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.

Greetings,
First of all, I want to appologice for my English... it's not my primery languich, so if I have some mistakes... sorry.

Since I have been painting and taking pictures of my figures, the photos was preetty crappy.
I bought a good camera (Canon 450D, Lens 18-55), but I need some tips for setup that will be able to take good SHARP pics.
Mostly I have a problem to balance bitween light, apperture and shutter speed (Have good soft two sided light above figures without any shadows) .
If you have any reccomendations for setup, I'll realy appriciat it.

B.R.
Alex

1 TRIPOD.
2. MACRO MODE (Look for the little flower).
3. READ the MANUAL (it will tell you the focus distance for this mode). This is important. Do not go closer than this.
4. Use the self-timer in addition to this mode. It should eliminate camera shake in addition (when you press the shutter button, you DO shake the camera - even just a little).

Light/aperture/shutter speed is a balance you have to learn. There is no magic all-in-one setting for all jobs. It depends a lot on the colour of the object, as well as size, details, etc. Getting this balance right is the important bit.

 chromedog wrote:
1 TRIPOD.
2. MACRO MODE (Look for the little flower).
3. READ the MANUAL (it will tell you the focus distance for this mode). This is important. Do not go closer than this.
4. Use the self-timer in addition to this mode. It should eliminate camera shake in addition (when you press the shutter button, you DO shake the camera - even just a little).

Light/aperture/shutter speed is a balance you have to learn. There is no magic all-in-one setting for all jobs. It depends a lot on the colour of the object, as well as size, details, etc. Getting this balance right is the important bit.

Many TNXs. I'll deffenetly read the manual.

PS
Slould I bay a Macro lens? Or the one that I have is enough for that?

The canon 18-55 lens is usually enough. If you put it on manual focus and scroll right in you can get pretty good macro shots. I wouldn't buy a specific macro lens unless you wanted to use it for other things as well.

The thing to remember in macro mode is that the area of an object that is in sharp focus will be quite small, so you could, for instance, have the head in sharp focus the arms and legs may be blurred. You can prevent this to a certain extent with a very small aperture, but then you need a lot more light.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
An example of a wide aperture macro shot



And an example of a narrow aperture shot. If you click on the pictures the dakka gallery has all the camera settings I used at the bottom of the page

 Flinty wrote:
The canon 18-55 lens is usually enough. If you put it on manual focus and scroll right in you can get pretty good macro shots. I wouldn't buy a specific macro lens unless you wanted to use it for other things as well.

The thing to remember in macro mode is that the area of an object that is in sharp focus will be quite small, so you could, for instance, have the head in sharp focus the arms and legs may be blurred. You can prevent this to a certain extent with a very small aperture, but then you need a lot more light.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
An example of a wide aperture macro shot



And an example of a narrow aperture shot. If you click on the pictures the dakka gallery has all the camera settings I used at the bottom of the page

Thank you for your answer
This is kinde of tips I was looking for.