Yellow lines in my product photos!!!

[xeniavintage]

I'm at my witts end!!  I am wanting to up the quality of my listing photos and purchased 3 LimoStudio 3000 watt lightboxes. This has given me PLENTY of light for my items but every time a take a picture yellow lines appear in the photo!!!  Also the picture is always dull even though I have tons of light.

Has anyone else had this problem and if so, how did you correct it???  

My lighting is fine (at least I think!) so I'm thinking its my digital camera settings.  At this point I have no clue and would appreciate greatly for any help!  Thank you!!!

[chrysylys]

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@johnfduda wrote:

I think A_C_Green is on to a solution. I googled light banding in photos and got this:

Looks, kinda familiar?

I shoot my images on a tripod at 1/25 second at f16 cause I'm trying to get as much depth of field as posible. I'm using different lights but using a slower speed may help.

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And again, low wattage LEDs would resolve that since they don't display that 60Hz stuttering.

[johnfduda]

My one image of the bottle standing straight up, it is 4032x3024.  Ebay must have adjusted it smaller for this discussion.

Yea, I realize where that size came from. When I posted the second image I realize that when you open a new image in Photoshop the image starts out at 1280 by 760 so ignor my mention of the size. Your images sound a similar size to mine, but I crop out all that whitespace so that my buyers aren't downloading all that whitespace, and they can see it better. I'm of the opinion that eBay limits the file size to 1700 pixels so I try to give the looker 1699 pixels of my item. The numbers may have changed recently if I missed that one.

[tev4all]

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@xeniavintage wrote:

Yes, this happens in all the pictures!  The lines appear sometimes stronger than others. 

I'm currently using my Galaxy Note 8 tablet but I've also used my Galaxy 8 phone and also my Nikon Coolpix L830 camera all with the same results.

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IT would seem you could eliminate a problem of the camera as the source of the lines/bands, I would look into the amount/direction of light as the culprit.

[xeniavintage]

This is the light setup I had before.  I made myself a light box and used these lights on each side with the overhead flourescent.  I had those same lines before but not as bad.  It just seems worse and I don't know if it is my lighting or my camera settings.  I'm not a photographer so reading up on ISO, white balance is confusing and this is why I'm crying out for help lol! 🙂

[johnfduda]

It's called a 3000 watt light source:

The link is:

https://www.amazon.com/LimoStudio-Digital-Continuous-Carrying-Softbox/dp/B01C6CVMTW

Titles as:

LimoStudio 3000 Watt Digital Video Studio Continuous Light Kit

You get:

(10) x 45W Lightbulb | (1) x 65W Lightbulb

That sounds like 515 watts for each light or 1515 watts total for three lights. They're rated at equivalent wattage to incandescent. For comparison I'm using 1200 watts of incandescent light in 2 incandescent bulbs!!

[penguins_dont_fly]

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@xeniavintage wrote:

Yes, this happens in all the pictures!  The lines appear sometimes stronger than others. 

I'm currently using my Galaxy Note 8 tablet but I've also used my Galaxy 8 phone and also my Nikon Coolpix L830 camera all with the same results.

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On your galaxy, try this:

Change the settings from Auto to Pro

Mess with the aperture settings, the ISO and the white balance

A longer aperture setting should help balance the oscillation frequency of the LED lights ... but ... you might end up with "overexposure"

[xeniavintage]

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@d-k_treasures wrote:

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@johnfduda wrote:

I looked up the lights you bought. 3000 watt each and you have three!! I see there are multiple bulbs on each light. Possible your getting multiple shadows off the subject from each of the bulbs in each fixture???

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9000 watts of light - Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor would be proud!

Arh Arh Arh ....

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That's why I'm here because obviously I don't know what I'm doing with my new setup lol!

[chrysylys]

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@johnfduda wrote:

It's called a 3000 watt light source:

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I'm pretty sure one can find a sufficient LED set-up here, on this site.

[xeniavintage]

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@d-k_treasures wrote:

When I see a number or name on tape on an item, I always wonder what is covered up. And worse yet, will they do it on an original box for an antique or vintage item?

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That's my inventory number!  The first photo I take is with the inventory # which is just for myself and the rest of the photos taken are the ones that make it to the listing.  I hide nothing! 

[xeniavintage]

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@johnfduda wrote:

Your images sound a similar size to mine, but I crop out all that whitespace so that my buyers aren't downloading all that whitespace, and they can see it better. 

I do the same too eliminating as much background as possible!  If you've seen the white cat photo I've uploaded it has the line/band through the picture straight across the cat also.  I can't crop that out lol!  Here lies the frustration! 

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[johnfduda]

A_C_Green said:

Are these new lights LED-powered? What I think you're picking up is very rapid on-and-off pulsing of AC-powered LEDs as the camera is taking the photo. When the LEDs are at full brightness, you would see a normal white background, but when one or two of your lights have cycled off (and we're talking milliseconds, really), the ambient light stays visible, and adds a yellowish tinge. The camera scans the image from either top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top, so the bands will be horizontal relative to the camera. If you turn it vertical for Portrait mode, your image will have vertical bands.

What he's saying is that while the camera is scanning the sensor the light is flickering brighter and dimmer at a 60 cycle rate. At first glance I'd say that changing the shutter speed would resolve this. But stop and think, the problem is created because as the camera is going from pixel to pixel the light is changing. The banding seems to be consistent down the length of the picture. So unless the camera is scanning lines on the sensor at a rate of 1/60 th of a second the bands would wander from line to line. That's partially a question.

Seems like maybe a better fix is to have an outlet for each light, and to make sure two outlets are on a different electrical phase. That's not to easy to do, unless you have some electrical experience and are capable of running a new line into a new outlet on the wall.

An even better solution: use an incandescent bulb where the light is created by that hot filament and isn't so flicker prone.

[a_c_green]

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@johnfduda wrote:

What he's saying is that while the camera is scanning the sensor the light is flickering brighter and dimmer at a 60 cycle rate. At first glance I'd say that changing the shutter speed would resolve this. But stop and think, the problem is created because as the camera is going from pixel to pixel the light is changing. The banding seems to be consistent down the length of the picture. So unless the camera is scanning lines on the sensor at a rate of 1/60 th of a second the bands would wander from line to line. That's partially a question.

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I suspect that changing the shutter speed would change the banding effect, but not necessarily remove it. I think it's a combination of a very (very) fast flicker by the LEDs interacting with the camera's own fast top-to-bottom (or bottom-to-top) scan of the image, so there'll be scan lines where the lighting is at its brightest, followed by scan lines where the lighting is in mid-refresh, and the result is the banding, since the camera isn't changing its exposure settings while in the middle of actually taking the photo.  We normally don't see it with our analog eyeballs, although we can sometimes see the flicker by quickly looking right and left past a stationary LED fixture. (Newer model car taillights show this effect really easily.)

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@johnfduda wrote:

An even better solution: use an incandescent bulb where the light is created by that hot filament and isn't so flicker prone.

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Definitely. I take my photos under incandescent lighting (my main overhead lighting is in fact simply a 5-bulb ceiling fan light) against a gray towel background, and I use a hand-held incandescent automotive drop light for fill-in front lighting. Camera is tripod-mounted with a 2-second timer delay for super-sharp photos, as it will be sitting untouched and stationary when the photo is taken. 

[clee1325]

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@chrysylys wrote:

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@xeniavintage wrote:

My background is striped and my goal is a clean bright white background! 🙂

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I don't like listings like that.  They look too much like 'stock' pictures and make me question if the seller is a dropshipper.  I prefer images that let me know without question the seller HAS the item in their posession.

Your images are fine.

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agreed! i scroll right past the professional looking listings! dont wanna deal with chinese sellers or dropshippers! 

[penguins_dont_fly]

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@clee1325 wrote:

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@chrysylys wrote:

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@xeniavintage wrote:

My background is striped and my goal is a clean bright white background! 🙂

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I don't like listings like that.  They look too much like 'stock' pictures and make me question if the seller is a dropshipper.  I prefer images that let me know without question the seller HAS the item in their posession.

Your images are fine.

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agreed! i scroll right past the professional looking listings! dont wanna deal with chinese sellers or dropshippers! 

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You guys need to know ... Google Shopping requires plain backgrounds with no watermarks.

If sellers want their listings to show up in Google Shopping, the white backgrounds are a must.

And it's really cheap and easy these days to take professional looking pictures with just a little effort.

Please don't  pass us small sellers up just because we have good pics, please? We are just trying to get the most exposure (pun intended) that we can 🙂

[d-k_treasures]

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@johnfduda wrote:

It's called a 3000 watt light source:

The link is:

https://www.amazon.com/LimoStudio-Digital-Continuous-Carrying-Softbox/dp/B01C6CVMTW

Titles as:

LimoStudio 3000 Watt Digital Video Studio Continuous Light Kit

You get:

(10) x 45W Lightbulb | (1) x 65W Lightbulb

That sounds like 515 watts for each light or 1515 watts total for three lights. They're rated at equivalent wattage to incandescent. For comparison I'm using 1200 watts of incandescent light in 2 incandescent bulbs!!

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They are CFL's - they say in the listing that it's equivalent to 200 watts per bulb.