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.

Hey there, I've recently finished off a couple of minis, but I'm having trouble getting a decent photo of them. I'm using a DSLR with a Macro lens, and a flash at present (but I have an LED light panel on it's way which should be a lot better for lighting).

Just wondering if there were any helpful tips or guides out there. I had a google around and didn't find much, but I suspect I'm just using too-restrictive terms or something.

I suspect I need to be using focus-stacking in order to get the whole mini in focus?

Thanks

It's actually hard to find, but Warhammer community wrote a solid primer on the subject:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/03/06/the-model-photo-how-to-photograph-models-for-display/

I have a very amateur setup - I use a DSLR with a standard lens in auto mode, with the miniature against a curved sheet of paper taped to the wall by the window sill. I tend to shoot from a distance zoomed-in, and have the flash angled up at about 45 degrees or straight on with a diffuser. It's not an ideal lighting setup thought as I still have to adjust the photo on the computer to get it looking half decent. I keep wondering if I should get a light box.

If you're after more professional advice I'm sure someone with all the kit will be along soon.

Care to share a photo or two? Show what you've got and tell us the settings and mode and how and where you positioned the flash and such - the more info the better.

There are lots of things you could be doing wrong and right so seeing a few examples and hearing how you set things up helps a lot in working out where best to advise you (beyond the general articles and video posted above).

You don't need or want a macro lens - a macro has an incredibly narrow depth of field and minis aren't small enough to need 0.5-1x reproduction unless you need the final image to be huge resolution (are you planning on printing posters with one mini on them?). You will need to focus stack if that's what you're using.

I normally use an 80mm from a distance of 3-4 feet.

-

 Overread wrote:
Care to share a photo or two? Show what you've got and tell us the settings and mode and how and where you positioned the flash and such - the more info the better.

There are lots of things you could be doing wrong and right so seeing a few examples and hearing how you set things up helps a lot in working out where best to advise you (beyond the general articles and video posted above).

I have a recent P&M log, Niiru's Chaos Legion - Warp Wraiths, which has the photos I've been using for the Work-In-Progress shots. I haven't been using backgrounds or anything for those though.

Edit - Adding link - https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/739967.page


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
You don't need or want a macro lens - a macro has an incredibly narrow depth of field and minis aren't small enough to need 0.5-1x reproduction unless you need the final image to be huge resolution (are you planning on printing posters with one mini on them?). You will need to focus stack if that's what you're using.

I normally use an 80mm from a distance of 3-4 feet.

My macro lens is a 60mm (on APSC, so 90mm equivalent to full frame). I don't actually run them at macro sizes, I take the photo from about a foot or so away.

In the more recent pictures in my P&M log you'll see the model takes up like... 3/4 of the height? Could maybe do with taking it from a bit further away.

You're too close.

At 1ft and f/32 you're going to have 0.13" of focus. At f/8 you'd have 0.04"!

To get 1.5" of focus at f/16 you need to be about 4.5 feet away.

What's the resolution of the sensor? Think about that and how much of it you actually need to get a useful resolution - the mini doesn't need to fill the frame.

Which flash do you have - a separate flash or the one that pops up on the camera? Have you got a tripod - is there a place where you've got some decent room to move around and position things.

When it comes to taking the photos how do you do it - auto mode - manual mode or another mode?

 Scott-S6 wrote:
You're too close.

At 1ft and f/32 you're going to have 0.13" of focus. At f/8 you'd have 0.04"!

To get 1.5" of focus at f/16 you need to be about 4.5 feet away.

What's the resolution of the sensor? Think about that and how much of it you actually need to get a useful resolution - the mini doesn't need to fill the frame.

24MP sensor. Those photos are also not that helpful to you, as they were taken handheld in poor light, with a flash, and at high ISO, because I was taking them in a hurry before I called it a night and I couldn't be bothered lol.

I'll do another test tonight, but this time from a bit further away and at ISO100, and see what happens.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Which flash do you have - a separate flash or the one that pops up on the camera? Have you got a tripod - is there a place where you've got some decent room to move around and position things.

When it comes to taking the photos how do you do it - auto mode - manual mode or another mode?

Those were a camera flash, but I have a small seperate LED light panel that I'll be using for photos in future as I'd get better/softer light from a decent angle with it.

I usually manually set the Aperture, and leave ISO and SS on automatic, but for these I'll probably use a tripod and have ISO set to something as low as I can get away with.

Ok so a few thoughts that should help out:

1) Softer lighting - Softness of light has everything to do with size. The bigger the light source is relative to the subject, the softer the light will be.
So the small flash on the camera that pops up is going to give fairly harsh light as, even compared to a model, its still a very small source of lighting.
However if you can make that light source, relative to the subject, bigger then even a small flash can make soft light. A Light tent/box is often used for models - a quick googling will give you the idea; basically a cardboard box with the sides cut out and then a sheet of white paper put over the side with the light being shone through the paper. This makes the paper the light source relative to the subject and as the paper is a much bigger surface area than the original light source, the light is thus much softer and more pleasing to work with.


So your LED light setup will be softer, but if you put it behind a larger sheet of white paper you can get it even softer and more ideal.


2) If you are setting the aperture manually then, as noted above, you want a nice small aperture so that you get the most depth of field you want. The smaller the aperture, the bigger the f number and thus the greater the depth of field.

Now the other thing is that as you change the aperture the sharpness also changes. Wide open (smallest f number/biggest aperture) its good on most modern lenses; as you make the aperture smaller (raise the f number) then the sharpness will increase, peaking at around f8-f10 (it varies on the setup and the camera).
After it peaks it will start to reduce again, getting slowly softer and softer. At around f16 or so you'll start to really notice it and at apertures like f22 it will be very noticeable.

Now the important thing to remember here is that if you're only posting online then as long as you sharpen the photo before you resize it for online display and after you resize it for online display* you can often get away with smaller apertures (bigger f number). Though if you are cropping you might want to keep more sharpness (since you'll be throwing a lot of the photo away in the cropping phase)


3) As said above if you are close to the subject then the depth of field reduces; whilst if you are further away it increases. For models this makes it very viable to take photos a little further back and then either zoom in to fill the frame and/or crop the photo in editing .
This combined with using a smaller aperture, should help you get the depth of field you need without having to use focus stacking.


4) A continuous LED light source is not going to be as bright as most flashes are capable of being. What it does give you is a light source that is continuous (makes it easier to see how the light falls on the subject) and which is cool (in terms of the temperature of the unit itself - ergo its not going to heat up and get super hot).
However this coupled with wanting smaller apertures for the depth of field; means that you'll want to use a tripod or other support so that your shutter sped can be slowed down.


5) If you are using slower shutter speeds and taking photos from a tripod remember to watch the floor! It's very easy to get soft photos because you're taking photos on carpet or wooden flooring that moves as you move around and shift your weight onyour feet. A nice hard floor like concrete works best since you can dance around and it won't budge the camera on the tripod.


5) If you want to use focus stacking you can use Helicon Focus and Zerine Stacker - both are very good programs that don't cost too much on a private account (more for commercial use of photos). You can also use Combine ZP which is totally free to use.
Focus stacking brings its own challenges so I'd make sure you can take good photos in a single shot first; before you reach for focus stacking (as that requires a series of well taken photos to work best).



Hopefully this answers some of your questions. The GW link above is a very good read as well.

*Resizing reduces sharpness so sharpening before and after helps - the before is normally fairly strong, the after less intense and just a touch up.

 Overread wrote:
Snip

Thankyou, a lot of that is pretty standard advice, but it's nice to have a checklist of things to look out for when I'm setting up the model. I think my main thing to try first is taking the photo from further away, in order to improve my depth of field. I'm used to either landscapes or macro, and so product photography is an area I've never had to learn the techniques for.

Hopefully between my new light source, and a longer working distance, I'll end up with some nice improvements

I find the biggest help to product style photos is having somewhere you can almost leave setup for them all the time. Even if its only a few bits (like the stage/lightbox etc...). I find that if you can keep an area setup it makes it far easier to use it as opposed to just finishing a model and taking a quick snap with it just because that's faster than getting all the gear out.

 Overread wrote:
I find the biggest help to product style photos is having somewhere you can almost leave setup for them all the time. Even if its only a few bits (like the stage/lightbox etc...). I find that if you can keep an area setup it makes it far easier to use it as opposed to just finishing a model and taking a quick snap with it just because that's faster than getting all the gear out.

Yeh I can see that being an ideal solution, but unfortunately it's hard enough finding space for it even for a single set of photos, let along leaving it set up permanently!

Yeah its the same for me, I just can't leave stuff setup anywhere so most of the time I use a speedlite flash and just turn the head around on it backwards so that it fires and lights up the walls which then reflect the light back onto the model; generally does well for giving some quick diffused light. It's not perfect, but it works well for general snaps.

Niiru wrote:
24MP sensor. Those photos are also not that helpful to you, as they were taken handheld in poor light, with a flash, and at high ISO, because I was taking them in a hurry before I called it a night and I couldn't be bothered lol.

I'll do another test tonight, but this time from a bit further away and at ISO100, and see what happens.

The DoF math isn't affected by any of that - to get a small mini in focus with your setup at a reasonable aperture you need to be 4+ feet away. For a large mini 6+ feet.

NEVER use a flash for miniatures. It's completely unnecessary when you're taking pictures of a static object and will just add glare and harsh shadows. Get a tripod, use natural light and/or a light box, and set a long exposure if necessary. Nothing is moving, so it doesn't matter if you have to use a 10+ second exposure to get the light correct.

Niiru wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I find the biggest help to product style photos is having somewhere you can almost leave setup for them all the time. Even if its only a few bits (like the stage/lightbox etc...). I find that if you can keep an area setup it makes it far easier to use it as opposed to just finishing a model and taking a quick snap with it just because that's faster than getting all the gear out.

Yeh I can see that being an ideal solution, but unfortunately it's hard enough finding space for it even for a single set of photos, let along leaving it set up permanently!

I found that getting a lightbox helped immensely.



Was ~$50 IIRC. You can make one yourself for less, but this one came with two high power LEDs and folds neatly up into something that can be stashed away. There are a number of sizes/options last I looked on Amazon. I do all my photos with an old point and shoot Canon PowerShot S95, so nothing fancy. Lots of light, steady the camera. Probably the two most important things.

 Peregrine wrote:
NEVER use a flash for miniatures. It's completely unnecessary when you're taking pictures of a static object and will just add glare and harsh shadows. Get a tripod, use natural light and/or a light box, and set a long exposure if necessary. Nothing is moving, so it doesn't matter if you have to use a 10+ second exposure to get the light correct.

Pretty much every GW product photo and studio army setup is taken with flash.
Flash isn't inherently evil and more so than any other light source. The key is the size of the lightsource relative to the subject. If the flash is the tiny pop up on the camera then yes its going to give those harsh shadows and the limited angle (on the camera) doesn't help either.

However if you can diffuse it through a larger surface area like a sheet of paper (which is then acting like shooting through one of those umbrellas that studio photographers use) or have a separate flash off the camera and diffused (eg through the sides of a lightbox or using a softbox) then the light will be far softer and more suitable.



You can get that same harsh light with natural sunlight - middle of the day with clear skies and the sun high in the air and thus small and also hardly diffused will give those self same harsh shadows; whilst a cloudy day the light is spread out all over the clouds (of course thick cloud will reduce the sunlight too).


I do agree that if you've nothing but the little popup flash then a tripod and stable surface and slower shutter speed is ideal - just mind to keep an eye on the floor. I've done slower exposures and had blurry results because it was all standing on carpet and thus as I moved around my motions disturbed the surface which got carried to the base of the tripod. Same is true of old wooden flooring - a nice hard stone floor is far better as that won't move around

 Peregrine wrote:
NEVER use a flash for miniatures. It's completely unnecessary when you're taking pictures of a static object and will just add glare and harsh shadows. Get a tripod, use natural light and/or a light box, and set a long exposure if necessary. Nothing is moving, so it doesn't matter if you have to use a 10+ second exposure to get the light correct.

Pure nonsense.

Direct flash is bad for photographing miniatures but it's also bad for photographing everything so that's hardly a newsflash.

Two speedlights in slave mode will let you get good lighting with more consistency than natural light and more control than regular lights.

You also seem to think that flashes and a light box are mutually exclusive which is also incorrect.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Niiru wrote:
24MP sensor. Those photos are also not that helpful to you, as they were taken handheld in poor light, with a flash, and at high ISO, because I was taking them in a hurry before I called it a night and I couldn't be bothered lol.

I'll do another test tonight, but this time from a bit further away and at ISO100, and see what happens.

The DoF math isn't affected by any of that - to get a small mini in focus with your setup at a reasonable aperture you need to be 4+ feet away. For a large mini 6+ feet.

Haha, I'm perfectly aware of the DoF maths, my point was that the -quality- of the photos wouldn't help you figure out any problems, as they were taken in terrible circumstances and settings. Even the 'in focus' areas are muddy because of the high ISO.

Which is why I said I'd be taking the new photos at ISO100 (for better quality) and from further away (for greater DoF).

My only concern was that I would need to be so far away from the subject that it would end up small in the picture, which is why I was considering focus stacking. I'll try it the normal way first though

I find taking pics outside in natural light is far better than flashes or fancy gizmos

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Pure nonsense.

Direct flash is bad for photographing miniatures but it's also bad for photographing everything so that's hardly a newsflash.

Two speedlights in slave mode will let you get good lighting with more consistency than natural light and more control than regular lights.

You also seem to think that flashes and a light box are mutually exclusive which is also incorrect.

Yes, of course if you're talking about professional quality flashes with indirect lighting bounces and diffusers and such it's going to work. But when a newbie to photography thinks of "flash" it's in the context of the built-in flash on their camera and not a proper lighting setup.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Pure nonsense.

Direct flash is bad for photographing miniatures but it's also bad for photographing everything so that's hardly a newsflash.

Two speedlights in slave mode will let you get good lighting with more consistency than natural light and more control than regular lights.

You also seem to think that flashes and a light box are mutually exclusive which is also incorrect.

Yes, of course if you're talking about professional quality flashes with indirect lighting bounces and diffusers and such it's going to work. But when a newbie to photography thinks of "flash" it's in the context of the built-in flash on their camera and not a proper lighting setup.

I'd agree that normally when someone says 'camera flash' they usually mean either the built in pop-up flash, or at best the small hotshoe flash that gets included with some cameras. These usually aren't great for product shots, as they tend to be short ranged and so a bit harsh, with a lot of reflections.

Speedlights and light boxes are a whole other level.

Though there are ways to get a decent result from a bad built-in flash, using bounce cards and diffusers and the like, but it's not the 'default' that I think Peregrine was referring to.

I plan to use my hotshoe flash (diffused), along with a seperate LED panel, to try and get a decent lighting between them (hopefully). Will take some experimentation.

Daylight is obviously an even better option, but I usually do my modelling type activities at night.

Shunned into the dark places of the earth with the other misfits.

Virtually all hot shoe flashes have a slave mode for use off camera (or you can just use an extension cable to get them off camera). There's no good reason to be using a camera mounted flash in a static setup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

Yes, of course if you're talking about professional quality flashes with indirect lighting bounces and diffusers and such it's going to work. But when a newbie to photography thinks of "flash" it's in the context of the built-in flash on their camera and not a proper lighting setup.

You don't need a professional quality anything to point your flash head at the wall. Lots of cheap speedlights out there.

OP has a decent DSLR, a moderately expensive lens and understands how DoF works so I'm not sure why you think newbie advice is appropriate.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
OP has a decent DSLR, a moderately expensive lens and understands how DoF works so I'm not sure why you think newbie advice is appropriate.

Because they're talking about focus stacking in a situation where it makes no sense, are taking their pictures handheld at high ISO and with automatic settings, state that they're using the built-in flash, and have a gallery full of pictures that look like they're done by someone who knows some of the terms but doesn't have much camera experience? If OP isn't a newbie I would be very surprised.

Yeah but that's what all of the other stuff that was advised was about. In fact most of us were not advising the OP reach for focus stacking as a starting point and that there were several other options to consider first for both positioning and lighting.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
OP has a decent DSLR, a moderately expensive lens and understands how DoF works so I'm not sure why you think newbie advice is appropriate.

Because they're talking about focus stacking in a situation where it makes no sense, are taking their pictures handheld at high ISO and with automatic settings, state that they're using the built-in flash, and have a gallery full of pictures that look like they're done by someone who knows some of the terms but doesn't have much camera experience? If OP isn't a newbie I would be very surprised.

Focus stacking makes perfect sense for small models, depending on how you take the photo. You could, of course, take the photo from further away instead, but then you end up with a much smaller photo with less detail. Which one works out better I don't know, as I haven't tested both.

I took photos handheld at high ISO because (as I said, I'm sorry that reading was too much for you) I was in a hurry to take a couple of shots before I packed up for the night.

I have a gallery full of photos that were pretty much all taken with camera phones many years ago.

Also I don't specialise in product photography, so I have none of the lightboxes or techniques for it. I do landscapes and wildlife, neither of which tend to work well with trying to set up a lightbox around it. So I know perfectly well how a camera works, but not how best to use that to get the most from an unusual subject like a 2" high model. (Which is neither macro nor standard portrait).

So yeh, you've given some great advice, but I don't appreciate the patronising judginess or the attitude.

You really aren't going to lose detail taking the picture from further away. What sort of resolution are you going to process it to for posting? 2MP maybe? Think about how small an amount of the sensor you need for that.