Tips for photographing an lcd monitor?

[jhogan]

Has anyone had experience photographing lcd computer monitors? If so, would you mind sharing tips, please?

Some details of my needs: I wish to photograph a 15" Powerbook outdoors, near sunrise/sunset, on film, of course. Near/far comp- hopefully in sand. Or maybe mud- it feels good to hurt computers.

Anyway, the (still photo) screen image will be a file size of sufficient resolution to render detail adequately. I do not want to PS an image into the screen area as would be done in an advertising picture, (although I'd bet it's easier)... I want the real thing.

Any ideas?

Thanks -J

[David A. Goldfarb]

Sounds like a situation that calls for a multiple exposure--one for the screen either before the sun rises or after it sets, and one for the landscape.

[Doug Dolde]

Just remember the Apple warranty will be void if you get it wet.

[Ralph Barker]

For this (single-exposure) image with a 65mm Super Angulon, I set the tilts and swings such that the focus plane ran across the face of the monitor and the key areas of the tape library - essentially the logo and the innards. The text on the screen is sharp. You might be able to do something similar with the scene you describe.

[Christopher Keth]

I think David is right on here. I think this calls for an exposures of each and photoshop to composite them together.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I wasn't recommending compositing in Photoshop, but making an exposure for the screen while the ambient light is low, and making another exposure for the ambient light when conditions were right, on the same piece of film.

In the studio another option is to set the strobes for the overall exposure and set the shutter speed for the screen exposure, testing with Polaroid to be sure the levels are right, and it can all be done with one click of the shutter, but the original poster was asking about an outdoor shot.

[Marko]

David,

This sounds like an ideal situation for a "legitimate" PS manipulation, for the lack of better term. I know this is getting slightly off topic here, but given few very recent and some still ongoing discussions, I just couldn't resist a good opportunity.

It probably depends greatly on one's skillset, but to me it sounds as if shooting two frames/sheets of the same scene using fixed setup entails far less risk of ruining the entire photo than doing everything on a single sheet. There's also the additional possibility of bracketing each shot, or even shooting multiples for additional redundancy in processing. This kind of setup would also require only very basic PS skills.

But back to my opening question/statement - I see absolutely nothing wrong in using Photoshop this way, I wouldn't even call it a manipulation in the narrow sense of the word, since the intent is not to deceive but to represent something that eyes can easily see at once and the camera can't.

As for J's original question - LCD should be much easier to shoot than a CRT for two reasons - the screen itself is absolutely flat and there is no flicker. That means easier setting of the focus plane and it also means not having to worry about avoiding diagonal stripes on the shot. Given that LCD backlight is typically much more even than that of an average CRT, that would also reduce the hassle about matching color temperature, again much easier if done in Photoshop.

Regards,

[David A. Goldfarb]

But the original poster asked how do to it without PhotoShop, and that's something worth knowing how to do.

[robc]

just remember that as soon as you move off center from viewing an lcd screen you will start to reduce its visibilty. Even if the screen is parallel to back but to the side of the camera you will lose quality. Are you intending to have the lcd right in front of the camera becasue if not then I think you are asking too much?