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Hi all - thanks for all the kudos, Hopefully I'll have some flightline stuff with the other Valks soon. In the meantime - I've been asked a lot about photography tips - so I'll post some here: I am taking them with a Nikon 990 - its old, but decent. I always shoot on manual mode with ISO 100. The key thing is lighting - without it, you can't do anything. So short of a studio setup with proper lights, I have to wait until there is sun and I do it outside under direct sunlight. Second most important thing is the background - a simple neutral background will do so much more to enhance your model - the actual subject matter. Remember to always meter for neutral grey (30% - skin tones) - if you have a white plane and meter for the plane, then you will get a grey plane - all camera meters measure light accurately for 30% grey. Either stick your hand (skin tone is pretty close to 30% grey in B&W) in front of the model and meter for that, or buy a grey card at a local photo shop and meter for that to get the proper exposure. Close down on the aperature, use the smallest aperature your lighting condition will allow, F-11 and smaller (higher number 16,22) will get you a larger depth of field so both the front and tail of your model will be in focus. Biggest giveaway of scale or size is to have a short depth of field. Get down and try to shoot your plane from the "ground" level. Being a small model, the tendency is to shoot all the shots from above - because we usually look down on models. But we rarely look down on an plane, we usually look across or up at it - try to think as though you are walking around a real aircraft.

Hey Neova, I'd be very interested in what you come up with. I am in the basement, but I would like to vent to the exterior too. I think the hobby ones are too expensive and small - I was hoping to find some industrial ones, but the kitchen idea seems neat. If you can send any sites for research - it would help. My dream would be a retractable setup, pulled down to paint, and retract up to the ceiling to build my model in the same place - I can't afford the space for a separate spray booth. Does anyone here work in a vented setup?

Hi all, The sunny day completed photos are posted in the Model section: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=7956 The light grey is really white with a few drops of sky grey maybe 90:10 ratio - its amazing how little you need to ruin a pure white

That's it folks - thanks for tuning in. I just remembered that I didn't take anything with the VF-0 next to my other planes - the older VF-1 or YF-19 for size comparison - I'll do that later. The sun has gone away. Here is the link to the step-by-step build up: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=5881 Cheers

Front gear and gun pod details - you can just make out the spinners inside the intakes. I love that landing light on the forward door!

Some closeup landing gear and gun pod details.

The underside, often neglected...

A closeup, you can just make out the HUD display!!

Canopy down...

Ground crew view.

The tailcone ribbing adds alot to the finished appearance, you can just make out the afterburners inside - its too bad, but with the naked eye you can see quite a lot and what a great job Hasegawa did with them.

With all that power, better sweep back the wings before they tear off!

Magnet power!!

The fast packs...

Another one of my favourites

Rear view

I love how canted the rear "vertical" stabilizers are!

A little truer colours.

Maybe if there was a way to hinge the flaps - I didn't want the flaps down since I wanted to swing the wings in or out, but this view begs for the flaps to be down.

Ah, this exposure shows off some of the weathering a bit better.

I'd love to see any photoshoped magic...

There ya go - the requested side view.