Technic Photography

[lcvisser]

For outdoor shots, I like pictures that make scale models look full size. This one by Holger Matthes is one of my favorites.

(image of huge bucket wheel excavator)

Dennis Bosman puts quite some effort in location scouting for his trucks:

Mercedes Benz Actros 3353 by Dennis Bosman, on Flickr

See more of his work here: https://www.flickr.c...157639232835425 and http://dennisbosman.nl

[dr_spock]

Day 171 of 365: Oh Bucket It by dr_spock_888, on Flickr

[Werlu Ulcur]

Sometimes I question my mental age because it never gets old seeing JarJar getting trashed .

[Doc_Brown]

Some amazing photos here! I'm starting to like the charcoal/darker backgrounds, might give it a try! :D

Here's my fav pic, AKA my avatar.

IMG_7440bw2 by Doc_brown1, on Flickr

[Werlu Ulcur]

The Rhino Express:

And the "real" photo here:

[nerdsforprez]

Nice pictures guys, the gray background is indeed very nice ! I do not have so much talent at taking cool pics. I think this is one of my best photos taken so far .

In your case, it has nothing to do with lack of talent. It's actually a pretty cool picture, but you lack a proper backdrop and lighting. That's a simple matter of investing some money

Or try taking outdoor shots. There are some great examples in this topic.

...Or it could cost nothing. Funny, your pic is almost the exact same angle and positioning of a photo that I took with my model of the Liebherr 1500.8.1. I added the text but try to see this pic without the text. Really really similar to your shot. All I did was download GIMP, fuzzy selected the image and did a white background change. cleaned up the parts that were not selected and aside from the text...voila! Done! Cost to do all this.....0$ USD. If you convert this to euros.... it is still 0$

[TheItalianBrick]

Hope it's welcome!

Edited June 22, 2015 by TheItalianBrick

[dr_spock]

Sometimes I question my mental age because it never gets old seeing JarJar getting trashed .

Sometimes I question my sanity of trying to take a Jar Jar photo a day for 365 days. It can be a real drag some days.

Day 173 of 365: Racing Drag by dr_spock_888, on Flickr

I think it has help me find a cheap simple setup and cut down the number of pictures I have to take to get at least a good one.

[miguev]

...Or it could cost nothing. Funny, your pic is almost the exact same angle and positioning of a photo that I took with my model of the Liebherr 1500.8.1. I added the text but try to see this pic without the text. Really really similar to your shot. All I did was download GIMP, fuzzy selected the image and did a white background change. cleaned up the parts that were not selected and aside from the text...voila! Done! Cost to do all this.....0$ USD. If you convert this to euros.... it is still 0$

That helps, but the color and shading in yours is still quite worse, sorry! What really helps a lot is starting off from a better photo and that's usually the case when you have better light. Or know better how to use the one you've got, I guess.

[Rishab N]

I was inspired by this thread and tried to take some photos of my copy of Crowkillers's Vampire GT with/without Lifelites in the sunset. I think they turned out ok for a first try, but I think I should have waited until it was darker

Here's a try at some photo editing

None of these are really the level of some of the pics in this thread, but I hope to improve sometime

[miguev]

BTW there's a awe-ful lot of good photography in the Star Wars LEGO Photography thread, and it seems to me most people set off like "Step 1: Find really good light."

Anyway I like that thread for ideas on how to shoot smaller models, people there manage to make minifigs look not so tiny, even in forestry setups.

As hard as I tried to avoid it, my Orange Buggy turned out looking tiny, surrounded by fallen leaves.

[Werlu Ulcur]

Sometimes I question my sanity of trying to take a Jar Jar photo a day for 365 days.

Come to think of it, hating JarJar does imply a certain advanced mental age...

What really helps a lot is starting off from a better photo and that's usually the case when you have better light.

Lighting is everything. I always say that to make a good shot you have to have 70% of GOOD lighting, 10% of good equipment and 20% of luck. Get the light right and as long as the object is in focus the rest are details. And of course, a good eye for framing goes a long way for that 20% of luck criteria.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Werlu Ulcur

[miguev]

Lighting is everything. I always say that to make a good shot you have to have 70% of GOOD lighting, 10% of good equipment and 20% of luck. Get the light right and as long as the object is in focus the rest are details. And of course, a good eye for framing goes a long way for that 20% of luck criteria.

Would you also say that you must shoot at sunrise or sunset, or you may as well forget about it? Just kidding, but for a moment I thought we sound like we're talking about landscape photography

I guess quite a bit of that goes into shooting models outdoors. To me it's lately more about "f/8 and being there", although I'm more prone to f/1.8 or f/2.8, being there (getting out) is really hard these days.

[Werlu Ulcur]

If you want to make a "documentary shot" there's not much to discuss - you have to get the whole object in sharp focus and illuminate it in an uniform way, so that the viewer can have the best clear view of the object as possible. Not getting into the merit of it, but to me that causes the shot to become a bit artificial. Of course these shots have a purpose and you can achieve some (really) beautiful results, but I would rather have a more "natural" feel to the shot - and that doesn't mean you can only use natural light, far from it. By no means I'm anything close to some artsy purist but I do prefer less-composed shots that you can make by basically using only the camera and a flash. My wife says I'm probably the only adult in the world who can't photograph anything without getting his clothes dirty.

[miguev]

If you want to make a "documentary shot" there's not much to discuss - you have to get the whole object in sharp focus and illuminate it in an uniform way, so that the viewer can have the best clear view of the object as possible. Not getting into the merit of it, but to me that causes the shot to become a bit artificial. Of course these shots have a purpose and you can achieve some (really) beautiful results, but I would rather have a more "natural" feel to the shot - and that doesn't mean you can only use natural light, far from it. By no means I'm anything close to some artsy purist but I do prefer less-composed shots that you can make by basically using only the camera and a flash. My wife says I'm probably the only adult in the world who can't photograph anything without getting his clothes dirty.

I prefer more composed (careful framing and lighting) shots with natural light... and I'm certainly not one to come back with clean trousers, as my wife learned early on

Edited June 23, 2015 by miguev

[gti180]

Teasers are always good fun!

[MajklSpajkl]

@gti180: No they are not.

[MaxSupercars]

gti180:

Nice MAN ? Do you have also other photos?

Max...

[dr_spock]

Is there a man? I see a blade of grass. That seems to be what the photographer wants the viewer to focus on.

[Werlu Ulcur]

...and I'm certainly not one to come back with clean trousers, as my wife learned early on

Try doing that with a reflex camera...

[gti180]

I will update my WIP topic soon, but for now this is just an example of a teaser photograph

Edited June 23, 2015 by gti180

[MaxSupercars]

Is there a man? I see a blade of grass. That seems to be what the photographer wants the viewer to focus on.

MAN is german truck maker... :)

Max...

Edited June 23, 2015 by MaxSupercars

[miguev]

Try doing that with a reflex camera...

Done it many times with several D/SLRs (Olympus OM-1, Nikon FM-2n, D80, D90 and D700). Even done it with film SLRs not looking through the viewfinder, not a problem with a 24mm

Too bad people around me aren't often up for capturing the moment. I'm getting old and D700 is so heavy, I want to switch to something like Olympus OM-D EM-1 some day, but I'm not giving up on dirty trousers and shoes. Last fall ended up walking the entire Rapperswil wooden bridge barefoot with dripping shoes hanging from baby stroller. Also stepped in quicksand-like swamp once... whatever it takes to get the shot!

Luckily, shooting LEGO needn't be like that. The worst I've got is some neck and wrist pain getting really low angles, but nothing wet

@gti180: No they are not.

Hey, fun is in teh eye of teh beeholder

Edited June 23, 2015 by miguev

[drakmin]

Hi,

here is my really simple setup which I used to photograph my siege tank moc. Main light is sun behind window which is softened through a transparent curtain. Secondary light is a bare 25W bulb to simulate cannon fire. In my opinion single most important factor is the quality of light used, many things can be post processed but the softness or hardness of the light remains.

Sunlight softened through curtain

original .jpg file from the camera

as you can see I overexposured the curtain for easier postprocessing and to capture details in the shadow areas

postprocessed raw from the camera (d700 + af-s 50/1.4)

Edited June 23, 2015 by drakmin

[Werlu Ulcur]

I crave for a D700... May be heavy and cumbersome, but just does it.

drakmin, beautiful! I saw your siege tank shot elsewhere and wondered how much of it was PS. It came out absolutely fantastic!