Tips for Model Photography

[electric indigo]

Since the subject comes up on a regular basis in other threads, I thought we should collect & share our approaches in a place where we can retrieve the information more easily. I hope this will help get the best representation of the hard work we put into our builds and inspire our fellow modelers.

Some basics first from my personal perspective: You dont't need a high-end SLR to get good photos of a model, a point-and-shoot camera or phone will give excellent results with the right setup. It is desireable, however, to have control of the aperture, since this determines the depth of field. Generally speaking, a higher aperture value will give you a larger area where the object is in focus – unfortunately, this means that the aperture opening gets smaller and you need a higher amount of light to get the right exposure (picture brightness). That's where a tripod comes handy, because you can compensate the need for more light with a longer exposure time.

I prefer to shoot in natural light, but of course photo lights will give you independence from daytime and weather conditions.

My backgrounds are in most cases sheets of strong, colored paper, leaned upright at the far end against a pair of water bottles. The bend radius of the paper will give you some control over the gradient in the background.

This is a tabletop shot in my sunroom, the main direction of the light is from the back, but it's also coming from basically all directions. It provides a good look at the paintjob and the kit's details, some modulation of the shape (which would be less in a frontlight situation), but it's also a bit bland from a dramatic perspective.

This is a similar perspective, but a whole different setup. I took it in my bathroom, which is small and has a very defined light source, a window giving soft, north light. Again, the light comes from the back, but there is much less bounce light from other directions. The sheet of paper is just large enough to block out the background, so the light can flow around and produce this nice highlight situation.

Here's a test shot on my workspace that gives you an idea of the setup.

After shooting my models for years with a wide angle, low focal lenght to make them appear bigger, I recently found out that I like my aircraft shots much better with a high focal length:

I think that way they more closely resemble mid-air shoots of actual aircraft (that are taken with high focal lengths for obvious reasons) and the foreshortening provides an interesting impact.

[arbit]

Thanks. I do have the aperature icon on my camera and video. Let me see how it looks. My photos suck!!!!!

These phone cameras give icons, but they don't say what they are. I also have ISO and a couple other unamed things. So for a noob like me, I have no idea. 

Any idea how to do black background "night' shots. The type where the object looks like its in the dark but all the details are clear.

[electric indigo]

My suggestion for night shots would be to start with the backlight setup. Play with the angle of the kit towards the light source, adjust the background independently. If necessary, you can adjust the levels in Photoshop and clip the depth value until you have a pitch black background. The "space" shot of my Galactica was made that way.

For more of a night impression, you could slightly under-expose the shot or adjust the medium values with the graduation curves tool.

[Rodavan]

Nice

[MechTech]

Thanks for sharing your tips Electric Indigo! The Galctica looks like it could start cruising in space. - MT

[Goodman Models]

Great info! Thanks 👍