Looking for camera for fabrics

C

Cube1701

Messages
5
Edit My Images
No
Hi,

I work for a fabric company, and I could do with a better camera for taking photos of the fabric. I currently have a Kodak EasyShare M340. For the most part, the quality is more than good enough.

However, it has a big problem with certain colours. Many colours appear extremely desaturated, such as olive green, navy blue and stone (annoyingly, these are the most common colours we have). Also, reds appear much, much better.

Here is what I get from something that should be olive green.

The reds aren't a massive problem (the colour can be toned down easily), however colours like olive, navy and stone require me to completely desaturate the colour and recolour the photo in Photoshop, which is very time consuming.

Does anyone have any camera recommendations (preferably between £150 and £200) that is good at colours?

Thanks in advance.
 
Ill have to be honest, that olive green looks fine to me. (its pretty much the only colour I wear and it looks as it always does, however I am no fabric expert!)
Are you sure its the camera and not your computer screen that is showing the colours wrong?
If you dont have a calibrated screen, then the colours can be way off what they should be.

Be interesting to see if anyone else thinks the colour looks ok or not.
 
When taking any subject with a strong colour, you need to use manual white balance.
Auto white balance tries to fix the cast caused by different lighting, so it sees your green fabric and thinks "Oooo Flourescent!" and desaturates the green.
You should set the camera white balance to match the available light.

Auto White Balance is a common problem with landscape photography where woodland green never looks right (treated as flourescent) and sunsets are not the right red (treated as tungsten).

Fingers crossed, that'll fix your problem!
 
TCR4x4 said:
Ill have to be honest, that olive green looks fine to me. (its pretty much the only colour I wear and it looks as it always does, however I am no fabric expert!)
Are you sure its the camera and not your computer screen that is showing the colours wrong?
If you dont have a calibrated screen, then the colours can be way off what they should be.

Be interesting to see if anyone else thinks the colour looks ok or not.
Click to expand...

This link will help make a quick assessment whether your screen is a mile out.
http://outbackprint.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi049/essay.html
 
Last edited:
Fluorescent lights vary in colour, I wouldn't trust them!
Try taking the sample outside and take under daylight - with daylight white balance set on the camera.

I'd also try taking a shot where the sample is a small part of the whole image, this will make double sure the camera is less likely to try and do 'corrections'.
If you get the settings right then the green should look the same on the wide view and the close-up.
Though my guess is they won't look the same....
 
Many cameras allow you to set a custome white balance. What you do is make a custom setting based on taking a shot of a piece of white paper or a white door... something like that... under the same lighting. Once this custom WB is set you can select it when taking shots in the same lighting and colours should look more natural. A custom WB is often much better than what the camera thinks is right.

It'll be worth scanning your camera manual for Custom White Balance to see if it's possible.
 
My current camera just has

- Auto
- Daylight
- Tungsten
- Fluorescent
- Open Shade

And no manual setting.
 
An immediate problem I can see is that not all flourescent lighting is the same colour temperature, so that setting could be very misleading.

You could invest in changing your camera, but it would probably be better to invest in changing the lighting. Something with a known colour temperature and high CRI. If you do that and also buy a colour checker target, you can fix the white balance on the camera to one of the preset modes, take a test shot and then have a single white balance and colour correction preset to apply to all images with your software. If you later change the camera you'll only have to change the preset once.

In summary; your camera isn't the problem, your lighting is.
 
That's a shame, as the lighting isn't really changeable where I am. I will look at alternative options.
 
You could look at getting "daylight" tubes. They really do make a difference to lighting.

I've never tried taking pictures under them but it may be worth a try and should only cost a few quid.
 
The corridor outside is mostly lit by the massive windows there, so I'll test some there.
 
Cube1701 said:
The corridor outside is mostly lit by the massive windows there, so I'll test some there.
Click to expand...

Where abouts are you? Just in case there's a friendly soul in the area able to make on-site suggestions and give you a hand..
 
The problem is that some fabric dyes fluoresce under UV light (all light sources contain UV). The human eye can't see it but camera sensors and film can.

When I was working professionally it was a problem that came up from time to time, the only way we found to minimise it was to shoot in a room lit only with flash with the flash heads covered with large UV filters about 12" square.

Even then some colours especially purple where impossible to photograph perfectly and had to be changed once the film had been scanned.

You might try changing the colours in photoshop to see if you can get a closer match.
 
timbo46 said:
The problem is that some fabric dyes fluoresce under UV light (all light sources contain UV). The human eye can't see it but camera sensors and film can.

When I was working professionally it was a problem that came up from time to time, the only way we found to minimise it was to shoot in a room lit only with flash with the flash heads covered with large UV filters about 12" square.

Even then some colours especially purple where impossible to photograph perfectly and had to be changed once the film had been scanned.

You might try changing the colours in photoshop to see if you can get a closer match.
Click to expand...

Digital cameras are not affected by UV light unlike film
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top