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So I recently built myself a homemade lightbox (nothing too fancy, but serviceable and cheap )

Anyway I've been experimenting with a few different background colours for taking photos with and I could use some feedback as to what looks best.

To get a reasonable range of comparisons, I've used both light (white) and dark (black) backgrounds and taken pics of a mini with a darker colour scheme (DKoK Quartermaster)
and a lighter colour scheme (Eureka Frog Musician). All of these photos were taken in natural light.

So without further ado:



The Quartermaster on White BG, I'm not a huge fan of this shot, it seems like the background has washed out the photo leaving details darker and more obscure than they actually are.



The Frog on White BG, While the model isn't as washed out as the Quartermaster is, I still think that the photo looks too flat and uninteresting



The Quartermaster on Black BG, This is IMO MUCH better than the white BG, however the shot is lighter than I would want (although I suspect this is a problem more with my camera than the BG) and also it was an absolute to get this in focus.



The Frog on Black BG, This is probably my favourite shot of the bunch, the mini looks pretty close to how it looks IRL (as close as I'll get with my slightly rubbish Nikon anyway) and I like the way the black background looks, it seems quite professional to me.

As an experiment, I also tried a couple of coloured backgrounds for comparison. I only used the DKoK model for these.



Red BG, I didn't really expect much from this colour and it definitely doesn't look great. I kinda just did it to see what would happen.



Blue BG, I was pleasantly surprised with the results of this one, IMO it is the best shot of the Quartermaster that I have and was a lot less hassle to get in focus than the Black BG shot was.


My initial thoughts after this little test is that I should use the black background for lighter miniatures and the blue background for darker ones. What do you guys think?

i think you answered your own question really. The black one looks very good, but it's also nice to have different options for colours, depending on the model you are photographing. They all look good, though the white seems very stark.
Fort standard mini pictures I'd go with the black, personally, for dark maybe the white or the blue, depending on the model.

I think the blue works best, but possibly only because there is so much black on the model that details are being lost in the black background pic.

Regarding focussing, do you have an option to manual focus? Also try a smaller aperture to bring more of the model into focus.

 Flinty wrote:


Regarding focussing, do you have an option to manual focus? Also try a smaller aperture to bring more of the model into focus.

Sadly no, I am stuck with a rather old, battered camera until I get the chance to buy something better, the auto-focus is usually alright but with the black background and darker mini it just refused to focus.

I love the DKOK in the grey background. I don't know if it's just the fig or the pic. But it seems to be the crispest.

Regarding backgrounds, I've had good results with a light or medium grey gradient.

You said the photos were taken with natural light. Don't you use directional lighting at all?

 ProfessionalAmateur wrote:
the auto-focus is usually alright but with the black background and darker mini it just refused to focus.

May end up being a non-issue, as the darker model seems much better served by the blue background, but sometimes you can spook the lens into focusing by poking something - a pencil, a finger, etc. - directly in front of the subject, briefly. After the lens has managed to focus on the easier target, it can usually manage to fine-tune itself for the final shot, since it's so close, already. It's worked for me with more than one camera, so it may help with yours, as well.

Pancritic wrote:


You said the photos were taken with natural light. Don't you use directional lighting at all?

Not yet, however I do have a lamp ready to go, all I need is a daylight bulb, the normal sort just doesn't look right.