Setting Camera Up For Beamshots

The design is convenient but image quality is obviously nowhere near a slr because they use same sensor as compact. Good enough for daytime but avoid for low light (note: doesn’t matter for pictures of flashlights since image quality not important for trite things).

I just took my very first beam shots today for another thread. They were indoor daytime shots, and I used my Android. Basically, I managed to successfully de-dome an XM-L and wanted to show the results. De-domed XM-L on the left, unaltered but otherwise identical XM-L on the right. I think the HTC Evo did a decent job.

I can adjust the ISO on this phone cam, but not much else besides white balance. And frankly, I don’t trust any of those settings to be camera-accurate. I adjusted the brightness level on the cam until it looked faithful to what I saw, in terms of beam profile. I suspect this will be impossible to do with outdoor beam shots at night, because that is a different animal entirely.

I am a pro photographer, and have a Canon 7D DSLR and know how to use it. I just haven’t felt like breaking it out just for beam shots yet, and I’m already working on so many shoots and projects…BLF is my fun escape/downtime.

That being said, sooner or later I’ll want to do some decent reviews on here to give a little back, so we’ll see.

I want to be able to do long exposures.

I like my canon P&S, but the exposures are limited to 15 seconds. I’d probably trade macro ability instead of telephoto or zoom capability if it came down to having to pick one.