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How to take Good Pictures of Electronics

jw0752

Recently I posted a couple of pictures that fell short of being the quality that I was looking for. was kind enough to send me some excellent tips on camera settings. I thought it might be helpful to everyone if we all share some of the tips and techniques that we use to get good quality pictures of our projects and builds. This will hopefully get the conversation going and we can add to it as ideas and techniques begin to flow back and forth.

 

Here is my first Tip:

 

When I try to take a picture of a circuit board that is layed out flat on my bench I have difficulty with shadows frm my body and camera. I also experience difficulty eliminating flare on the circuit board from the over head lights. By propping the circuit board at an angle to the lighting it is much easier to avoid the shadows and the flare. In these pictures I am using a hockey puck to prop the board up.

 

image

 

image

These pictures were shot at f3.5  1/30th of a second exposure.

 

John

  • in reply to mcb1

    Hi Mark,

    Would you mind sharing information about your camera, make and model. It sounds like it has quite a bit more control of aperture and shutter speed than mine does. When I used to do film photography I used a Minolta XD-5 SLR and this allowed control of everything. I presently have an amateur camera Canon SX 410 but it will not let me actually set apertures and shutter speeds though its electronic features are very pleasing.

    John

  • in reply to jw0752

    your camera, make and model

    I'm currently using a Nikon D3200, but have done the same with a D3100 and F301.

    Each of these has manual setting M which allows both shutter and F stop to be set.

     

    I use an older manual lens (that came with my F301) since it has a closer minimum focus setting and macro.

    The tubes I have are old school (totally manual), so the auto lens won't work (you can focus but not adjust the f stop).

     

    Canon SX410  ... Yep no manual setting ...

    Sadly many of the point and shoot style cameras remove all the bits that help when you are doing this sort of work.

     

    I'd see what you can find in the way of an older digital camera that allows the lens to be swapped.

    Many of these got traded in for no other reason than it had something shiny that someone thought they needed.

     

    Mark

  • Nice tip John,

     

    As a long time photographer I can easily see that you need to be careful lighting circuit boards and components.

     

    Putting them on a slant as you suggest is a very good idea.

     

    You should also consider fill in flash to enhance the readability of color codes or lettering.

     

    Great job,

     

    DAB

  • My phone takes a good pic, but when i need a good close-up, I use a Logitech webcam that i removed the cover so i can adjust the lens down to microscope levels.

    image

    I added connections to the USB 5V so I can add LEDs for extra lighting around the lens if needed

    Here's a close up of the lettering on a 14-pin LM347N DIP

    image

    Scott

  • For the lettering, an edge filter in post-processing is muy useful

     

     

     

    I just got an Olympus E-M1  You can weight or adjust or disable the AF, auto-expose w/ bias, or favor shutter-speed or aperature

     

    The basic functions are like some other digital cameras I have owned

     

    I think this is because the setup is a controller chip and a sensor chip, and the controller chip is really generic

     

    Lens is out-of-this-world

  • in reply to rsc

    Hi Scott,

    Pretty good quality and a nice inexpensive solution for closups.

    John