I recently took some photos for one of our organizations I'm a part of here on campus of them (and me) applying carbon fiber to a styrofoam mold. I'm reasonably happy with how they turned out. My biggest worry would be that either the white of the styrofoam would be blown out and/or the black of the carbon fiber completely black with no texture. I managed to get everything exposed properly, I have kept the whites in check and the blacks in check. I'm rather proud of my XS and kit lens for doing that indoors while maintaining a sufficient shutter speed for me to not have blurry hands.
Now that I'm editing the pictures I can't quite figure out how to bring out the texture of the styrofoam. The mold was sanded down, so its very smooth, but you can still see the indentations from the styrofoam beads. If I push the exposure higher I get more texture in the carbon fiber, but the whites of the styrofoam, not so much. I have about 0.75 stops that I can push before the whites start to clip. Upping the contrast just makes the whites whiter, the blacks blacker, and the stuff in between just blend in more. I know there is texture to be had there because I can see it faintly. I do have a raw file that I can email if anyone wants it. I also have Lightroom to edit these in. Attached is a jpeg sample of what I've got to work with.
Thanks for the help.
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