Photographing an LCD computer monitor

<p>Odd, I posted this and it posted a blank, odd looking thing.</p>

<p>Anyway, I was asking about photographing a still life that involved items shots under ambient lighting, and an image displayed on an LCD computer monitor. I did some test shots on polaroids, but even though I came up with a few photos with the ambient elements in perfect exposure to under exposed, the image on the monitor is still to bright and shows no detail. Is there a way to have both detail in the monitor image and the surrounding items? Thanks,</p>

<p>Cody</p>

<p>Turn down the brightness on the monitor and up the lighting on everything else, or put a neutral density gel on the display panel.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>As Bob is indicating, the lighting has to balance. I would keep the brightness up on the monitor to what looks good as though ready to use. That way, you should be okay on contrast ranges in the monitor image itself. If you turn it down too much, you will likely lose the shadow detail in the image on screen.<br>

Test with that until you have that exposure nailed down and then raise the brightness on the rest of the set until it matches or is slightly darker (for the monitor to stand out).</p>

<p>Assuming your camera is anchored to a very sturdy tripod, take the image at the desired f stop for depth of field and let the shutter speed go where it needs to be for the monitor exposure. If the lighting is balanced, you should be done. If, however, you can't get it balanced the way you want, there are two alternatives.</p>

<p>Since the use of Polaroids indicates you are shooting film, you can take two individual exposures. One for the Monitor with the set lights turned off, and then another for the set with the monitor turned off and combine the images after scanning. Or you can do them both on the same piece of film by Shooting one and then the other with alternating the lights and monitor exposure and covering the lens between shots while you deal with the lighting if on sheet film or while removing the back and resetting the shutter if a Hasselblad or resetting the shutter but not advancing the film if working with an RB or RZ. If 35mm, you can cock the shutter without advancing film on some cameras by holding in the film clutch button on the bottom of the camera. </p>

<p>The main trick here is to be sure you have no light bleeding onto the monitor screen from the set lights if you are double exposing. Doing one at a time and then combining would allow you to retouch any spillage in Photoshop before the final assembly. It also allows for tailoring the individual exposures perfectly if you don't have the exposure range needed to do it in one shot.</p>