Solving Problems ~ Macros on White Background

My last post, Flickr's Macro Monday theme Fake, was very frustrating for me.  Usually the natural light coming in from the window is sufficient to get acceptable lighting and unfortunately yesterday it was raining and dark outside.  I just couldn't get the camera settings (manual) right for what I saw in my mind.   Finally, what I thought was dust on my fake blueberries was actually surface flaws.  The more I cleaned them, consequently was making it worse.

I remembered seeing table top light boxes online and realized one of those would be ideal for my lighting issues and would get lots of use as I experiment with macro photography.  I have my eye on one...

at Amazon.com where you can purchase the above Table Top Light Box for $70 here.  It got high ratings, folds up nicely and is portable. Or you can build one using a cardboard box.  The instructions are here, see  photo below.

If I had a studio, I would probably build this one just because I like doing things like that.  

I found an article online entitled 3 Rookie Mistakes to Avoid When Shooting on a White Background is  here.  The recommended settings are  ISO 250, 1/160th of a second, shot at f/8.  By myself, I do NOT think I landed on that combo, once!

Oh, my. If only the light was not casting shadows and this would have nailed it for me.

I shot the above on Auto, just for fun.  I like the shade of blue better.  Maybe I could have adjusted the one on manual a bit in Elements. (Though, the manual shot, is a more realistic blue.) Yesterday I learned, my version of Elements will not process photos saved in Raw on my Sony a6400.  (Jpeg yes.)  That is crazy....it's practically the only model of Sony that it won't accept!  I never even dreamed that would be an issue.  Not an actual problem for me but disappointing.

I'm submitting one of these fake blueberry photos to Macro Monday 2...what a surprise to see this group is still active on Magical Mystery Teacher! A great Monday surprise for me... here,  And this blog, MM Teacher has several weekly themes to post to, so you need to check it out, here, its a great way to keep us motivated.  Thank you MM Teacher!

If I do buy the light box I'll post about it.

Enjoy your day, ya'll!