Photography Experiment (Chaos Lord)

[carnogaunt]

This is my first serious attempt at getting really good pictures of my miniatures. I made a makeshift lightbox and borrowed a decent camera. I edited the photo in Paint.NET to give an even background color.

The test miniature is the 3rd Ed Chaos Lord model from my Death Guard army. I didn't want to start with a Tyranid model because in my experience the camera always tries to focus on a Scything Talon or some other protruding bit.

Results:

[narhay]

To have a talon and other protruding bits in focus, put the aperture (f number) to a higher value. This is depth of focus...the higher the number ,the more depth of the picture will be in focus. However, use a tripod because the bigger this number ,the longer the shutter has to be open which increases the chance of blurring because you moved.

[Deathnid]

wow, great picture! it shows the model nicely and you could go all professional and make one of those fading blue backgrounds like all da pross ;D great job.

[Devil's Advocate]

Don't use PURE white as the background, drop it down a little bit.

Either that or up the brightness of the model or reduce the contrast of the picture. The white is just too overwhelming to look at that dark model.

[carnogaunt]

Deathnid, thanks!

Devil's Advocate, I didn't notice how bright it was on my laptop screen. I looked at it on my good monitor and I can see what you mean now. I chose to go with pure white just because that's what Games Workshop does with their photos. Anyway, can you tell me which of these looks best to you?



As you can see, I actually increased the contrast from the original photo. Even with three light bulbs pointing right at it, I still had to use the flash to bring out the details. I felt that the flash washed out the colors a little bit.

I think the solution is to mess with the aperture settings on the camera, as Narhay suggested, or maybe just shutter speed, to try to trick the camera into letting in more light.

[killercroc]

Personally I think #EEEEEE makes the model look the best. Makes the colors of the model stand out naturally. The pure white made the model itself look to bright as well as the paint from said model.