Tutorial on miniature photography?

[Warpchylde]

Hi everyone.

I´ve been searching the forums for a tutorial on photographing miniatures, as the title of this post suggests.

I especially am blown away by the quality of Mahon´s pics, wish I could do something like that.

Because it really doesn´t matter how decently/well/amazingly you paint your miniature, if your photography skills aren´t all that good the end result really suffers.

So in short, does this site have a photography tutorial somewhere? There are loads of great tips and tuts here, but this one I can´t find.

Thanks in advance,

Warp

[mahon]

thanks Warp

although there are numerous tutorials on the net (especially on CMON), there was no real tutorial on photography here, but I kept posting tips and advice whenever asked. I think I will post something about this when I only have enough time to address the subject properly.... now I have very hectic time at work, and you can see it by my decreased activity (or even absence) here.

but my advice is:

1. macro doesn't have to be your friend. I found the best distance for me is about 20-30cm from the lens to the miniature.

2. you don't need top quality 20mpix camera, 2-3 megapixels will be enough, 4 is great, and most current cameras give more than that anyway... you will find you need to shrink the picture anyway

3. color casts are your enemy! that's why I hate taking photos with artificial light. no matter how good lamps I use, I tend to get better photos with natural light. that's why I usually have to wait for weekends to take photos by daylight.

4. you don't need very sharp light, it will create false shadows on your mini. you don't want to exaggerate contrasts. he best light is soft light, that's why I like taking photos when sky is cloudy. sure, you will need longer exposure times to avoid too dark photos, but...

5. you're surely using a tripod anyway. you can also put the camera on something else, just be sure it doesn't move and sits firmly. use a time-release to trigger your photos, because doing it by pressing the button will shake the camera and make the photo useless

6. you need at least basic knowledge of photography:
- photo is made by light falling onto the sensor/matrix
- if there is not enough light the photo is too dark (underexposed), if there is too much of it - it's too pale (overexposed)
- exposure time is how long the light will be falling on the sensor
- aperture is how big hole in the lens the light will be falling through
- so the longer time or the larger aperture - the more light will go through, and the shorter exposure or smaller aperture - the darker the photo (less light going through)

7. human eye adjusts itself to the light, the camera is too stupid, so you may receive a color cast on the photo - this is countered by correcting the white balance. it's very difficult if you mix various sources of light: natural, artificial, various types of lamps. so limit yourself to one type of lamp

8. large aperture = small F number on the camera (eg. 22 = small aperture, 3.5 = large aperture).
use at least F = 8 for most photos, larger number for larger models (I tend to use abut F 16-22 for most minis, and F 29-32 for larger models)

9. it's best to take several photos to find the best settings for your photos. I found that for my photos taken on white background I needed to overexpose the photos by +2/3 or +1, and for photos on black background I needed to underexpose them by -1 or -2/3. For most other dark backgrounds -1/3 or 0 seems fine in my case.

10. you need to check your camera's manual to see how to adjust exposure. usually you do it by adjusting exposure time, while your aperture is set (aperture priority mode).

11. you need to have some "samples" of black and white (I tend to take a separate photo) taken in the same light for easier adjustment of white balance. I will write more in this later.

generally I will write more - but if you need any particular info, just let me know.

some knowledge of photo-editing programs will be helpful (I'll write more on it later) as you will probably need to adjust color balance and levels. the more effort you will put in your photos, the less time you will have to spend editing them.

if you have any urgent questions - just ask

[Demi_morgana]

3. color casts are your enemy! that's why I hate taking photos with artificial light. no matter how good lamps I use, I tend to get better photos with natural light. that's why I usually have to wait for weekends to take photos by daylight.

4. you don't need very sharp light, it will create false shadows on your mini. you don't want to exaggerate contrasts. he best light is soft light, that's why I like taking photos when sky is cloudy. sure, you will need longer exposure times to avoid too dark photos, but...

I agree that natural light is the best but because I've found it far too annoying to wait whole week just to take a picture - I purchased photo-tent
that makes light soft and practically eliminates the shadows

[Warpchylde]

You know Mahon... I´ve read all the photography tuts I´ve seen on CMON and wherever else I´ve come across them, and I know that my main problem is my lack of basic photography knowledge.

Exposure, aperture etc, it´s been Greek to me so far

But in your reply you´ve already spelled it out for me much better than I´ve seen before. Explaining it very clearly, and your tips really make sense to me.

When you have some time (and there is absolutely no hurry, you´ve already started me off very nicely here) could you explain point 11. a bit more, please?

But yes, I am very happy with your reply, spelling it out in black and white, and you quite correctly assume that I am a complete beginner Your reply makes more sense to me than all the tutorials I´ve seen up to now.

I know I will ask you a few (hundreds more likely) more questions in the future, as I experiment further but for now...

Many thanks

[mahon]

@Warp: there are tools in most serious photo-editing programs which make color adjustments easier.

for example: in GIMP or Photoshop, when you adjust levels (the most important and usually the most useful adjustment) you can "sample" black and white with a color picker tool. it will not only adjust the levels (balance between shadows and lights) of your photo but also fix the color casts (unless you have a really difficult case). but to be sure you don't cheat the program, you need to have as good samples of black and white as possible, and they need to be photographed in the same conditions as your mini.

so the suggested way is:
- take a photo of your mini
- remove the mini, don't move the camera, don't change settings, etc.
- take a white card and something black (I like my black background or black bases for this purpose), put it where the mini was before, and take another photo.
- now you have two photos: of the mini, and of the sample. both taken in the same conditions, so the light is the same on both of them.
- open both in an editor, use levels on the sample, adjust with the color pickers (sample black from the darkest part of the black object and white from the brightest part of the white). save the settings
- apply the settings to your mini.

the easier way, which unfortunately doesn't always work so fine it to place the sample next to your mini - so that you just adjust one photo and only once. but then you need to crop the photo to remove the sample from your photo.

more on the Levels tool later. but which program do you use for your photo edition? if you don't have any, GIMP will be fine - it's free and comparable to photoshop. well, surely not as good as the PS, but for it's price it's the best buy out there! and for miniature photos - it's way more than we need...

@Demi: been there, done that. never been really happy... anyway my time is limited enough to allow me for one photo session per week.

[Warpchylde]

@Warp: there are tools in most serious photo-editing programs which make color adjustments easier.

for example: in GIMP or Photoshop, when you adjust levels (the most important and usually the most useful adjustment) you can "sample" black and white with a color picker tool. it will not only adjust the levels (balance between shadows and lights) ... (cut) ...

so the suggested way is:
(cut)
- open both in an editor, use levels on the sample, adjust with the color pickers (sample black from the darkest part of the black object and white from the brightest part of the white). save the settings

Ok, it´s slowly coming together for me Mahon

Can I just ask you to clarify what you mean when you talk about "sample black from the darkest part of the black object"

And I use Photoshop btw, I´ve fiddled around with it, I´ll show you what I´ve got so far.

Click to see full-sized image

So I go to Image - Adjustments - Levels... and from there I´ve been fiddling with these three sliders. Am I on the right track there?

Click to see full-sized image

What would you do to adjust this pic better (and I know the focus isn´t the best here, it was a quick daylight photo and you guys are right, daylight makes all the difference)

Thanks again for taking the time here it´s greatly appreciated.

Warp

[mahon]

the background is digitally applied - do all the adjustments before pasting it, so that you're working on a 'raw' photo.

if you get some parts of your subject out of focus and some in focus, you need to increase 'field of depth' by closing the aperture. this will require longer exposure to compensate for less light going through the aperture.
see the example:

Click to see full-sized imageClick to see full-sized image
left: F=8, right: F=2.8

I'll write more on adjustments later. Photoshop is fine, I know it and can explain what you need...

[superhessianv]

Looks like I really have to try the "natural light" way of weekend picture taking, as Im having a hard time to take apropriate snaps...
I used to set up my "stage" like this:

Click to see full-sized image

but as posted below light still seems to be pretty hard on the mini. Any ideas how to optimize indoor-fake-light-picture taking with this setup?