you don't illuminate the entire "family of angles" of those parts, you'll wind up with dark (potentially black) spots. I encourage you to read the next chapter of Light - Science & Magic, titled "Metal". It discusses ways to manage unpolarized glare and includes a section on using a light tent. My copy is the fourth edition, and "Using a Tent" begins on page 151.

You cannot control angle of reflection in a tent.......................

Yes, I can. Careful placement of small black or white objects, such as bits of paper, within the tent (but outside the field of view) can provide extra highlights or edge definition. Black tape on the light tent wall can reduce or eliminate hot spots. An object between the lights and the light tent wall (a.k.a. "gobo") can control the size, shape, and position of a reflective highlight (i.e. glare).

Don't get too hung up on polarization. Although the polarizing filter is one tool for cutting glare, it is not the only one. It also does not work in all circumstances. Remember, "if the direct reflection is polarized, a lens polarizing filter will get rid of it.... If, however, the subject is a glossy box, we more often save the polarizer as a next-to-last resort" (Light - Science & Magic, fourth edition, p. 114).

I hope that helps,
Eric

 

[farmer]

Study of Light

I don't why you guys are hell bent to use lighting that has electromagnetic polarized light in it without filtering out the polarized light.
So when the polarized light strikes ANY non metallic SMOOTH surface IT is not TURNNED INTO POLARIZED REFLECTION AKA GLARE.

Let's discuss what "polarization" is, and how it occurs. Light emitted by most sources (including Incandescent bulbs, fluorescent bulbs, LEDs, and the Sun) is not polarized. It can become polarized either by passing through a polarizing filter, or by reflecting off certain surfaces. Unpolarized light can be thought of as consisting of two equal amounts of light polarized perpendicularly to each other. When light polarized in one direction is removed (by the filter or reflection), then the remaining light is polarized in the other direction. Non-conductive surfaces, such as water, glass, or glossy plastic finishes, tend to produce polarized reflections. Conductive surfaces, like metal, generally do not.

Now, about glare. Glare itself is not necessarily bad. It provides the specular highlights that give shape and depth to curved surfaces. It also reveals the quality of a high-gloss finish. The trick is to show the right amount of glare. Glare can be either polarized or unpolarized. A polarizing filter can remove polarized glare, but not unpolarized glare.

Either way, a light tent's purpose is not to control glare. Rather, it is to provide illumination from a very wide "family of angles" (to use a phrase from the book "Light - Science & Magic". Surrounding the item to be photographed with light from all directions helps show off curved reflective surfaces - such as the metal components of a pen. If you don't illuminate the entire "family of angles" of those parts, you'll wind up with dark (potentially black) spots. I encourage you to read the next chapter of Light - Science & Magic, titled "Metal". It discusses ways to manage unpolarized glare and includes a section on using a light tent. My copy is the fourth edition, and "Using a Tent" begins on page 151.

You cannot control angle of reflection in a tent.......................

Yes, I can. Careful placement of small black or white objects, such as bits of paper, within the tent (but outside the field of view) can provide extra highlights or edge definition. Black tape on the light tent wall can reduce or eliminate hot spots. An object between the lights and the light tent wall (a.k.a. "gobo") can control the size, shape, and position of a reflective highlight (i.e. glare).

Don't get too hung up on polarization. Although the polarizing filter is one tool for cutting glare, it is not the only one. It also does not work in all circumstances. Remember, "if the direct reflection is polarized, a lens polarizing filter will get rid of it.... If, however, the subject is a glossy box, we more often save the polarizer as a next-to-last resort" (Light - Science & Magic, fourth edition, p. 114).

I hope that helps,
Eric

You should start a thread on the study of light.

Most sources of light are classified as incoherent and unpolarized (or only "partially polarized") because they consist of a random mixture of waves having different spatial characteristics, frequencies (wavelengths), phases, and polarization states. However for understanding electromagnetic waves and polarization in particular, it is easiest to just consider coherent plane waves; these are sinusoidal waves of one particular direction (or wavevector), frequency, phase, and polarization state. Characterizing an optical system in relation to a plane wave with those given parameters can then be used to predict its response to a more general case, since a wave with any specified spatial structure can be decomposed into a combination of plane waves (its so-called angular spectrum). And incoherent states can be modeled stochastically as a weighted combination of such uncorrelated waves with some distribution of frequencies (its spectrum), phases, and polarizations.

partially polarized light still has polarized light in it...........................
Enough to white out some of the surface on All smooth surfaces.
By time the suns light reaches us, the light has been defused enough to have Polarized light in it.
Go out side on a sunny clear day and take photograph of a something chrome. With out a CPL on your lens.
Or just like the metal pieces in your pens,if the reflection from the metal piece is blue then the light is polarized..................

Go to the lake on a sunny clear day and look at the water without polarized sunglasses and notice the water is blinding you with glare.
That glare is polarized reflection and uv reflection.
But most of the blinding reflection is polarized light striking a smooth surface.

All defused light is polarized......................
The dust in the air is enough to add polarized light to your light striking the subject.

Starting at the bottom of page 61 ( Doing the Impossible and surface appearances ) it show just exactly how polarized light and polarized reflection is nothing less then blinding.
Read from 61 to page 66.

I hope this helps you understand.

Farmer.

Ps I will do tests on bare bulb tungsten lighting.
Up to this point all of my lighting has been defused and has polarized light.
Just like the suns rays that have traveled millions of miles of space dust that has been defused too and contains polarized light.

 

[Sylvanite]

Don't confuse diffuse light with polarized light. Diffuse light may or may not be polarized. Polarized light may or may not be diffuse. Diffusers do not necessarily polarize light, just as polarizers do not necessarily diffuse light. Light tents are intended to produce diffuse light, not polarized light.

I hope that helps,
Eric

 

[SteveG]

Light, in most cases, is better than dark. That is my story and I am sticking with it.

 

[Sylvanite]

I'm trying to visualize your 3' distance from pen-to-camera. ...

I would like to see a picture of your setup, too, so I can fully understand the size of your light tent and distances.

I set things up again and took a couple of snapshots of my "studio". I removed one wall of the light tent to show how things are laid out inside. I also propped a yardstick up on the camera so you can see that it is just about 3ft away from the pen.

About that 3 feet

I don't want to give the impression that this camera doesn't focus closer than 3ft. It does. In fact, it can focus as close as 1.5 inches at the widest zoom (5mm focal length). To illustrate, here is a picture taken from just 1 foot away (and a focal length of 12mm).

Minimum focus distance, however, changes with focal length. As you zoom in, the minimum focus distance increases (to a point - then it drops back down some again). At 20mm focal length, the closest you can focus is about 2 feet, as shown by this picture.

You'll notice that at this combination of zoom (focal length) and distance, the pen does not fill the frame. That is, the field-of-view is wider than I'd like. I'd have to crop the image, losing a fair amount of photo resolution in the process.

Practically speaking, that wouldn't really have been a problem. 16 mega-pixels is enough that I could easily tolerate the necessary cropping. But, instead of doing that with my previously shown photos, I chose to back off another foot so I could zoom in and fill the frame. It was a trade-off between desired perspective and desired megapixels. I chose one way, but you can easily choose differently.

If you're playing around with this camera, note that as you zoom in and out, a scale appears at the top of the display screen, showing exactly what the minimum focus distance is. That will help you pick the amount of zoom (focal length) necessary to focus on the pen. If a green box appears when you press the shutter release button halfway, then the camera was able to focus successfully. If a yellow box and exclamation mark appear, however, the camera did not achieve focus. The camera will still take the picture - it will simply be out of focus (blurry).

Some of the photos I've seen posted make me suspect that they were taken at a focal length and distance combination that prevented proper focus.

I hope that helps,
Eric

 

[thewishman]

Eric,
Thanks for your continuing guidance. Learning photography is not coming easily - your instructions and advice are helping me improve.

 

[SDB777]

Surprised this topic has gone from a Canon for sale to a Wiki page reprint....neat.




Scott (but why?) B

 

[thewishman]

Set up your Kool-aid stand where the people are.:wink:

 

[triw51]

I received mine yesterday now.. Where is the best place to get a memory card?

 

[Dan Masshardt]

I received mine yesterday now.. Where is the best place to get a memory card?

amazon seems much cheaper than local places. I need one too.

 

[traderdon55]

I received mine yesterday now.. Where is the best place to get a memory card?

I ordered mine from adorama.com. I bought the Sandisc 8gb for $5.95 with free shipping.

 

[BruceA]

Liking this Canon SX160!

Thanks to the help given here on using this great little camera. Using the 32-36" distance, with zoom, and f8.0. Two second timer. ISO 100. Finding that using the +1 exposure gives the brightness needed for dark pens on a white background. This is a key piece of the puzzle - increase the exposure!

The depth of field works out well, even on the angled pen.


View in Gallery

This is the 24kt Executive kit (Woodturningz.com and PSI) with an "Autumn" blank from Richard Greenwald's site. This pen is a great size to carry. The blank on this uses a 3/8" drill, and is the same length as the Carbara/Polaris pens. Nice length to show off the blank.

 

[woodyoureally]

I got my new Canon set up. New light tent set up and have been playing around with lighting and layout. Picture one was taken in October with my DIY light box and cell phone. Photo two was with the new set up. All the colors are much more true to life with the new set up. Still tweaking but much happier with the results.

 

[Sylvanite]

... having to mount and then unscrew the Canon SX160 to "any" tripod - the door for removing the SD card necessitates removing the camera. There's no angle it can be turned while mounted that gives enough clearance to open the battery/SD card door.

Can anyone make a recommendation on some kind of mount that would work as a quick-release plate but doesn't cover the SD card door?

It wouldn't be that difficult to fabricate a 2" standoff for the tripod screw. It's a standard 1/4"x20 thread.

I decided to "put my money where my mouth is" and made myself a tripod standoff:

I took a piece of 1/2" aluminum rod and cut/tapped 1/4" x 20 tpi threads on the ends. For grins, I went ahead and knurled it too (a mediocre knurling job, but not too bad for a first try). I originally planned to make it out of opaque alumilite scrap, but was afraid the threads might break off in the camera.

Here's a snapshot of the standoff installed, with the battery / sd card door open.

The post is longer than necessary for the door, but a good length for me to get my fingers in.

I hope that was interesting,
Eric