Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Yes, I'm shopping around for something that is both easy to use and effective at
taking pictures of miniatures, but I'm also just interested in hearing about your camera.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscs75/

This has been my baby for the past 10 years. Nearly all of my pictures that exist
online were taken on this thing, and it's starting to fade.

At a recent event, I became confused by the order of the pictures because the numbering
system had lapped itself, resetting the counter to 1 and screwing up the photos according
to their name files.

How about your camera?

The Nicon D60
Got this about a year back and have loved it. for a DSLR its actually fairly user friendly and after about a week or two of fidling with it got the jist of how to take photos. but if you want to get really fancy it can get a bit confusing it is still a very nice camera.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond60/

Pentax K10: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk10d/

Love the camera. I'm a Pentax fan and ditched all my old film cameras for this DSLR. Been using it for about 3 years. If you can get a DSLR by all means do, you won't regret it. Plus you'll become a better photographer the more you learn the camera and use it. More so then if you stick with point-and-shoots. That is if you care about this.

Sounds like your camera's sensor is dying. Happened to my wife's camera, once it started to fade it went quickly. She started seeing lines in the images and then just blank white images.

I have loads of film cameras including a couple of Nikons, a Hasselblad XPan II and a Bronica RF645 medium format kit.

For model photography I use my trusty Lumix DMC FX35. The lens is equivalent to 25mm-100mm. The main drawback of the Lumix is no optical viewfinder.



I just bought an Olympus E-P2 with 14-42mm zoom (equivalent to 28-84mm). It combines the facilities of a digital SLR with the ease of use and most of the compactness of a compact camera.



The E-P2 has no optical viewfinder, but it comes with an electronic viewfinder which attaches to the hotshoe.

It's a cheap-as-dirt webcam. Sigh. I want to buy a nice sony one sometime soon though. Anything better than a 1.3 megapixel piece o of junk like this.

Nice cams. Anyone else?

Ive got a sony sure shot. It takes pretty nice pictures. The only thing is its a little finicky when taking minis though, have to get the light JUST right to take a really good mini shot. But if it werent for the minis, Id totally love this thing.

Pentax ist*DL DSLR



Had this baby for a bit over 4 years now.
Also has a 16mm ultra wide angle, 28mm wide angle, 50mm prime, 105 mm telephoto and 100-300 and 200-500mm zooms.

Prior to this it was a Pentax MZ-50 film camera and an Olympus OM-20 film camera.
I've never owned a non-slr camera.

i have a Sony a200...

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665328611

way too much camera for me, but it pushes me to learn about what i'm actually doing with the camera...

hopefully, one day, i will actually take good pics of my minis...

cheers
jah

Talking of which and with reference to KK's post, has anyone got or know of a decent mini photography tutorial for using a bog standard digital camera like the Lumix pictured above. I have one but my photos don't really come out all that well. I have Photoshop so would consider post processing if only I knew what the hell I was doing! I have read the guides listed on Dakka; was looking for something a little more in depth.

You shouldn't need todo much post-processing in Photoshop if you can get the lighting and focus right in the beginning.

Digital photography has been the curse of good craftsmanship in product photography.

Tons of shots are take sloppily because they can be corrected afterwards in Photoshop. It saves time in the photo studio and costs a lot of time in the post-production studio.

[/rant]

What is the problem you are having with your photos, filbert?

Kilkrazy wrote:You shouldn't need todo much post-processing in Photoshop if you can get the lighting and focus right in the beginning.

Digital photography has been the curse of good craftsmanship in product photography.

Tons of shots are take sloppily because they can be corrected afterwards in Photoshop. It saves time in the photo studio and costs a lot of time in the post-production studio.

[/rant]

What is the problem you are having with your photos, filbert?

Just general crappiness really. I finish painting a model and take a photo of it for my plog and then realise that the photos really don't do any justice to the model. Out of all the photos uploaded to my gallery, I think only the tank photos really turned out well. I have tried different lighting techniques; I think it is probably something to do with that. Also, I am not sure on how far away to position the camera - I am using macro mode but presumably this means not using the zoom? I saw a figure quoted saying you need to be 24" away from the model in question. The worst thing is, I see a lot of pics up on Dakka where people have snapped a mini sitting on their computer desk in a dark room with only the monitor for light source and the thing turns out fine so why do mine look so poo?! Anyway, I think I need more practice.

Addendum; the only reason I mentioned the evils of photoshop, is that another guide I saw mentioned using it or similar software to correct white balance.

Echoing KK here:

A few moments longer in the setup will save time in post.

Many cameras do have a manual white balance setting. It's a point and click job (set the control, point at something which should be white and click the shutter - or something similar).

First and best tip: Stability. Stabilise that camera. Tripod, beanbag, sit it flat on the table. Whatever. Handholding is generally not conducive to good miniatures photos.

Second tip: Locate the little flower symbol (Macro). I haven't seen a digicam that didn't have this mode. Read the manual to find out its minimum focus distance. Some can go down to 10cm, some to 30cm. Some do both (Wife's work have a Ricoh Caplio that does). Use this in combination with tip #1.

Tip #3: Self timer. My camera allows the self-timer and macro to work together. Focus on subject, lock focus (I use manual focus, but auto can also work) and fully depress shutter release, which triggers the timer [which will take the shot at the settings you locked focus on, when the time is up]. Move hands away from camera.

PS can be used to make a mediocre pic less mediocre. It cannot polish a turd. A crap photo run through PS is still a crap photo (that you've now wasted more time on).

The other thing I can do with mine is to bracket shots. This is a multi-shot mode that takes 3 pics for each shutter depress (one slightly under exposed, one on exposure and one over) - I review and delete the crap ones. Saves me a lot of time as well.

I had a look in your Blood Angels gallery. Most of it looks fine. There are some shots which could be improved with a bit of technique (Use Tactics!) so I picked a few and have given some suggestions.



The camera seems to have focused on the square pattern on the floor thus the main subject is slightly out of focus. Automatic focus likes high contrast objects in the vertical plane.

Solution – Set the camera to spot focus. Pre-focus the camera on the Marine’s head by half-pressing the shutter button, then recompose the shot.



The subject looks dark, which is due to underexposure. This is because the camera has picked up a lot of white in the background and shifted its exposure to compensate.

Solution – Add +1EV to the exposure setting. If this is not enough, try +2 EV. These are the kind of settings you need to use at the beach or skiing. You are camera may have a beach/snow pre-set which does the EV change for you.




The scene is back lit leaving the front of the subject in shadow.

Solution – Get more light on the front of the subject. This can be done by a reflector such as a sheet of paper to bounce the window light back in. If your camera allows the use of fill-in flash try a -1 or -2 flash exposure setting. Your camera may have a backlight setting you could try.




The three subjects are different distances from the lens, so it is hard to get them all in focus.

Solution – Set aperture priority and stop the lens down (large aperture number) to increase depth of field. This makes the exposure time longer, so you need to support the camera firmly. If you don’t have a tripod, rest your arms on the table and the camera on a cushion. Try to press the shutter button slowly and firmly. It may help to put your thumb underneath the camera body opposite the shutter button.




The focus looks a tiny bit soft. The whole pic looks a bit underexposed, which would lead to soft focus by slight movement of the camera when shooting.

Solution – Add more light, or set the camera more firmly when pressing the shutter button. A tripod is ideal but you can also use the resting techniques I mentioned above.

Many thanks for the tips and tricks, I shall have a go when I get home.

I use two different carma’s
Canon EOS400D DSLR
Casio Exilim EX-H10 Digital Camera

Both take good photo’s, though the Canon is better but then it cost a lot more.

I have found that a soft-box does help taking the photo’s easier, no flash glare as the light is supplied defused thought the side of the box, and very little to no photoshop adjustment needed.

I've got a sony a230 dslr. I'm still learning to use it properly, but it does make things a lot easier having a half decent camera where you can adjust all the settings manually. Now to figure out exactly how to do said adjusting for the best results.

grrr

I have an olympus e500 DSLR. the lenses are more important than the camera though. some will say use macro lenses, but i actually prefer a bit of distance and a 300mm, as i don't have as much trouble with the focal depth. There is enough detail in the image to crop it down afterwards, although i realise doing it properly, in camera, would be better.

What you will get with a telephoto lens is a good feeling of separation between the subject and the background. In you pic above, for example, the b/g is basically an out of focus blur so it does not distract.

The danger with using telephoto is that any camera shake is exaggerated, and, most telephoto lenses (consumer type anyway) have fairly narrow maximum aperture, so you cannot open them wide and have to use a slower shutter speed which leads to more camera shake. The solution to this is either a tripod or more light.

There's nothing wrong with cropping photos. Practically all photos have to be cropped a bit because owing to strange historical reasons, none of the standard paper sizes fit any of the standard aspect ratios.

one thing to be aware of, is the lighting. Using a flash is fine for a lot of things, but it doesn't give you a very natural colour reproduction. for example, in daylight, the two figures below are nearly indistinguishable in colour, and are technically both the same paint, but it has changed slightly over time so the replacement pot was a tiny bit different.



if you can raid a petshop for a daylight spot, you'll get a more natural look

All of the Above.. and a set of Smith Victor Photo Lamps..

I got me a Canon Powershot A560.

Not the greatest and my lack of know how with makes it worse.

I truly do not know how do drive this thing and the man in me will not let me read instructions.

But all is good. My lack of taking good pics keeps yall from seeing how horrible my stuff really is.

I got another Sony.

This time it's the DSC-H20.

It was the right price with the right features. I was playing around with it just
now and the difference between this camera and my old one is staggering.

It's really a lot of fun.