miguev

Eurobricks Citizen
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Everything posted by miguev

  1. I'm sure there'll be more comments and you already got a few good answers :) Golden / magic hours when the sun is very low, sometimes even when it's behind the horizon. I'd say this is when it's a bit harder to get the light where you want it, but as soon as you get it the shot will very likely look great. Softer or harder shadows are indeed a personal choice, I think they influence a lot the impression they give, e.g. softer shadows make it look milder, harder shadows make it look wilder, like #169's crawler. Then there's the compromise of how easy it is to get the light right, and to get a great looking shot. My impressions is that softer and harder shadows are complete opposites: - with softer shadows, it's much easier to get the light (or maybe I mean contrast) right, but shots are more likely to look boring - with harder shadows, it's much harder to get the light right, but if you get it then shots are more likely to look great It looks great, I like the backlight a lot. Should try that with my 8051 some day...
  2. Fantastic! We need more buses and you're doing great ones, specially at this scale. I love the door mechanism, the way the doors open and get in feels pretty real.
  3. Not without a long-range, low-latency, precise remote control system. I'm still hoping BLE can be used for that, but so far SBrick didn't quite get the low-latency requirement.
  4. This is absolutely fantastic! Given how packed with feature this is already, I certainly don't miss breaks or gearbox.
  5. How about this: soft spring in axles 1 & 3 and hard spring in axles 2 & 4. I'm thinking this would alleviate the load on the sort spring shocks by having an axle with hard spring shocks very close by, while at the same time allowing the first of each par of axles to hit a bump to react quickly to it. I won't get this set until January, so please report back if you try this Exactly what I had in mind... can't wait to see how it can be done.
  6. Thank you for your kind comment Because I posted this after seeing rm8’s Double Trouble. At that time I felt "meh, why should I post this now?", frustrated trying to get some decent recording of such an unmaneuverable vehicle. But you guys are a great bunch, and always welcome even failed projects, so I took some photos a posted before giving time to frustration to pile up. I'm glad I didn't keep it all to myself in the end. I hope to get my 4th L motor with the 42043 in January, then maybe I'll try something like that. I'm not sure it'll fit in the scale for these tyres, but anything bigger will be too heavy. This one is already around 1150 g. and it's probably too heave for 2 L motors to drive any fast. The sideways stability is probably a result of keeping proportions to scale with the original vehicle, except width, which is 2 studs wider than it should be. Luckily for me, rm8 already explain what happens to steering portals after doing that, and I won't do that to my precious ones from 8070. I used them in the hopes they would make steering more precise, but with the SBrick latency issues it's all worth peanuts. Build using the Force like
  7. Yes, actually, here. I don't think the chassis will be very exciting, but I'll try make a "Jedi Build" video of it later this year. I was hoping to film it better this or next week, but with a red alert for heat wave and me no liking hot air at all, will have to postpone quite a bit. Once I'm done with the filming, I'll take it a part and record that. So it'll be at least a couple of months
  8. Nice! That transformation caught me by surprise
  9. Great review, it's soooo much easy to say I BUY IT without concerns with all the details in this review... thanks!
  10. Impressive. Never seen 2 buggy motors do so well in a trial truck, and it seems a whole lot more stable in action than at first sight.
  11. Thanks! I need to get myself a black felt, the cloth I have is too shiny and keeps reflecting light with too much texture.
  12. +1 on shooting RAW if you can. There's always the possibility of discarding the RAW file once you're done with the post-processing, but I'd keep it around "just in case" you get better at post-processing later on I use rawtherapee (on Linux) and so far so good, it allows me to do so much more than I can to understand Before I comment one other stuff, there's one thing I found worth mentioning from Jim's 42043 review photos: be aware of how distance to subject changes the relative size of objects in the background. You may also say that focal length makes the difference, since longer lenses will make you step back and wider lenses the other way around. Here's an example I think could be done better with a wide-angle less and getting really close to the subject: It's a great background for these subjects, but objects in the background appear too big. I think getting up close with your camera's equivalent to a full-frame 35mm f/2 (*) would make the objects in the background smaller, thus giving a more realistic or "full size" feeling to the subjects. Sadly I don't have a good example at hand, maybe this tiny 20mm frog helps visualize my point? What I mean to say is: don't forget wide-angle lenses, they ain't cheap but they can give nice results in situations where everybody tends to use longer or macro lenses. I should go out and shoot my 42030 out there some day and try that, I don't think I can get to a construction though. (*) Maybe the Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM would do, but I only know Nikon so can't really recommend any. If you're into wide-angle zooms, I've read all over the place that Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X Pro DX II is an amazing one. I guess what you don't like is when someone posts only this kind of photos in the end. Even when revealing the final product, selective focus and narrow DoF can help highlighting part of the model, any size. I like this one from Jim's 42043 review, it makes the whole cabin stand out and keeps the rest of the truck from distracting you: Yeah, kit lenses usually don't open more than f/4-5.6 or f/3.5 at wide-angle. That, and their lower quality of glass, are two very good reasons to invest $100/€100 in a good old 50mm f/1.8 like the one I think Jim uses. It's the absolutely best quality/price ratio you can ever get. Also, each lens has it's own sweet spot between too narrow DoF wide open and diffraction closed all the way to f/16, f/22, etc. I read here and there: close 2 stops from wide open and you'll normally be in or very near to the sweet spot. Indeed for a f/4-5.6 kit lens, that means f/8-11. Oh my g o s h! Forget about camera & lens, how did you get such a perfect black background?
  13. Or choose very carefully, and then arrange accurately, what needs to be in focus to give the impression that "the subject is in focus". I find this much easier with faces: just focus on the nearest eye and you've got it (examples: human, duplo-sized, gotta try minifigs). With eye-less objects, I struggle to find that sweet spot, sometimes the nearest edge or surface with texture works with simple objects (example), but with vehicles I find myself clueless as to what is it that will "fool" people: headlights, grille, driver, wheel, ... what is it? Please tell us if you know! Like this? I'd expect such shots aim to highlight a small part of the subject, if someone provides only this kind of shots s/he probably doesn't want to reveal more details just yet... it's a teaser!
  14. Nailed it, just the same with my 4yo and 12yo here Tons of good luck with that!
  15. Can't wait for Jim's "report", only 2 days to go! I'm sorry if you think your eyes have gone wonky when looking at some of our photos, but we'll keep doin' it... If it is any consolation, I feel the same most of the times when reading from PC screens
  16. miguev

    Star Wars LEGO Photography

    Hey Werlu, I see where you got the idea for starting the Technic Photography thread, and thank you so much for that! The great work from all of you inspired me, I don't have any Star Wars set but I might borrow some minifigs and small stuff from my kids and/or friends to try my hand at this Looking forward to seeing more photos here, it's taken me like two weeks to read through this 139 pages!
  17. DoF is tricky, still haven't got the hang of it. I admire when (and wonder how) people manage to get just enough of the subject in focus at f/2 or even f/1.x -- I always wind up with a tiny fraction of the subject in focus and everything else much too blurry. Another thing I find tricky is black-on-black shots. I've shot a few attempts but never tried to edit one to make it look decent, so I gave it a try today. I don't have a black drop background, just a big black cloth which needs some ironing... so I played with levels to make it the dark areas darker. Camera info: Nikon D700 | 60mm(ƒ/2.8) | ƒ/8 | 1/250s | ISO 400 Strobist info: SB-600 TTL @24mm into 16x22" softbox feathered on the left, 2 feet apart, triggered with Nikon SC-28 TTL Remote Cord.
  18. Not as much as a good lens, which is why I always use prime lenses. But that in turn not as much as good light and setup, which is why of my photos are to me still between "just decent" and "don't show that" The photo just out of the camera was more than decent, but the PS work on top of it is superb!
  19. 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 Hey, fun is in teh eye of teh beeholder
  20. 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
  21. 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.
  22. 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.
  23. 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.