"Photographing Ship Models" Topic

My otherwise wonderful modern camera washes out ships when I photograph them against the blue felt I use for ocean. Anyone got any practical ideas for fixing it?

Thanks in advance.

Use a white background? Photoshop in a new background later.

Does you camera have a Macro mode setting? The Macro mode is usually designated by a flower. If it does, the best advice I have for you is Google camera macro mode, and you will find hundreds of sites with advice on photographing in macro mode. Here is one site with advice.

link

As to why your ships are being washed out, it's most likely that you are trying to use the flash on the camera to light your subject. This doesn't work well in Macro mode. You are going to need another light source to light the subject, and then play with the aperture and aperture speed to get the right light levels.

Yea, use natural lighting, or another source.

Using a flash, close up on minis doesn't work very well.

IMHO, the best thing to use is not natural lighting, but instead a pose-able desk lamp. This gives you precise control of the lighting angle / shadows. If necessary, you can then refine the shadows using fill light, reflected from one or more light-colored flat surfaces positioned just out of sight. If the pose-able lamps are of a different temperature than daylight (such as incandescent), you would compensate for this with camera settings. I agree that you shouldn't use flash; you want light from the side to provide shadows.

The following image (of a scratchbuilt 1/6000 British destroyer) was made in this way, using a Luxo incandescent desk lamp on the right and a sheet of white cardboard on the left. The elevation drawing was Photoshopped in.

This image of the Figurehead 1/6000 HMS Dreadnought was lit in a similar manner.

And one of the Figurehead 1/6000 HMS Berwick. The Luxo light source was positioned above and to the left to provide some shadow contrast and reveal the shape of the double hull curve at the bow, but still light up the deck. That would have been hard to do had I used the light from my bedroom window.

MH

Actually, the absolute best lighting is natural light, just diffused. I find that my best shots are done on cloudy days when the sunlight is naturally diffuse and very little shadow is cast. I usually shoot outdoors for miniatures.

If you don't have a macro setting, then use your zoom and stand 3-5 feet away from the miniature, this helps some with the depth of field issues that you can get with extreme close-up shots.

As usual a good stable shooting platform (stand, tripod or braced arm) is essential for clear shooting, especially if there is not much bright light and slow shutter speeds. This isn't problem when using natural light as its usually strong enough to allow fast shutter speeds (unless its a particularly overcast day).

-Binhan