shooting jewelry in a homemade light box

[brupaint]

I am using a
60mm macro lens
canon rebel xt

I am shooting jewelery in a home light box , I toned down some halogen shop lights ( home depot) with tissue paper. The color of my images looks a wee bit washed out compared to the real Mccoy. I have not downloaded nor tweaked in photoshop yet so I am still viewing in the camera "view " mode from the back of the camera. but I am worried. White balance is set to tungsten. Any ideas?

[JoYork]

I had to do this recently. First of all if you're leaving it to the camera to work out the metering, with no exposure compensation, then you're going to get flat results. The camera will be trying to expose for 18% grey all the time and you need to override that and expose for the jewellery, even if that means the background is bright white.

I found the easiest way was to switch to manual mode, take a picture and chimp (look at the histogram and decide whether you need to increase or decrease the shutter speed to give you the correct exposure).

Also, if you're not shooting in RAW already do so. It really helps because if your white balance is out you can change it in an instant (ie you're using Tungsten light but it's mixed with daylight it may not be quite be right straight from camera).

Plus RAWs give you a bit more leeway when it comes to post processing.

[brupaint]

ok I'll shoot in Raw, but what is a histogram? and most of all, after tinkering , now the real problem seems to be the focus is just not there. I am depending on autofocus and it seems to suck. Should I manuel focus? should I be using a tripod and self timer?

[JoYork]

Autofocus should work, although I find with macro photography it's generally easier to focus manually.

Tripod and self timer are essential if you want sharp pics.

The histogram is incredibly useful but it took me a while before I understood what it was for and how to read one.

This is a good starting place:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml

There are lots of threads on this forum about the histogram so if you need to know more try searching.

[brupaint]

thanks I'll try it ..sound smart