I know very little about photography.
I can photo some objects and the pictures come out just fine, clear and in focus. But I’m trying to photo an iPod and I can’t work out how to photo the screen. Every time I try it comes out like this. I just can’t work out how to eliminate that glare.
Expert photographers, please help.
I’m using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2.
Is the screen lit up when you are doing this? That dosen’t appear to be glare, rather it’s just that the screen is to bright. You have two options, first, trying taking this picture in a room with ALOT of light, get some lamps in the area. What that will do is make your camera less sensitive (it will stop down the apreture and/or ISO). Second, (this depends on your camera) trying making the screen the center of your photo. This will have the downside (if it works the way I’m hoping it will) of making the rest of your picture really dark though.
Try my first suggestion first. Pour some light on to it.
What is happening is that becuase the area your photoing the iPod in is so dark that the camera ramps up it’s sensitivety to light in a variety of ways (higher ISO, bigger aprature, slower shutter), but that section is so bright it get’s washed out.
Does your camera have any manual settings?
I would take the picture in two parts. One exposed for the ipod case and one for the screen, then combine in post processing.
joey p has a great question, is your screen lit up? You can think of your camera as a light sponge. You want it to soak up a certain amount of light so that you can see everything in the photo, but not so much that it becomes over saturated with light, or over exposed, like it appears to be doing in your photo. The problem occurs when one area of the photo is much brighter than others. Each part of your photo has the same amount of time to soak up light, if one part is brighter, it will get more light than the rest of your photo in that same amount of time, like in your photo. The flip side would be to let your photo have enough time to soak up light to get the bright spot looking as it actually is, but this would leave the rest of the photo looking too dark.
Moral of the story, if you want everything in the photo to show up about the same in the end product, it should be about the same level of brightness, that is have about the same level of light coming off of it, when you take the photo. I would turn off the back light for the ipod, turn the flash off your camera, set your camera on something sturdy (if you have a tripod, use it), and take the photo like that. The shutter will stay open longer than normal, so if you hold the camera in your hand it will blur, but it should stay open long enough to soak up enough light to get everything in the photo looking nice.
Edit: svrider’s suggestion would work too, but this looks like an ebay photo and people may not take kindly to it if they can tell that it’s been digitally altered.
:smack: Simple and Elegent, provided the OP’s camera can properly expose for the lit up screen.
OP, if you chose to do this, take one picture with the iPod off (in a well lit room) then take a second with it lit up, for that one you if you camera doesn’t have manual settings you’ll possibly need to try changing the lights in the room to force it to stop down the aprature. In each of the pictures, I would have the screen as the center point since that may come in important for the camera to properly meter it when it’s lit up.
Yes.
Okay, I said I know little about photography. I’m probably using the terms incorrectly. Please forgive my lack of the correct vocabulary.
I’m talking about the light on the screen dazzling the camera, the fact that it doesn’t photograph the text on the screen, just shows a big white blur. I call it “glare” because I don’t know the correct term. Please fight my ignorance.
An interesting suggestion. I’ll see what I can do. I don’t really have many lamps available, though. I’m not sure I want to be buying some just for this.
Dark? I thought it was quite bright. It was afternoon daylight when I took it, plus I had the light on. Admittedly the picture has come out dark, but that doesn’t accuratly reflect the lighting conditions when I took it. Just my lack of skill as a photographer.
Lots. I don’t know what many of them are for.
I don’t have Photoshop, and I don’t really want to be messing about with combining images.
The iPod should have a setting to turn down the screen brightness. Try playing around with that to see if you get better results.
The scene is difficult because you have a small very bright area and a large (comparatively) dark area, the camera will try and pick an exposure that covers all of the scene, however as the parts are pretty much on opposite ends, you end up with something in the middle where the case is too dark and the screen is too bright and nothing is really correctly exposured.
So what you will have to do is bring the parts closer together, either dim the screen or brighten up the rest.
Check this out for an easy inexpensive way to light ebay product shots and the like: Strobist: How To: DIY $10 Macro Photo Studio
The example pictures use flashguns, but you can use a desktop lamp instead.
Very interesting. I think my skills are up to making one of those.
Don’t know anything about Panasonics, but my point-and-shoot Canon will pre-set the exposure if you hold the button halfway down. What I often do is get up close to what I want to expose properly, set the exposure, then step back and depress the button fully to take the actual photo.
Won’t solve the display problem alone, but it will make your photos better 
If you are using flash, taking a photo of a flat, reflective surface can be very hard to do without getting glare. I would try to take the photo at an angle. and then use Photoshop to correct for the distortion. You can also use a bounced flash, if your camera can accommodate it. Try taking the iPod outside, where there will be enough light to avoid using the flash.
Oh, BTW, some people are advising me to dim the screen. Is that really possible? As far as I can tell the light is either on or off.
Was the photo shown taken with the flash on your camera on? If so, can you turn the flash off?
On preview, I think beowulff may have it too. Normal room light will produce a very good photo without the flash.
No, flash was off.
That should screw up your focus as well.
Peter, what camera do you have?
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2.
Sure. It’s in the menu someplace. A dimmer screen saves battery life as well.
According to my quick reserch, one of the presets is called “Candle.” Try using that preset and taking the picture.
PS I have no idea if candle will work. But based on the name of that particular preset if should be set for taking a picture of a scene with one bright spot. Your iPod is basically an electronic candle. Give that a shot. If it still doesn’t work, get some more light on the subject and we’ll see if we can futz with some other setting to make it work.
