how do you take a good model photo?

[sawyer811]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

a while back, I started taking shots of my old postwar Lionel stuff with my iPhone, just to try to see if i could get better at taking pictures of my models. Needless to say, the pictures sucked (the camera on the iPhone leaves much to be desired). Tonight, i fiddled with it again, both with my phone and a digital camera, with flourescent lights, halogens, and straight 60 watt bulbs (whatever you call them). They were, well, not the best.

part of the problem could just be i'm doing this at night, but it's got me wondering; I see the shots in the show your models thread and the three-hundred plus model railroaders i have (not kidding there; Grandpa has been a bit of a "collector" of the mag since the 70's...guess who's got them now) I have yet to figure out how they do it. I know, having seen a book on the subject, that some poeple will use spotlamps and other accesories to take their layout photos, but I'm starting to wonder if you need a massive O. Winston Link setup to get it right!:hehe:

I guess this is more for my own information than to serve any actual purpose...I'm trying to improve my modelling skills, and photography (so i've been led to believe) is one of those skills. I was just wondering how those of you who model railroad along with running trainz do it.

(placed here for lack of a better option...)

 

[507001]

I'm a pro photographer but I rarely take photo's of models so don't take what I say as gospel!

To be brutally honest, your never going to get perfect shots with a compact, and especially not with an Iphone!

I would shoot in natural light, don't use any flash as you'll just end up with unsightly shadows.
I would set the camera to A mode (TV if your one of those canon people!) and select a relatively small aperture such as F11-F16. this will help to ensure that everything, from front to back is in focus. Anything over F16 and you'll start to get all sorts of weird and wonderful problems!
Your going to need a tripod though because a small aperture usually means a long exposure and therefore your going to get camera shake if you hand hold, It will be especially noticeable if your shooting small objects.
If your compact camera doesn't have A/AV mode then I'm afraid your a little stuck, but as long as you stick to the no flash rule and use a tripod, you should be OK!

Hope that helps,
Rob

 

[PWeiser]

Poor Man's/Bad Weather Alternatives

To the above excellent advice (especially about tripod and small aperture), two additional hints: (1) In the absence of a shutter release cable (do they still put receptacles for those on cameras?) line up the tripod shot, then use the self-portrait timer (cameras *all* have those) to avoid shake in long exposures. (2) For even, reasonably shadowless lighting on things too large to fit in an inverted white styrofoam cup with a hole in the top for your lens (a fine mini-tent for jewelry-sized items), hang several sheets of crumpled-then-roughly-flattened aluminum foil so reflections of your light source from them hit the model from all angles.

 

[NikkiA]

For model photographs you can pick up small tabletop tripods very cheap, amazon almost always has £3/$5 chinese clones of the gorillapod tripods that work exceptionally well for that kind of use (I use a £8 clone of the gorillapod-SLR tripod from amazon, for example, and it works beautifully for low-height things)

 

[Euphod]

I thought the camera on the I Phone was supposed to be so good you wouldn't need anything but! So much for marketing!

 

[whitepass]

how do you take a good model photo?

That's how I got into photography some 50 years ago. To match what is in the magazines you need a very good camera and tripod plus some lights but you can get by with less unless you are trying to get in a magazine, for the web you do not need the high quality.

 

[sawyer811]

well, more or less, I'm just trying to get better incremintaly...I have no money for a high-powered camera, tripod, lights, and all the other stuff you guys are talking about...at least not right now. Hopefully when i get out of college that can change. For now, I'll make do with what i can get, a halfway decent digital camera, a flat surface, and natural light (i'll take dime-store model photography for 300 Alex)

anyway, actually this helped more than i thought--I now have another reason to be anrgy at/jealous of Pelle Soeborg but, all joking aside, i've got a goal to work too. One day i hope to get my layout in MR...but i gotta build it first.

and with that, back into my man/train cave to keep hammering out benchwork. I should add, thank you guys!

 

[507001]

well, more or less, I'm just trying to get better incremintaly...I have no money for a high-powered camera, tripod, lights, and all the other stuff you guys are talking about...at least not right now. Hopefully when i get out of college that can change. For now, I'll make do with what i can get, a halfway decent digital camera, a flat surface, and natural light (i'll take dime-store model photography for 300 Alex)

anyway, actually this helped more than i thought--I now have another reason to be anrgy at/jealous of Pelle Soeborg but, all joking aside, i've got a goal to work too. One day i hope to get my layout in MR...but i gotta build it first.

and with that, back into my man/train cave to keep hammering out benchwork. I should add, thank you guys!

No photographer ever became brilliant ovenight, it takes practise and more practise.

The most important thing you can do to improve your work is experiment, try changing the lighting setups, use things you can find around the house (like the above mentioned foil for reflecting light), change the aperture and shutter speed combos, experiment with Depth of field etc.

Never ever get angry or jealous when you look at somebody elses work, instead think, "right, why is this better than mine?" and "What has this artist done differently to me?" and even try to think of areas where your work does look better. Think of ways of combining things that you like from your work to things that the artist has done in their work.

You don't need a great camera to produce stunning images, there is at least one photographer out in Libya atm who is covering the war on his Iphone because he dropped and broke his main camera.

To the above excellent advice (especially about tripod and small aperture), two additional hints: (1) In the absence of a shutter release cable (do they still put receptacles for those on cameras?) line up the tripod shot, then use the self-portrait timer (cameras *all* have those) to avoid shake in long exposures. (2) For even, reasonably shadowless lighting on things too large to fit in an inverted white styrofoam cup with a hole in the top for your lens (a fine mini-tent for jewelry-sized items), hang several sheets of crumpled-then-roughly-flattened aluminum foil so reflections of your light source from them hit the model from all angles.

Excellent points there! there are still a couple of cameras available with cable release sockets but not many. Most use wired or infrared remote controls now.

 

[507001]

I thought the camera on the I Phone was supposed to be so good you wouldn't need anything but! So much for marketing!

the Iphone 4's camera was good enough to replace most cheapo compact cameras from the big 2 manufacturers, but its never going to beat the likes of Nikons D3 series and canons 1d series, the sensors are far too small.

 

[mezzoprezzo]

Making a model look real in a photo is difficult.

One of the major visual giveaways of a model shot is the amount that is usually out of focus.

To reduce this, use a small aperture (as already mentioned by 507001) and wide angle if you have that option. You get more “depth of field” (the front to back area which remains in acceptable focus) with a wider angle.

If you have a manual focus option, try changing the focal point because this will also move the depth of field forward or back. With some trial and error you can usually get an acceptable result.

 

[sawyer811]

I gotta say, the idea of aluminum foil is pretty ingenious when you think about it. O. Winston Link on a budget!

I had no intentions of going from nothing to awesome overnight (despite what the greedy, irrational child-half of my brain says) but I do however now know what to work towards. I guess i have to take it the same way I am *going to* with blender/gimp for the game...neither of which i currently understand. If i can, I'm gonna see if i can find that book i read a while ago about model photography...It's an ancient Klambach book, i think from the 80's...I've seen the layouts it uses in my old MR's from that era (no, I'm not that old, i got them from my grandpa). In other words, get the tutorial:hehe:

PS. i know i mention O. Winston Link a lot, but he's like my railway photography hero.

 

[NikkiA]

I gotta say, the idea of aluminum foil is pretty ingenious when you think about it. O. Winston Link on a budget!

A lot of the lighting aspects of photography can be improvised... Need a softbox? buy anything recently? check that it didn't come with a thin sheet of styrofoam 'cloth', tape it across the top of an open cardboard box, cut a hole in the base of the box, *boom* you have a softbox.

Want a stofen diffuser? got an empty plastic milk carton around? cut out, bend and superglue a open-box from the milk carton... *boom* you have a stofen diffuser.

Need reflectors? glue some foil to a piece of cardboard...

etc etc

 

[sawyer811]

Softbox? Stofen Diffuser? pardon my french but what the Mikado are you talking about?

 

[NikkiA]

Softbox? Stofen Diffuser? pardon my french but what the Mikado are you talking about?

Softboxes and stofens are both methods of reducing the harshness of a flash and reducing shadows and glare.

A softbox is basically a large diffusing material that the flash is fired behind, that makes the flash lightsource become a single large lightsource (ideally larger than the object being photographed).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_box and in particular note the effect on the fruit pictures at the bottom.

A stofen is a small plastic diffuse cap that is placed over a flashgun that causes it to become a single (small) lightsource, and thus allow it to bounce (reflect) off surfaces without introducing glare or bright spots.

For an example of the effect of a stofen:

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...ken-using-sto-fen-omnibounce.html#post1767383

Note how the harsh bright spots are reduced on the alien face when using a stofen.

When it comes to 'product photography' (which taking photos of models is largely a part of) softboxes are very much a big thing. Stofens do a similar thing, but on a smaller scale. Stofens tend to be popular 'because they're cheap' compared to commercial softboxes, but when you can make your own softbox for free, it's not really much of a difference.

Another popular technique is a 'snoot' which is essentially just a grid of tubes placed in front of the light source, which directs and controls the light direction (and in the process softens the overall effect).

See here for an example comparision:

http://www.litegenius.com/album/index.html

(Bottom left images).

Again, a snoot can be easily DIY'ed using drinking straws, double sided tape and cardboard.

Beyond getting your camera stable, and knowing a little about DOF, lighting, and how to control it, is probably the most important aspect of taking good model photos.

 

[sawyer811]

ah, so basically a softbox is a diffuser and a stofen is a pinpointer. I see now. thanks for that...time to rummage through the recycling box (like the earth needs one more milk carton back)