Chemistry Laboratory Web Pages: Photographs

The first time I took a picture of a lab glassware set-up on a bench in the labroom, I was disappointed that the digital image did not look like the set-up looked to my eyes. There were unpreditable bright reflections, shadows, the colors were wrong, and the flaws in the lab bench under the glassware distracted from the set-up. You may not run into the same problems that I did: sometimes you can simply point and shoot. For instance, you can take pictures of instruments, lab rooms, and people with little to no preparation. However, if you want details of small lab equipment and especially of reflective items such as glassware, you need to prepare both your "shoot" and your camera. The following are tips to help you get good pictures.

Lighting

Most of us automatically use our film camera's flash attachment when taking pictures indoors. However, if you use a flash while photographing reflective surfaces such as glassware, you will find that the resultant photo shows unpredictable flash spots and shadows on the glassware and background. Professional lighting equipment would eliminate the need for the camera flash, but such equipment is expensive. Instead, I set the camera to "no flash" when taking pictures indoors. Note the difference using flash vs not using flash in the two photos below:

with flash

without flash

If you take a picture in low-light conditions without using a flash, the shutter will be open for a long time. It is hard to hold the camera steady during such long exposures, therefore, I use a tripod. This has the added advantage that you can set up a picture, snap it, remove the media from the camera and examine the results on your computer, then (if necessary) come back to the camera and tweak the placement of items or settings while the camera remains framing the same shot.

photo shoot

White Balance

When pictures are taken under fluorescent light or other special light sources, the colors may lose their overall balance and appear unnatural. In a default or automatic mode setting, the camera detects white light and automatically balances it against the overall color of the photograph. The problem is that the automatic mode doesn't work well under fluorescent light, and in unnatural colors can result. If your camera has a "white balance" feature, you can set a white balancing reference. Using this setting, the camera memorizes a white light as a reference for balancing white against the overall color of the image, resulting in natural-looking colors, even under fluorescent light. On my camera, I point the camera control to the white balance option, then snap a background picture of a white sheet of paper while in a fluorescent-lit room; this reference is used to adjust the colors in subsequent pictures I snap on the camera.

Below is an example of without (left) and with (right) a reference white balance. (The picture on the left in the above illustration of flash vs no flash also illustrates this effect.)

without white balance

with white balance

Setting Up Your Picture

For close-up pictures of laboratory glassware, a mono-color smooth background helps to frame the items of interest. Foam board works well for this purpose, and it is inexpensive and available in most college bookstores. Note the difference in the two photos below. It's a lot easier for the viewer to see the distillation set-up in the photo on the right, which was shot using a poster-board as the background.

without foam board

with foam board

Trial and Error

I guarantee that (at least once) you will set up a picture and think that it is perfect, then download it to your computer and find that there is something you don't like about it. This is the beauty of digital cameras: you can go back, make changes in the set-up of the glassware or in a setting on the camera, and take another picture. You will learn to carefully compose your "scene" on the lab bench and then in the viewfinder, making sure everything is straight and proper and in the picture, to save steps from the labroom to your computer (because you really can't tell what the picture looks like until you see it on the big screen). It gets easier as you learn your camera, lighting, and background demands.

This page is maintained by Patty Feist, Lab Coordinator, Organic Chemistry Teaching Labs at CU Boulder.
Please send any comments, corrections, or suggestions to feist@colorado.edu.
CU Organic Chem Homepage: orgchem.colorado.edu