Photography

Good photographs of your experimental apparatus are invaluable for including in reports, theses, journal articles and posters. Taking a good photograph is not difficult, but does require paying attention to details. Here are some tips to help you make professional-quality photos.

Arrangement: Decide the placement and orientation of the subject. Position so that the photo will show the details that are important.

Background: Look through the camera at what is below and behind the subject. Remove clutter. Reposition to avoid lines from edges of tables or from windows and doorways cutting through the subject. For example, sometimes you see photos of equipment and it looks like the vertical line of a window behind the equipment is part of the equipment. You might want to position a smooth white cloth or paper behind the subject to replace the clutter.

Lighting: Arrange the lighting to eliminate shadows that obscure details.

White balance: When taking a photograph of a small object on a white background, adjust the white balance of the camera (read the manual for the camera) so that white comes out white.

With a small amount of effort, you can build a portable photo studio to take fabulous pictures of small objects. Here are some web links that explain how: Link 1, Link 2