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"Model Photography for Dummies"


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Taking Good Pics of Your Models

 

Camera

The first thing you need is a decent camera, but owning a fancy DSLR with all the bells and whistles isn’t necessary, but it sure helps. Besides having a good lens and decent resolution of at least 8 MP, the camera needs to have an aperture priority setting, so that you can fix the aperture to a high number, giving a small aperture. The camera also needs to be able to focus on objects from a minimum of 2 feet or less. Zoom lenses help if you need to be further away, but maximum aperture settings often deteriorate as you zoom in. Most point and shoot cameras have a macro setting which is often displayed as a flower for close-ups, but just make sure you can adjust the aperture at the same time if you leave it on this setting.  For the record, I use a full frame Nikon D810 (36 mp) with a 60mm Micro lens for 90% of my shots.

 

*Lens and Focus

If you can afford it, buy a dedicated “Macro/ Micro” lens and always focus manually.  Some of the shorter fixed lenses of 50 mm or less work well too, but most zoom lenses don’t have f-stops high enough at the focal lengths you want and sometimes they have some distortion.  That’s why they sell fixed focal length "prime" lenses, often at much higher prices that zoom lenses: They quite simply take better and sharper pictures.  Auto-focus should be avoided, because the camera usually locks onto something you don’t want in focus, rather than the area you do.

 

*Aperture Priority

A maximum aperture of “f-22” or higher is recommended for most model photography. With high aperture settings, you can achieve good depth of field, which is critical for close-up or “macro/micro” photography. If you are taking a close-up of your model from, say, 1 foot away at f-3.5, the object you focused on will be in focus, but the parts of the model just in front or behind the focus point will be blurry. With a higher aperture number of f-22 or higher, almost everything a few inches in front and a few inches behind the subject will also be in focus. My macro lens on my camera has a very high maximum aperture of f-36, so almost everything can be in focus without much fuss, but you loose some sharpness, so you need to find a compromise between sharpness and depth of field..

 

*Tripod and Self-timer

The next thing your camera needs is a self timer and the ability to fix it to a tripod. With high aperture settings, the shutter speeds will decrease dramatically, so you can’t hand-hold the camera without getting some blurring from shake. Anything longer than about 1/100 of a second will likely have some blur, but you can sometimes hand hold 1/60 of a second if you’re very steady. For maximum apertures of f-22 or more and the lighting I routinely use, my shutter speeds are often one second or more, so a tripod is a must along with a self timer, so that you are not touching the camera when the shutter is released.

 

Lighting

Generally speaking, you can’t have enough light when taking pics, so try to have 2-3 light sources coming from various angles to fill in shadows. Having one light source stronger than the other is OK, which creates a natural looking shadow, but if the light is too strong from one direction, it will overpower what the camera measures for light. If you can find them, there are some excellent coiled gas bulbs available that give off strong natural and balanced light of 3200 to 5000K, which is a “color temperature” close to natural light. They are not expensive- about $8 each- and I use at least 2 of them in goose-neck lamps over my model and sometimes one held in my hand, so that I can direct the light at shadows that I want to tone down as the self timer on my camera takes the pic. Check out “Alzo Digital” here for lamps:

 

Alzo Digital Lamps

 

There are now a lot of LED light sources that do the same thing and although they are more expensive, the prices are starting to come down to the affordable level.

 

White Balance

Colors will shift according to your light source. Fluorescent lighting is greenish in color, incandescent lighting is reddish and natural sunlight is neutral, which is why many modelers take their pics outdoors. You can hand hold many outdoor pics due to the strong light and resultant fast shutter speeds, even at high apertures, but strong sunlight can also produce too harsh shadows, so a cloudy day is often better than a sunny day to take pics. If you’re taking pics under artificial light, you need to compensate for the color shift of your light source and many cameras have a white balance compensation setting, other than “auto”. More sophisticated cameras allow you take a measurement of the colors your light source is sending to your model, by taking a picture of a white card (sometimes grey) as a base line for what is supposed to be pure white, which is saved as a setting in the camera. The pics you take are then color shifted accordingly to provide a neutral look, rather than one that is red looking because you used an incandescent light bulb, etc.

 

ISO

This is the sensitivity of your digital light sensor, with low numbers of 100 to 400 being the most commonly used. ISO settings in this range will give your pics the most resolution, but sometimes you need a higher ISO setting to get the pics you want under poor light. High ISO settings, however, tend to be grainy, with the higher the number the grainier the pic. My camera goes to a fairly high setting of 25,000 (and higher), but the pics will look fairly pixilated. If you have good light and a tripod, you don’t need to worry about using a high ISO setting, so you should leave it as low as possible and let longer exposures compensate.

 

Flash

If you own flash umbrellas and light tents, you know a heck of a lot more about photography than I ever will, but for most people who use the built-in flash on their camera, my advice is to leave the flash down and never use it. Flashes tend to totally overpower the front light of the photograph, making them look artificial and washed out. With adjustable external flashes you can bounce the light off the ceiling, etc. to create a more natural look, which might work great for some. I like to use my own external lighting so that I can see what the pic should look like before I take it, rather than what it might look like with a flash.

 

Light metering

Many cameras give you options for how the light is measured on your light sensor, from tiny “spot metering” to versions that measure a wider spectrum in your viewfinder. I generally use the spot metering option, because I can control where the lighting is measured. This isn’t all that important due to “bracketing”, which I also use.

 

Bracketing

Most of the time your pics will be properly exposed automatically, but sometimes you might want a little bit darker or lighter pic as a comparison to choose from. I used to also shoot 1 “stop” under and 1 stop over what the camera measures as correct, so that I had 3 pics for every shot, then chose the best one and deleted the other two.  My camera does this automatically if I set it this way, but you can always do it manually if your camera doesn't have this capability. I sometimes find that the slightly overexposed pic is the best and sometimes it’s the under exposed one, so it's good to have choices.

 

*HDR (High Dynamic Range)

Most DSLR’s have some auto compensation for HDR, to smooth out the dark areas and very light areas of a photograph, but a true HDR photograph on my Nikon camera takes 3 different pics then stitches them together into one, automatically.  To do this properly the camera should be on a tripod to eliminate camera shake, which it already is for the reasons above.  The camera takes a properly exposed pic of the very bright areas, then one of the average areas, then a third of the dark areas, then combines them into just one photograph.  Under strong light, close-up photography often has very light and very dark areas in the same pic, so the average of both is measured and taken, which can sometimes still look wrong.

 

*Background

Ideally, you don’t want to see anything in the background, because it can distract from the model. Having all sorts of modeling crap in the background for an in-progress shot can add some nice realism to your photography, but for a finished model, I want to see nothing but the model and maybe the diorama the model is placed on. To accomplish this on a finished model, I use a very easy and cheap background, which is a large roll of white poster paper that is placed on the flat surface like a desk or table and draped up and taped to the wall behind, so that you can’t see any folds. Since your photograph is focused on the model, the background will be slightly out of focus, achieving a nice “nothingness” to the background or as the pros call it, “Bokeh”. For in-progress shots, I usually use a blue background, which creates a strong contrast with the grey plastic parts, making them “jump out” in the pic.

 

File Format

I have some photography geek friends who tell me to always shoot my pics in “RAW” format, so that you can play with all the information the camera has recorded on a computer without the compression (and loss of data) by converting the pic to “jpg”.  I don’t do that, because my pics are already huge at over 7,000 pixels across and when I shrink them down to 1,024- 1,200 pixels across to fit these forum pages, shooting in RAW is overkill to me.  That’s just my opinion, but it is also shared by some pro photographers like this guy:

 

RAW vs. jpeg

 

*Computer Editing

All pics can be improved and enhanced with photo editing software. Contrast, brightness, shadow compensation, histogram manipulation, color shifting, cropping and sharpening are some of the more common things tweaked after you take the pic. This step is VERY important, because every single pic I take is improved significantly by doing so. This all takes some practice to get it right and there are many software packages out there, but I quite like the standard, free and easy to use “Windows Live Photo Gallery” that comes with Windows 7 and you can also download for free for Windows 10.  I’m sure there are free Apple versions that are equal, or you can step up and buy the Adobe Photoshop software if you want to get really serious, although I never have found the need so far.

 

Now a couple of examples to show depth of field (and show off my models) :rolleyes::

 

 

In this pic of my recent Spitfire, I am using a fairly middle of the road aperture of f-14 that is focused on the engine only.  It is clear and the foreground wing is not, which brings your eye to just the engine.

 

 

v1DY9D.jpg

 

 

Here I’ve done the opposite, with a focus on the wing and fuselage only, also at f-14

 

 

0rpJ5g.jpg

 

 

For this deep shot, I’m using my maximum aperture of f-36, which keeps the front of the prop all the way back to the front of the cockpit in focus.  Normally, the engine would be in focus and nothing else.

 

 

UNdrwX.jpg

 

 

Same for my Eagle.  Just about everything is in focus, even though there is lots of depth and potential focus points.

 

 

f5VgJj.jpg

 

Edited by chuck540z3
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Hi Chuck,

An excellent tutorial Sir, thank you for taking the time (and considerable thought) to post this up. Your images show the high calibre of your models off perfectly and are a credit to you.

I think you covered pretty much everything important in your text, good job.

A couple of relatively un-important things did occur to me after I'd read your thread. Although macro is the best way to achieve great close-ups, reasonable results can be had by being slightly further away and then using software to crop the image. For modellers who use a compact camera or their phone, try moving a little further away when snapping the model and then crop away the unwanted area using the software. Since images on a monitor don't need to be huge files even cropping an image down to 100kb should give passable results (I reduce the resolution on all of my web images to 100kb to save space on the hosting site).

Also, as a lens moves away from it's closest focussing point, the depth of field increases for any given "f" stop.

If a modeller moves in close to a model with a 50mm lens set at f8 they may only have a few inches of depth of field. Move back a foot from the model and depth of field increases so images can still be snapped in a lower light situation at the same f-stop.

Additionally, for average lenses, the quality of the image won't be at it's best when set to minimum distance, something else to bare in mind as we all attempt to improve the way our models look.

I look forward to implementing your helpful tips buddy, thanks again.

Cheers.

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Thanks for starting this thread Chuck! I'll add in my tabletop photography tip, modified and learned from Photoshop guru, Scott Kelby.

Lighting:

I use one key light (CFL bulb, daylight balanced) in a 21 in. x 21 in. softbox and a foam reflector as a fill light. Other times I use a speed light flash unit in the softbox but for simplicity, the continuous light(s) source of your choice should provide enough lighting. I place my main light 45° to camera left. BTW, you can also use sunlight streaming in from a window but the amount of light will change by the minute.

Camera settings (dSLR) - I shoot Ni-kon so camera modes are labelled different on Canon - I'll keep this really simple and leave out the other technical stuff...

Set up your lights, background, model subject, and camera (preferably on a tripod if you want sharp photos). Select ISO 100/200 or lower if you wish. Set camera to aperture priority ("A" with Ni-kon, "Av" for Canon), set your f-stop of your choice (f/8,11, 22). Set camera to center weight or spot metering (I normally just use center weight - refer to your camera's manual for metering modes), focus on your subject and shoot. I focus manually and my lens of choice for model photography is a Tokina 100mm macro lens.

Note the shutter speed provided by the camera and switch to camera's manual mode (M). Dial in your aperture and the shutter speed obtained above. Take another photograph. Is it too dark? Decrease the shutter speed, this lengthens the exposure allowing more light to hit the sensor and brightens up your photo (this is where a tripod is handy since you may have exposures around one to two seconds). Too bright? Increase your shutter speed. This shortens the amount of light for exposure and darkens the photo. Once you find the exposure you like, remember your settings and shoot away. If you need to make exposure adjustments in your photos at any time, just fiddle with the shutter speed settings. Practice! You're not wasting film with digital...

Shooting in manual will keep your exposure constant and avoids the problems of exposure variations in your photographs from shot to shot, which is the case for shooting in aperture priority. Try it. Shoot in A/Av mode and move your model around as you shoot. You'll notice the shutter speed will change for each shot. Some pics will be light or dark. That's because your camera's metering system is trying to give you the optimum exposure for each photo. Depending on where it is metering and where you're focusing, the photo will go bright, or dark or just right. Do this in manual mode and your exposure will be the same for each shot (well most of the time).

One note though - move, add, or subtract your light(s) and you'll probably have to start all over with the steps above. In addition, avoid the use of your camera's built-in flash while using other lights. The built-in flash will overpower your other lights, regardless of how many lights you use. Compare your own photographs with the built-in flash on and off while using your key light(s) and you'll see what I mean.

I may have left out some steps but that's basically my tabletop photography procedures. I won't go into the white balance, histograms, and post processing steps. That requires another write up!

My usual studio setup, light sources, and alternate light modifiers.

TableTop_setup-LR_zps406666f2.jpg

LightSources-2_zpsf1b6a4c4.jpg

LightSources_zpsfb3a9a39.jpg

Photo samples using setup above:

F-4J_detail_front_fuselage_zpsd3118c0b.jpg

F-15I_cockpit-2_zps556c652d.jpg

White background:

Photo_exampleLR_zps1607997a.jpg

85AB54CE-DE40-4D87-887B-480A0600ED7B_zpsbwt9hgtn.jpg

Black background with a photo of my macro lens:

0F5EBD1D-F06A-4B2D-A12C-B66A9D81CD94_zpsh99mxmhr.jpg

Edited by PlasticWeapons
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I just got a Canon T4i with a telephoto lens and I love that camera. I am starting to work with my apeture a little and started messing with the Manual settings on my camera. This tutorial is just for me Chuck. But the camera pictures that I am taking now in my in progress build of the F14 Tomcat look great but I can see what you are talking about (the blur behind the object). I will continue to work with my camera while I am working on my F14.

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Thanks for those tips Ryan. Using Manual mode once I've figured out the correct light settings will help me avoid under or over exposure when the light sensor picks up something too light or too dark as I change camera angles.

Richard, glad I could be of help. If I had something like this to read 3 years ago, I'd have pics of my 1/32 Tomcat where you could actually see it!

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Now if only I can figure out how to change the aperture on my I am a spammer, please report this post. D3100 that would be a start. It's probably my lens but I can't get beyond F-5.3 much less up to F-32

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Are you using the kit lens and using aperture priority (A)?

Yeah, it was just a case of RTFM :)

Set the camera to A, then use the scroll wheel. Once Chuck told me WHAT to do, I just looked up HOW to do it.

Looks like I'll need to invest in a try pod at some point.

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Yeah, it was just a case of RTFM :)/>

Set the camera to A, then use the scroll wheel. Once Chuck told me WHAT to do, I just looked up HOW to do it.

Looks like I'll need to invest in a try pod at some point.

Hey David, using a tripod is probably THE most important thing to use when taking pics of your models. Get a tripod that has a removable base that screws to your camera. That way you can remove the camera from the tripod via a quick connect, making installation and removal effortless.

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Hey Chuck, thanks for starting this thread. Very awesome and useful tips. I need to set up a little area where I can shoot better shots and if I ever actually finish a model, I can shoot overall shots like this. The only minor critique I have is the multiple shadows in some of your shots. I would suggest filtering your fill lights a little so they are not so directional and using a reflector like Plasticweapons is using. I think that will eliminate some of the conflicting shadow clutter. Just a suggestion. Now if I could only BUILD like you, I would be set! :salute:

Bill

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Hey Chuck, thanks for starting this thread. Very awesome and useful tips. I need to set up a little area where I can shoot better shots and if I ever actually finish a model, I can shoot overall shots like this. The only minor critique I have is the multiple shadows in some of your shots. I would suggest filtering your fill lights a little so they are not so directional and using a reflector like Plasticweapons is using. I think that will eliminate some of the conflicting shadow clutter. Just a suggestion.

Bill

Duly noted- and thanks for the tip!

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Ryan, weathering's a little weird on that frog. :D and super addition to the tutorial.

Chuck, great tutorial. I don't think much more can really be said about it. It hits everything necessary for "macro photography" - which in essence is "model photography".

Edited by The_Animal
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