Miniature photography is a big part of the hobby if you want to share your models with the online community. Over the years I’ve made do with cheap point and shoot digital cameras but I’ve always strived for better pictures. I’ve always colour corrected and adjusted the levels of my pictures in photoshop to give a more accurate representation. This still wasn’t enough for me though and last year I purchased a Canon 500D DSLR, and for the past year I’ve been getting good results with natural light. There are two downsides to this. The first is the light is always different and one directional, so you can end up with cast shadows everywhere. The second is during the winter you don’t get much daylight, and when I did get daylight it tended to be when I’m at work.
So I invested in two home studio flash lights and took over the spare bedroom. The first picture in this blog post is the set up I bought. Funnily enough I had to take the first picture with my camera phone, which is ironic considering the topic of this post. The second picture in this blog is my first attempt with the new kit and I’m really pleased with the results. It’s well lit from all angles with a bright, vibrant accurate colours. I might get a reflector, because there is a shadow at the front of the tank and that will help reduce that.
Well lit photos mean everything shows up, including the mistakes! Obviously I can use this as an advantage though and learn from it and improve. I’m really looking forward to experimenting and playing with this kit and sharing my work with Tale of Painters.
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Hey Garfy,
What model of lights are you using?
Instafit EX150. It's a cheap budget set up but it works for me.
Eldorad, I'll try moving the flash heads round a bit to see if that makes a difference. A reflector or two to bounce light underneath a subject isn't a bad idea though.
Mr Lee, you can get ok results with low end tech with a little bit of photoshop colour correcting, but it's the varied nature of natural light that has always left me stumped. This set up will be quicker and produce more consistent results.
Dalinair, your lightbox and single lamp sounds like Rev's set up. I think two lights either side to cancel out each others shadows will be better.
Rev, I would be interested to see your set up mate. Go for it. The head units are for flash photography. I have an infrared sensor attached to the hot shoe that communicates to both head units so when I press the shutter both units flash.
I can control the flash (min to max) and I can control the aperture. Shutter speed needs to be 1/60th of second. Playing with the aperture will produce different depth of field shots. I'm considering adding a macro lens to my lens collection. Might borrow a mates first before I part with my hard earnt.
V intersting to see what others use. Might have to pst my own setup, make it a tale of series…What bulbs are used in the lamps? Is it a flash set up or a permenant light set up?
Very nice studio, i just have a lightbox at home and its not great, daylight bulb over the top to get light in but could do some some more as there are shadows still but this is something to aspire to that's for sure. You are right about spotting mistakes, after finishing a model i always photograph it now to spot the errors my eyes cant see too easily then go back over it.
Great set up.. was having this exact conversation with a buddy over the weekend on how to improve my painting photo set up and gear.. he still suggests low end, and well I am more of the mind to take on yours 😉 Will see if the bank account can support it 🙂
Nice set up. There is a lot of terrible miniature photography out there – even some simple steps (instead of going the whole hog) can make a big difference.
IE Macro, distance + zoom, daylight bulbs and a bit of photoshop/picass/insert software here.
Might the shadow disappear if you adjust the positioning of your flashlamps a little bit?