cameras

["Bill Urmenyi" <bill@zzzzzzzzzzzzz>]

Dear Craig

If you can gets bits of rock into your studio, it will be easier. You will
need to set your camera to hard which will give you a greater contrast. Wait
till dark then use a strong side light making sure that you set the white
balance. This will give you the best results before you enhance the image
with Photoshop. I use Corel Photopaint which does the same things so I'm not
quite sure how Photoshop behaves but I expect that it is the same. You will
need to reduce the saturation and increase the contrast keeping the original
colours. You may find that keeping on increasing the contrast will
eventually start to make the image a bit grainy and if you then start to go
through the noise reduction procedure you will find that you start to loose
sharpness so there is a trade off at some point. This is why it is important
to get as good an image as possible prior to putting it into a computer.

If you need to photograph the stone in the field, wait for a clear crisp
light as a dull day will wash out the image. Again set the camera for hard.

You are unlikely to do any better with your 35mm camera unless you have the
use of a dark room.

This is all a bit obvious really so I don't know how helpful this has been
but the best of luck with it.

Bill Urmenyi