At 13:11 -0500 20/1/03, Magdalena Cano Plewinska wrote:
>Hi all,
[snip]
>************************
>
>Anyway, let me get to the question. It's about lighting and exposure
>for close-up pictures of palm ridges, scars and other skin features.
>And not with the OM-2 but with my digital. I hope one of you
>experienced photographers can give me some advice on it.
>
>I continue using the digital for clinic, since nothing beats it for
>convenience. Not infrequently, I want to take a picture of the
>patient's palm creases, a scar or some unusual skin pattern. I have
>already learned to do this without flash because it burns out picture.
>But I'm still not happy with the way the pictures are turning out
>(aside from the fact that it can get to be hard to handhold the camera
>at the low shutter speeds, and I do not want to bring a tripod or even
>a monopod to clinic). Would it help to underexpose the photograph or
>use some special lighting technique to get the patterns to show up
>better? Any manipulations I can do in Photoshop to accomplish this?
Magda,
You want cross lighting to accentuate the skin texture and folds.
Since you're using digital, it doesn't matter what kind of light it is
(small external flash, incandescent spotlight, even direct low sunlight
through a window -- not diffused daylight or room fluorescent, though).
Digital cameras can do a white balance for any color-temperature light, so
you can get correct skin-tone rendition. Just make sure to to a manual
white balance before shooting.
Even a desk lamp in a reflector, placed at a 90-degree angle to the edge of
the palm, so it shines across the palm, will do the job. The closer it is
to the palm, the less exposure will be needed -- and the warmer the
patient's palm will be. Think of it as a cheap alternative to diathermy
treatment!
Only one light should be used, to get strong directional shadows of the
texture, and if it's incandescent, you want to turn off the room lights and
close the drapes or blinds, so they don't cause color-balance problems and
fill in the shadows cast by the primary light.
A small flash would be best, but you would have to experiment and make sure
that the camera could deal with the high intensity when the flash is that
close to the subject.
Some experimentation with all of the above will get you closer to your ideal.
Hope this helps,
Former medical photographer
--
Cheers from Godzone,
Michael Kopp
Wellington, New Zealand
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