[HELP] Picturing the galaxy

[Bob De Quatre]

To help players get the maximum out of their builds, they need to learn how to properly picture them. In this thread you will be able to do 3 things:

• Present how you take pictures of your model, how you edit the pictures, and give general advices
  
• Request help or tips for your pictures
  
• Give advices or tips to players
  

As the threads grows, an index of photography settings and usefull tips will be updated. Thanks for your participation.

[Big Sal]

Great idea Bob! I'll post my setup and tips when I get a chance!

[Bob De Quatre]

Here is a description of my old photography setup.

Light sources

I had a light source on each sides, and one optionnal directionnal light source for top or front lighting. I bought very cheap lamp, but used cold white light bulbs that are more expensives but give better "daylight" light.

Background

I used (and still use!) A3 sized cardboard as background. The nice thing with the cardboard is that they are cheap, and they can bend easily.

I bought different colored cardboard, but I mostly use the white and light grey ones.

Camera

I own a Samsung WB202F camera. It's a rather cheap camera with not so great settings, but it still gives me good pictures with the right settings (which are hard to find, so I don't change them often!).

I use a small tripod to stabilize the camera, and I always shot 2 or 3 time the same picture, to later select the best.

[Jody Meyer]

Thank you for starting this Bob. I am working on building a PVC tube light box 24x24x24 so lots of room, I have the light sources already, three white led bulbs, for now also going to be incorporating an LED strip to add color if needed. Tripod (check) I have a few. DSLR Canon D60, now just get my builds up to par, as well as my story telling.

[Dannylonglegs]

Yes, Thanks, Bob! Good call!

I use my (used prior to purchase and abused subsequently) Galaxy Note 2's inbuilt camera, the light of the sun, a white poster board, and my arms to hold the camera steady. I edit in instagram, which gives my photos their characteristic square shape.

I wish I could create a photo box or something to take pictures at night, which is when I'm forced to do so these days.

~Insectoid Aristocrat

[Big Sal]

Ok, so I make no claim to be a great photographer, but I'll share some things I've learned.

Light sources

Whenever humanly possible, I take my photos in daylight. I'm lucky enough to live high up in a flat with big windows, so as long as it's daytime I have easily enough light. In fact I usually have to use a big piece of white card to block the direct light (see setup photo below). The only problem with taking photos during the day is that the light can change over time, but it's worth the risk.

When I have to take photos at night, I use a bunch of cheap lamps with daylight bulbs and tissues covering them to diffuse the light a bit. I don't like how these photos turn out - the lighting ends up too harsh. These two photos show what I mean - the first is taken in the day and the second one at night. Besides the warmer colours in the daytime one, the night time one looks more toy-like and less real. Notice the difference on Big Sal's glorious hair for example. If anyone has any tips for that, I'd be glad to hear them!

Background

Size A1 card for me when I can find it, in various colours. The bigger the better - I'm always finding my MOCs are too wide or tall for the background! You want a single piece of card where possible to avoid join lines.

Camera

I recently bought a Canon Powershot S120, which has all kinds of settings to fiddle with and is great. Before that I was using an Olympus VG170, which was... less great. The main problem was that it had a stupid autofocus that never seemed to focus where I wanted it to. My new one has a touchscreen and you just press where you want it to focus, which is awesome. But absolutely the most critical feature of all is a timer function so you can press the button and step away so that there are no vibrations when the photo takes. You'll need a tripod for that too, but they're not expensive (this is mine) and you can always build a crude tabletop one out of Lego if necessary.

Settings

You should look up the meanings of the settings that your camera lets you change. In general though, your aim is for as low an ISO number as you can get away with, since it makes your photos less grainy, assuming you have enough light. Your photo takes longer to take, but who cares? If the camera's held in place with a tripod that's no problem.

General tips

• Buy/build/steal a tripod, or something/anything other than your hands to hold your camera steady, and use the timer function! This is the single biggest and easiest way to improve your photos, especially if you don't have a good camera.
  
• Take lots of photos for each single photo that you want to include in your post. The better your camera and setup is, the fewer you'll have to take to get a good quality one. If you're relying on your camera/phone to focus for you, it's worth taking plenty until it magically decides to get it right.
  

Ok, here's my daytime setup:

The big piece of white card blocks direct sunlight from the windows. Emmet is just there to hold the black card in place. The waffle maker and bottles of beer are optional, but they can help

Night time:

Get a tripod and use the timer!

Edited November 9, 2015 by Big Sal

[mccoyed]

Wow, Sal. That's an intense setup. What's with the kleenex on the lamps?

[dr_spock]

Kleenex is to help diffuse the light so there isn't harsh bright spots. It might be safer to use something less burnable if you have hot light bulbs.

[Jody Meyer]

Also...beer is always helpful...another trick to bring it in light is to use a mirror and use of angles, but this brings in harsh light. Photoshop is also your friend or Lightroom.

[mrcp6d]

Kleenex is to help diffuse the light so there isn't harsh bright spots. It might be safer to use something less burnable if you have hot light bulbs.

Where's your sense of adventure?

another trick to bring it in light is to use a mirror and use of angles, but this brings in harsh light.

Aluminum foil. Yeah, I'm that cheap.

GIMP is pretty solid for editing. And free.

Edit: keyboard freaked out...

Edited November 10, 2015 by mrcp6d

[Big Sal]

Kleenex is to help diffuse the light so there isn't harsh bright spots. It might be safer to use something less burnable if you have hot light bulbs.

Yes, that's a good point! I use LED bulbs so they don't get very hot, but tissues wouldn't be too clever if you're using less efficient bulbs

Edited November 10, 2015 by Big Sal

[Dannylonglegs]

Yes, that's a good point! I use LED bulbs so they don't get very hot, but tissues wouldn't be too clever if you're using less efficient bulbs

Yeah, I once tried to use tissue paper to colour the lights in a room for a party.

I started a fire. Fortunately the smoke alarms weren't working, and no one really noticed.

~Insectoid Aristocrat

[Vedauwoo]

I am a professional photographer...but that really is just a fancy way of saying "unemployed in my field of choice".....

I also have dabbled in film and lighting since I was about 6 years old....that being said....anything can work...you don't have to be fancy....creativity often comes from unusual sources and/or adversity!

Anyway...Here's what I use....

As you can see...this is inside the front door of our apartment...lol, simple push pins to hold the paper...and sandals to keep it from rolling up....

It's a 53" (or 1,36m for the non-backward countries) sheet of seamless paper I got from a local photo shop 5 years ago...

apparently, it was $24.99 then..

It can accommodate some fairly sizable builds...

The bulbs are standard 60 watt incandescents....and my camera is the iPhone 5s....

The standard "camera" app does all the ISO, Aperture and color correction work....but if I need to set a specific setting, I also use the "Manual camera" app...which allows me to freeze any and/or all settings to a specific value.

I also own a Canon 50D, but find the iFone does amazingly well in a great deal of situations....

I just generally overlap the lights on the subject, and shoot handheld...

On this shot I used a card to shade the back and moved one light to the side

For this shot, I was on the back deck near sunset....the dramatic angle and harshness of the light really mimic the feel of an asteroid or moonscape:

For editing/adjustment, I use the "Snapseed" app.....I can't remember if it's free or not...and the app store doesn't show me now that I own it...lol, but I think it's free or less than $5...

It has "Tools" and "Filters" that work with a swipe...

Other than the Brightness, Ambiance, Contrast, Saturation controls in "Tune Image," I often use "Lens Blur" and/or "Vignette" to focus attention or intensify the mood:

In "Filters" I find HDRscape can add an atmospheric feel....reminds me of humidity:

Other than that....I use Photoshop to resize images to 500 or 600 pixels on the longest side....and photobucket to host the images.

Hope that helps someone....somewhere.....

Edited November 14, 2015 by Vedauwoo

[Bob De Quatre]

So here is my (new) photo setup. I use a cheap lightbox available on amazon in various size. I have a 80cm one, that is big enough for me to actually build inside

As you can see I still use cardboard sheets.

[Jody Meyer]

I was looking into getting one of these, does it fold away nicely? I built the PVC one that is all over utube, I think I am going to tweak it a bit, longer legs, thinner material...

Cheers Bob

Thanks for posting this.

[Bob De Quatre]

It folds and unfilds in a few seconds, and is only a few milimeters thick when folded.

[goatman461]

Does anybody edit with a Mac? Long story short, I'm trying to switch over from my laptop to my wife's old Mac but haven't been able to get GIMP to work correctly.

I was also considering getting a Wacom tablet http://www.wacom.com/en-us. Does anybody use one of these? Or do you have an alternative to a mouse for editing? I'm not sure I can put up with this one-button mouse.

[MKJoshA]

Does anybody edit with a Mac? Long story short, I'm trying to switch over from my laptop to my wife's old Mac but haven't been able to get GIMP to work correctly.

I'd love to know the answer to this as well! My wife has a Mac, but doesn't want to learn GIMP. I still haven't found a good program for her.

[Commander Turtle]

I was also considering getting a Wacom tablet http://www.wacom.com/en-us. Does anybody use one of these? Or do you have an alternative to a mouse for editing? I'm not sure I can put up with this one-button mouse.

Wacoms are absolutely fantastic, but their primary purpose is sketching. So, it can be helpful if you're masking or doing some additional shading on the canvas itself, but in general for editing a good optical mouse will be fine.

On the other hand, if you like to draw, a cheap little Bamboo (edit: Looks like the branding is 'Intuos Draw' now) can be fun to have around. And they're reliable as hell; I've had my Intuos3 for about a decade now.

Edited February 27, 2016 by Commander Turtle

[Lady K]

Does anybody edit with a Mac? Long story short, I'm trying to switch over from my laptop to my wife's old Mac but haven't been able to get GIMP to work correctly.

I was also considering getting a Wacom tablet http://www.wacom.com/en-us. Does anybody use one of these? Or do you have an alternative to a mouse for editing? I'm not sure I can put up with this one-button mouse.

I use Pixlr for my Mac. It works great, is free for basic editing, and generally easy to use. Hope this helps.

[Kai NRG]

Finally got around to taking a picture of my picture-taking set up. It was easy to forget about.

Obviously large MOCs require more sheets of paper (pretty much anything over 32x32). The wood slats aren't the flatest things on the block, but they're not bad. I move the set-up around as shade requires; so sometimes I take pictures on the front porch or on a table off to the side.

I do not shoot with a tripod - I tried it and didn't experience the magical improvement so many AFOLs promised it would bring. Seriously; I can't tell the difference, at all, and it's a good deal more work. So I shoot handheld, with a minimal of messing around with the settings on the camera. Macro is definitely a must, and on occasion Super Macro is useful too. I almost never zoom, not quite sure why, but I've just gotten into the habit of putting the camera as close as possible for close-ups. Sometimes maybe that results in distortion, but usually I think it ends up fine.

Editing generally involves a little bit of brightness and contrast (or a lot if I shoot on white paper) and a bit of work on the color, especially on the temperature which can really affect the vibrancy of green colors in particular.

For very large builds, I sometimes edit out the whole background. A painstaking process, but I'm a lot faster at it now than I used to be!

[Kodan Black]

Ok, I often see on here and TBB people doing 1 brick wide walls that don't have any light leak and I'm wondering how people are pulling that off! I often do 2 wide and still get light leak from behind at times. Is there some magical secret that I'm missing? Tape/paper on the back side?

[David FNJ]

Ok, I often see on here and TBB people doing 1 brick wide walls that don't have any light leak and I'm wondering how people are pulling that off! I often do 2 wide and still get light leak from behind at times. Is there some magical secret that I'm missing? Tape/paper on the back side?

If you do a 2-brick wide wall you'd need to make sure that the seams from the first wall are all covered, else you'll still have the light showing through. I've used paper or something similar in the past though. I think the easiest would be to take pictures at an angle so that the light gaps don't show.

[Big Sal]

If I'm getting light leak I generally just prop an appropriate size black plate behind the wall