Discussion Background Affect On Gold/Silver

[Mox]

What is the affect of different coloured backgrounds on how gold and silver appear in photos?

Sometimes a coin/bar looks great, sometimes it looks sh*t.

What are colours to avoid?

Does where a colour is on the spectrum define its affect on the subject matter? Is it graded from white through to black on its level of impact?

And any other things that might help with this topic...

[Silverlocks]

12 minutes ago, Mox said:

What is the affect of different coloured backgrounds on how gold and silver appear in photos?

Sometimes a coin/bar looks great, sometimes it looks sh*t.

What are colours to avoid?

Does where a colour is on the spectrum define its affect on the subject matter? Is it graded from white through to black on its level of impact?

And any other things that might help with this topic...

This is something I had trouble with as well.  The camera will automatically calibrate its colour balance based on what it sees in the background.  In order to do this, it's making a sort of intelligent guess about the lighting.  For a typical photo scene it normally gets this right, but for things like macro photography of a coin, it's easily confused, particularly when the coin is filling most of the shot.

You can fix this by getting a grey card (this is what it's called), which is a calibrated neutral grey colour.  You can buy one for a few quid off Amazon.

Put this in the camera's field of view, and the camera will calibrate on it.  Somewhere there will be a control to lock the white balance, possibly hidden in a menu somewhere.  Lock the white balance while pointing at the grey card, and you should get a sensible white balance that renders the gold colour of the coin correctly.

@Charliemouse has a guide that goes into this in a bit more depth.

 

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Silverlocks

[Mox]

7 minutes ago, Silverlocks said:

The camera will automatically calibrate its colour balance based on what it sees in the background.  In order to do this, it's making a sort of intelligent guess about the lighting.  For a typical photo scene it normally gets this right, but for things like macro photography of a coin, it's easily confused, particularly when the coin is filling most of the shot.

You can fix this by getting a grey card (this is what it's called), which is a calibrated neutral grey colour.  You can buy one for a few quid off Amazon.

Put this in the camera's field of view, and the camera will calibrate on it.  Somewhere there will be a control to lock the white balance, possibly hidden in a menu somewhere.  Lock the white balance while pointing at the grey card, and you should get a sensible white balance that renders the gold colour of the coin correctly.

It can get expensive! Would this work and which of the four options would be best to buy?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anwenk-Balance-Exposure-Photography-Calibration/dp/B074W1VF2Y/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=grey%2Bcard%2Bphotography&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

[Silverlocks]

4 minutes ago, Mox said:

It can get expensive! Would this work and which of the four options would be best to buy?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anwenk-Balance-Exposure-Photography-Calibration/dp/B074W1VF2Y/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=grey%2Bcard%2Bphotography&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

I think this the one I got.  It wasn't very expensive and it's fine for small subjects like coins.  Mine is just the small one.

If you want to photograph larger subjects like stacks of silver bars you might want to get one of the bigger cards.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Silverlocks

[Charliemouse]

Yep, @Silverlocks is right.

Getting a grey card will definitely help.  I would recommend getting one from a brand that make other camera equipment, rather than just a random no-name brand off Amazon - just in case the card is low quality and it introduces a colour bias.  They're only a few quid.

If you are in control of the light, i.e. no windows, then you don't need to use the grey card very often.  You can just occasionally get a colour temperature reading, and then use the same setting for all the photos.

In my particular case, I have photography lights with a known kelvin rating, so I can just set that on all my photos.

[Charliemouse]

6 hours ago, Mox said:

It can get expensive! Would this work and which of the four options would be best to buy?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anwenk-Balance-Exposure-Photography-Calibration/dp/B074W1VF2Y/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=grey%2Bcard%2Bphotography&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

Yeah, this is OK.  Just get the smallest one.  You may want to fit it into the corner of the frame of a macro shot, so a smaller one is ideal.