# How do you take pictures of your HT image?



## Wardsweb (Apr 2, 2010)

I have seen pictures of projected images on screens and TV in the dark that are crisp and clean. How do you do this? I've tried with my Nikon D50 but it always over exposes the screen because the room is dark. What am I missing, besides not being a photographer?


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## 86eldel68-deactivated (Nov 30, 2010)

I put my Canon S3 IS on a tripod, set it to manual mode, set the ISO to 200 and the shutter speed to somewhere around 1/8 - 1 second (I don't recall exactly), take several shots using different aperture settings, and use the shots that turn out best.


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## RBTO (Jan 27, 2010)

A lot of digital cameras have the ability to show what's called a "histogram". You need to put your camera in manual mode as mentioned, chose a shutter speed and aperture, and then check the histogram. If it's chopped off or compressed on either side (see attachment), make adjustments (I use shutter speed) to fix it. When you have a well shaped histogram, you should obtain photos that contain the full range of brightness in the HD image. Always use a fully darkened room, and needless to say, no flash.


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## Wardsweb (Apr 2, 2010)

Thanks guys ! I'll play around with it this weekend.


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## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

The main thing that you have to do is to either use a tripod or to set the camera down on something. The shutter time is usually such that the slightest movement will cause your image to blur.


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## ALMFamily (Oct 19, 2011)

If the camera has a night portrait function, does that normally change the shuuter speed and such automatically?


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

Further to the good advice given..
To get an accurate colour balance of the image, you need to set your "white balance"..


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## jaddie (Jan 16, 2008)

Shots I take of home theaters usually have the issue that room light and screen illumination are radically different in intensity. One solution is to take two shots, one while exposing for the room, another for the screen. Lock the camera on a tripod for this, of course. Then I marry the two together in post. The results are OK, usable mostly, but never fantastic. 

For shots of theaters that I have to publish somehow, I just expose for the room then replace the screen image later with an image I own, so there's no copyright issue. That way I get a great image on the screen with the room well lit. I do it all in Photoshop, and simply use the image transform tools to distort the new image into the right perspective for the screen. Most publications do this, as the image you'll get on the 'screen' will be pristine. The nice thing is, if you shoot the master shot with a bright white screen the screen splash off adjacent surfaces will add a sense of reality to the paste-up. This technique also gets you around the rather difficult color balance issue of the screen being basically D65 and the room being 2700K. Balance for the room, of course, and the image added for the on-screen image will already be balanced. 

Yes, sorry, I fake them! More important to represent reality accurately than to show an accurate photo of reality.


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## Wardsweb (Apr 2, 2010)

Here is a pic in full manual mode: ISO 200, white balance for incandescent, F5.6, S20. I don't know what a speed of 20 is? It may be 1/20 sec.


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## Savjac (Apr 17, 2008)

Good Movie there, just watched it last night. :T

A tripod helps and if you can set the camera manually and use a flash, just experiment and see how things turn out. This is not home and garden, so perfection is not a qualification.


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

The white balance is wrong..Don't use incandescent..
You need to manually set your white balance by projecting white light onto the screen (it can just be some bright white area from a projected image) and measuring it using "manual white balance" on your camera settings..
That should give you a more accurate colour balance..


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## BD55 (Oct 18, 2011)

If you don't have a remote shutter release you can set a 2-second delay for release from when you press the shutter (at least my Canon T1i does, but I would imagine a D50 would have a simiar feature). This along with a tripod should give you great results.


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## tattoo_Dan (Jan 17, 2009)

Wardsweb said:


> I have seen pictures of projected images on screens and TV in the dark that are crisp and clean. How do you do this? I've tried with my Nikon D50 but it always over exposes the screen because the room is dark. What am I missing, besides not being a photographer?


also,try and change the "metering" mode to "spot" metering and for sure use a tripod with the "timer" mode so you don't move the camera.


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