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Probably Friday Morning, I will smoke a brisket and a pork butt in each smoker. Most likely the brisket on the lower rack. I'll load them up around 6 am. I'll take some pictures for sure.
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Jim Minion
TVWBB Emerald Member
Rocky
please send pictures but this time make them scratch and sniff.
Jim
please send pictures but this time make them scratch and sniff.
Jim
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Guest
Guest
LOL...sounds good Jim.
I meant to ask before. I have tried every way I can think of to take pictures of the WSM's after I mounted the thermometers in the lids, but the dial of the thermometer always shows up like it is blank white.
First, I thought it was the flash from the camera, so I disabled the flash and they still come out looking like that. The whole smoker looks great, but it is like somebody taped a piece of white paper over the lense of the dial. I even tried using my mom's camera and it still does this. I don't understand what is the problem. I really wanted the numbers and lines to show up on the pictures. There is a picture here on the weber site that shows a wsm with thermometer and you can perfectly see the dial with the lines and numbers. I don't understand how to get past this. Is it the glare from the sky? Camera speed? Film speed? My camera has always taken excellent, top-notch pictures. this is the only problem I have ever had with it. I wasted about 2 rolls of film trying to get a decent picture where you could actually see the face of the thermometers. SIGH................LOL
I meant to ask before. I have tried every way I can think of to take pictures of the WSM's after I mounted the thermometers in the lids, but the dial of the thermometer always shows up like it is blank white.
First, I thought it was the flash from the camera, so I disabled the flash and they still come out looking like that. The whole smoker looks great, but it is like somebody taped a piece of white paper over the lense of the dial. I even tried using my mom's camera and it still does this. I don't understand what is the problem. I really wanted the numbers and lines to show up on the pictures. There is a picture here on the weber site that shows a wsm with thermometer and you can perfectly see the dial with the lines and numbers. I don't understand how to get past this. Is it the glare from the sky? Camera speed? Film speed? My camera has always taken excellent, top-notch pictures. this is the only problem I have ever had with it. I wasted about 2 rolls of film trying to get a decent picture where you could actually see the face of the thermometers. SIGH................LOL
Jim Minion
TVWBB Emerald Member
Rocky
Camaras are not a strong point for me but I believe a polzized filter may help you with your problem.
Jim
Camaras are not a strong point for me but I believe a polzized filter may help you with your problem.
Jim
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Guest
Guest
Rocky:
Your camera has automatic exposure control. What that means is that it averages the think you are pointint it at and tries to make that the same darkness as medium "neutral" gray.
So if you point the camera at a person in the middle of a field of snow, it's going to "read" the white snow, try to darken it to medium gray, and the person will appear overly dark in the photo.
Same deal with your grill shots. You are taking close-ups of a black thing. The camera lightens everything trying to make that black thing neutral gray and the white face of the thermo dial goes to white.
You would have to manually compensate by going down a few F-stops or shortening the exposure time or by whatever other tricks your camera offers to compensate for auto metering in a shot that doesn't "play by the rules". You need to produce an overall darker exposure. This would darken the black of the WSM (and everything else in the picture).
Your camera has automatic exposure control. What that means is that it averages the think you are pointint it at and tries to make that the same darkness as medium "neutral" gray.
So if you point the camera at a person in the middle of a field of snow, it's going to "read" the white snow, try to darken it to medium gray, and the person will appear overly dark in the photo.
Same deal with your grill shots. You are taking close-ups of a black thing. The camera lightens everything trying to make that black thing neutral gray and the white face of the thermo dial goes to white.
You would have to manually compensate by going down a few F-stops or shortening the exposure time or by whatever other tricks your camera offers to compensate for auto metering in a shot that doesn't "play by the rules". You need to produce an overall darker exposure. This would darken the black of the WSM (and everything else in the picture).
G
Guest
Guest
LOL....I was afraid that it would be a complicated solution. heh heh
My camera is a Pentax IQZoom 160. It has many settings, but I usually leave everything in automatic. I did try disabling the flash, but it also disabled the auto focus which just created more problems. I probably did it wrong anyway.
Does anybody know who took the picture in the section about mounting thermometers?
There is a nice picture of a WSM outside on a concrete slab. The thermometer lense looks perfect. I have never encountered anything like this before. This Pentax camera has always produces great pictures. Oh well, thanks everybody.
Jim,.....Polzized filter? Never heard of one of those. But this camera is not the type of 35 mm that you can attach different lenses etc to. It is all auto.
My camera is a Pentax IQZoom 160. It has many settings, but I usually leave everything in automatic. I did try disabling the flash, but it also disabled the auto focus which just created more problems. I probably did it wrong anyway.
Does anybody know who took the picture in the section about mounting thermometers?
There is a nice picture of a WSM outside on a concrete slab. The thermometer lense looks perfect. I have never encountered anything like this before. This Pentax camera has always produces great pictures. Oh well, thanks everybody.
Jim,.....Polzized filter? Never heard of one of those. But this camera is not the type of 35 mm that you can attach different lenses etc to. It is all auto.
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Guest
Guest
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rocky:
[qb]LOL....I was afraid that it would be a complicated solution. heh heh
My camera is a Pentax IQZoom 160. It has many settings, but I usually leave everything in automatic. I did try disabling the flash, but it also disabled the auto focus which just created more problems. I probably did it wrong anyway.[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Rocky:
I just went to the Pentax website to see if they had the instruction manual, but they don't.
Here's the deal, your camera measures the darkness of the image in the viewerfinder and assumes it's supposed to be medium gray. If you point the camera at a solid black wall, it will try to make that black look gray. If you point it at a solid white wall, it will darken the image to make it look gray.
Your camera appears to measure the darkness at five places in the image: presumably one spot in the center of the viewfinder image and near the four corners. It then averages these five readings to decide how dark to make everything.
You can use this to your advantage. If you put your black WSM's in front of a white wall (or on a concrete driveway) and zoom back just enough so that you have some of the light colored background in the picture, the camera is going to see some black areas and some white areas when it meausures the light. It will average these together, think it is seeing the medium gray it assumes you want, and will give you an exposure that doesn't wash out the light areas or turn the dark areas black.
The trick is not to absolutely fill the viewfiender with the black of the WSM against a dark background. Make sure there are equal areas of light colors and dark colors in the viewfinder.
Some cameras have an adjustment that allows you manually tell the camera to make the photo 1 or 2 steps darker or lighter than what it thinks it should -- to solve just this problem with automatic light metering. Without reading your owner's manual, I don't see any glaring clues that your Pentax has this option, so you might have to do it by adjusting the background behind the WSM
[qb]LOL....I was afraid that it would be a complicated solution. heh heh
My camera is a Pentax IQZoom 160. It has many settings, but I usually leave everything in automatic. I did try disabling the flash, but it also disabled the auto focus which just created more problems. I probably did it wrong anyway.[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Rocky:
I just went to the Pentax website to see if they had the instruction manual, but they don't.
Here's the deal, your camera measures the darkness of the image in the viewerfinder and assumes it's supposed to be medium gray. If you point the camera at a solid black wall, it will try to make that black look gray. If you point it at a solid white wall, it will darken the image to make it look gray.
Your camera appears to measure the darkness at five places in the image: presumably one spot in the center of the viewfinder image and near the four corners. It then averages these five readings to decide how dark to make everything.
You can use this to your advantage. If you put your black WSM's in front of a white wall (or on a concrete driveway) and zoom back just enough so that you have some of the light colored background in the picture, the camera is going to see some black areas and some white areas when it meausures the light. It will average these together, think it is seeing the medium gray it assumes you want, and will give you an exposure that doesn't wash out the light areas or turn the dark areas black.
The trick is not to absolutely fill the viewfiender with the black of the WSM against a dark background. Make sure there are equal areas of light colors and dark colors in the viewfinder.
Some cameras have an adjustment that allows you manually tell the camera to make the photo 1 or 2 steps darker or lighter than what it thinks it should -- to solve just this problem with automatic light metering. Without reading your owner's manual, I don't see any glaring clues that your Pentax has this option, so you might have to do it by adjusting the background behind the WSM
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Guest
Guest
Thanks Webb!!
I'll try putting them on the sidewalk and see if that works. The sidealk isn't really white anymore, but it is brighter than the blacktop pavement where I had taken the other shots. The dark railroad tyes behind the smokers probably didn't help much either.
I really appreciate you checking that out for me. It is very interesting, especially if it works.
I'll try putting them on the sidewalk and see if that works. The sidealk isn't really white anymore, but it is brighter than the blacktop pavement where I had taken the other shots. The dark railroad tyes behind the smokers probably didn't help much either.
I really appreciate you checking that out for me. It is very interesting, especially if it works.
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