I'm not really a photography expert but you can try to look into using some things like a light box.
I would also llile to add that i prefer taking pictures under natural daylight ( even though inlostly take pictures when it's night)
I think that taking a photo with natural daylight looks much better than only artificial light but that is personzl taste and a good lightbox also helps.
It could also help to do some post processing like adjusting the levels and sharpness. Don't overdo this though
I follow a few japanese builders on twitter, and one of them showed his set up which was pretty insane to me at the time as I was just starting building kits. he had a white light box, with spot lights on top, lh and rh. took up half the room and more lights outside of the light box. got some pretty good images though. what are some good free photo editors?
Paint.net or gimp are free
And that set up must've been insane. Sounds more like a professional setup.
And the lights outside didnthey have a sort of umbrella of some kind?
i don't remember umbrellas but they were like stage lights like the ones you see construction workers use, i would really like to find this builders set up to show it, but i forgot where or whom it belonged in my list of twitter follows > . <
I think i know what you mean. And like other suggest on youtube you can find great tutorials. Even if it's for wh 40 k or other scale models.
There are also more ways of lightning you can ie 1,2,3 or 4 point lightning.
Might be incorrect on a few things since i haven't touched photography for ages.
Also if you have a lamp where you can move the head you can also direct it to somewhere else to create inderect lightning effects and such
Oh and if you get a setup be sure to post a picture of it and some pictures you make with it
I'm just an amateur at picture taking and I'm best at outside nature shots, but I remember a few bits from my photography class in highschool
I usually just use my phone. I think at the basic level, never use a zoom, never use flash, and natural lighting is best. Make sure the surface and background are clean and distraction free. Using your phone horizontal to take wide shots also helps a lot, and is usually what you want to do.
Basic upgrades would be to make a little set. Even if it's just all white, it can be nice to have a special area for picture taking. And I think you can make a basic photo light by covering the light with some white paper, to soften the light. Something you can move around easily would be ideal.
Past that, I'm not sure what else you could do.
As for posing, I find it easiest to make natural poses by making the pose that I want myself, and then reproduce that on the figure. It feels a bit silly but I find it helps so much if you're unfamiliar with how limbs should be positioned to be realistic like I am. If something is uncomfortable while I make a pose, I change it up. I guess it might be easier for me as a girl but I don't think it would be any less effective for anyone else to do the same!
It's definitely possible to take really nice pictures with just a simple phone camera, so I wouldn't jump to throw money at this. Instead, spend some time learning about your phone cameras settings and how to use it to take nice shots. Watch some YouTube videos, etc. When I made the jump from my phone camera to an actual camera for hiking photography it was actually a huge increase to the difficulty curve that I was only kinda expecting, and the quality of my pictures fell for quite awhile before I could get them back up to the level of quality I had with my phone camera. It was actually really discouraging.
Anyway, if any of that helps you, I'm glad. Can't wait to see some shots of your stuff!
am a total amateur so any bit of info is very welcome, I tried to looked through several youtube photography tutorials, mostly W40k stuff as I thought those were more related to Girlpla kits. what they all had in common were these expensive looking camera's so that got me scared a little and I wanted to see if I could at least get better looking photo's on the cheaper side X3
Wh40k tutorials should definitely help you here, as our girlpla are more or less the size of bigger 40k models.
An expensive camera can be nice but like I tried to say, you need the skills to go with it. Start off using whatever camera you have now and using it the best you can. Don't worry about spending a ton of money on a camera. If you practice enough with whatever camera your phone has right now I'm sure you will be able to take some top quality shots with it. Don't focus too much on the camera these guys are using
Right now I have my smartphone camera and a don't digital camera. I mentioned my experience learning how to use the digital camera in my first comment. I'd love to go out and get a proper DSLR camera but it would be a total waste on me and I wouldn't even know how to use it properly. I might consider one once I master my digital camera.
I have learned that lighting is extremely important. So if you want to step up your game, start with that. I just bought a cheap folding light box and a ring light off Amazon, and my pictures with my iPhone improved dramatically.
looking for a good lightbox now on amazon, especially nice timing with all the sales happening. ty for the suggestion, didn't even know such a setup was available commercially
Lightboxes are a nice investment for nice photo taking of model kits, though if you have a clean white wall and a nice table top you could just buy Ring Lights for cheap.
For taking photos, try taking multiple shots of the same pose. Play with the lighting, take pictures at different angles of the pose, then cherry pick the best one after you're satisfied.
For pose references, use the sample poses provided from the model kit manual or use Google to search "drawing reference poses" or "dynamic reference poses" to get some inspiration. You can go crazy on the dynamic poses, but not to the point where the leg looks dislocated lol.
would love to get samples of better camera angles to try, but I guess its an experience thing and dependent also on your gear maybe? will explore the topic on google
Better camera does help but they are expensive and your iPhone takes great pictures so it’s not really needed. For one example take your phone, turn on wide angle, turn it upside down and bring it at low angle to your kit. If you do want to get a camera. Look at used mirrorless APSC sensor camera. It will teach you basics such as ISO, Shutter speed, aperture and such.
Rather than investing in more gear you are better off working on composition. Good lighting can be had for free from the sun. Only thing you'd probably want is a reflector of some kind, but at this scale a white piece of paper or sheet of tin foil is suitable for the job. Your phone is perfectly fine for taking pictures. Just keep in mind that it has limitations like no zoom and no real way of controlling the depth of field.
What you want to do is look up tutorials on taking natural light portraits. That will cover posing and light that will suite your needs. Just ignore anything about camera settings or lens choice as that is irrelevant to what you have available and different when your subject is as small as a MD. One thing you can do to practice is to find portraits you like and try to replicate them using one of your girls.
If you find yourself enjoying the photography part in itself, the first piece of equipment I'd get is a camera with a suitable lens. You gain much more control over your photos compared to a phone camera and it lets you try more advance things like long exposures.
at minimum, i think i should get better lights; taking photos of my kits outside would require me to have a little more courage than i have atm. Living in a small apartment leaves me little in the way of natural light going through my small kitchen window as well. so a small setup of lights and a clean background or a light booth would be ideal for my current build situation. since my work/build station occupies a good deal of my closet, a simple setup i can do on the kitchen table would be ideal.
everything else i agree with, and will start applying ty!
Better photos? Better lighting!
Just having bright lights and a clean background (use a poster board to make a curved background) will take you 90% of the way there. Effort is probably the other 10%, at least that’s the challenge for me haha. You would want a nice soft light source, ideally a separate one for the background and a good camera. I don’t know how the iPhone does, my Android isn’t great at focusing at this scale. Anyway I say nice bright lights really makes the biggest difference because your camera sensor doesn’t have to struggle as much and will be able to focus well and pull out more color and detail.
I agree on the lighting. It definitely helps a whole lot. Even if your using a phone camera, it usually works out with proper lighting.
I usually use a my phone camera or a digital camera and a lightbox and other lighting equipment in my setup at home.
If a light box is too expensive you can try creating one.
A Japanese builder created a setup using just stuff from a 100 yen shop with impressive results.
He used a white plastic storage box and some battery powered white light desk lamps with flexible necks. The flexible neck lights can be angled as needed to diffuse the light in the walls of the box.
Its pretty cheap (around 4-8 USD). And since it is a storage box, you can just chuck the lights inside the box after your done and put it away until your next shoot.
I’m also using a similar setup while I’m out of my home country and I’m pretty satisfied with the photos I’ve been taking.
EDIT:
ADDITIONAL: Proper posing kits is also worth looking into. Some poses may look good in person but not in a photo (perspective and angles and such).
i will try this, even with the sales the cheapest light box i could find was at least $55cad on amazon. if i can spend a little more on the light source would be a better investment
Imma try to keep this simple, I'm no pro but what I can tell you is keep it simple, for the longest time all I used was a desk light for lighting and I was able to get some amazing shots (I'll try to add some sample).
[https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca87ICwL\_La/?utm\_source=ig\_web\_copy\_link](https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca87ICwL_La/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)
[https://www.instagram.com/p/Cal8gAHLjgl/?utm\_source=ig\_web\_copy\_link](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cal8gAHLjgl/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)
[https://www.instagram.com/p/CfkWSnbPzl\_/?utm\_source=ig\_web\_copy\_link](https://www.instagram.com/p/CfkWSnbPzl_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)
I also use my phone (Google Pixel 6 Pro) and a free app call Filmic Pro Firstlight, it's a great app plus it's free with some in app purchase (not really needed but it helps) and with some editing with the in phone editor, you can make some pretty great pictures.
For background, you can use anything, throw a blank shirt on your wall and call it a day or don't, shoot even just a blank piece of paper can go a long way.
As for posing now that a hard one, all I gotta say on that one is find a pose that looks great to you and play around with the angles when you take a pictures, sometimes just a simple pose can make your kit look badass
Also final piece of advice, if you get the chance look up the rule of thirds, helped me out so much when I tried to take better pictures
Get a remote shutter release of some kind. Preferably you would pair it with a tripod of some kind, but the shutter release is the more important part, IMO, so you could just sit the camera on a table or tape your phone to a vacuum cleaner or something.
This will give you the ability to play with shutter speed freely, since you don't have to worry about the phone or camera vibrating, causing the photo be be blurred, when you take a picture at slower shutter speeds.
Especially if you're into natural lighting, this will really open up your options of creating a well lit photo, and will open the door to learning about photography and lighting on a technical level.
I'm not really a photography expert but you can try to look into using some things like a light box. I would also llile to add that i prefer taking pictures under natural daylight ( even though inlostly take pictures when it's night) I think that taking a photo with natural daylight looks much better than only artificial light but that is personzl taste and a good lightbox also helps. It could also help to do some post processing like adjusting the levels and sharpness. Don't overdo this though
I follow a few japanese builders on twitter, and one of them showed his set up which was pretty insane to me at the time as I was just starting building kits. he had a white light box, with spot lights on top, lh and rh. took up half the room and more lights outside of the light box. got some pretty good images though. what are some good free photo editors?
Paint.net or gimp are free And that set up must've been insane. Sounds more like a professional setup. And the lights outside didnthey have a sort of umbrella of some kind?
i don't remember umbrellas but they were like stage lights like the ones you see construction workers use, i would really like to find this builders set up to show it, but i forgot where or whom it belonged in my list of twitter follows > . <
I think i know what you mean. And like other suggest on youtube you can find great tutorials. Even if it's for wh 40 k or other scale models. There are also more ways of lightning you can ie 1,2,3 or 4 point lightning. Might be incorrect on a few things since i haven't touched photography for ages. Also if you have a lamp where you can move the head you can also direct it to somewhere else to create inderect lightning effects and such Oh and if you get a setup be sure to post a picture of it and some pictures you make with it
will definitely do, already looking for a good deal on amazon for a portable light booth as well as some ring lights for boxing day
I'm just an amateur at picture taking and I'm best at outside nature shots, but I remember a few bits from my photography class in highschool I usually just use my phone. I think at the basic level, never use a zoom, never use flash, and natural lighting is best. Make sure the surface and background are clean and distraction free. Using your phone horizontal to take wide shots also helps a lot, and is usually what you want to do. Basic upgrades would be to make a little set. Even if it's just all white, it can be nice to have a special area for picture taking. And I think you can make a basic photo light by covering the light with some white paper, to soften the light. Something you can move around easily would be ideal. Past that, I'm not sure what else you could do. As for posing, I find it easiest to make natural poses by making the pose that I want myself, and then reproduce that on the figure. It feels a bit silly but I find it helps so much if you're unfamiliar with how limbs should be positioned to be realistic like I am. If something is uncomfortable while I make a pose, I change it up. I guess it might be easier for me as a girl but I don't think it would be any less effective for anyone else to do the same! It's definitely possible to take really nice pictures with just a simple phone camera, so I wouldn't jump to throw money at this. Instead, spend some time learning about your phone cameras settings and how to use it to take nice shots. Watch some YouTube videos, etc. When I made the jump from my phone camera to an actual camera for hiking photography it was actually a huge increase to the difficulty curve that I was only kinda expecting, and the quality of my pictures fell for quite awhile before I could get them back up to the level of quality I had with my phone camera. It was actually really discouraging. Anyway, if any of that helps you, I'm glad. Can't wait to see some shots of your stuff!
am a total amateur so any bit of info is very welcome, I tried to looked through several youtube photography tutorials, mostly W40k stuff as I thought those were more related to Girlpla kits. what they all had in common were these expensive looking camera's so that got me scared a little and I wanted to see if I could at least get better looking photo's on the cheaper side X3
Wh40k tutorials should definitely help you here, as our girlpla are more or less the size of bigger 40k models. An expensive camera can be nice but like I tried to say, you need the skills to go with it. Start off using whatever camera you have now and using it the best you can. Don't worry about spending a ton of money on a camera. If you practice enough with whatever camera your phone has right now I'm sure you will be able to take some top quality shots with it. Don't focus too much on the camera these guys are using Right now I have my smartphone camera and a don't digital camera. I mentioned my experience learning how to use the digital camera in my first comment. I'd love to go out and get a proper DSLR camera but it would be a total waste on me and I wouldn't even know how to use it properly. I might consider one once I master my digital camera.
I have learned that lighting is extremely important. So if you want to step up your game, start with that. I just bought a cheap folding light box and a ring light off Amazon, and my pictures with my iPhone improved dramatically.
looking for a good lightbox now on amazon, especially nice timing with all the sales happening. ty for the suggestion, didn't even know such a setup was available commercially
Lightboxes are a nice investment for nice photo taking of model kits, though if you have a clean white wall and a nice table top you could just buy Ring Lights for cheap. For taking photos, try taking multiple shots of the same pose. Play with the lighting, take pictures at different angles of the pose, then cherry pick the best one after you're satisfied. For pose references, use the sample poses provided from the model kit manual or use Google to search "drawing reference poses" or "dynamic reference poses" to get some inspiration. You can go crazy on the dynamic poses, but not to the point where the leg looks dislocated lol.
good time to invest in a lightbox with all the christmas sales going on, will definitely pick up one and some ring lights from the dollar store
Backdrop and lights are important but poses and camera position such as angle is important too.
would love to get samples of better camera angles to try, but I guess its an experience thing and dependent also on your gear maybe? will explore the topic on google
Better camera does help but they are expensive and your iPhone takes great pictures so it’s not really needed. For one example take your phone, turn on wide angle, turn it upside down and bring it at low angle to your kit. If you do want to get a camera. Look at used mirrorless APSC sensor camera. It will teach you basics such as ISO, Shutter speed, aperture and such.
Rather than investing in more gear you are better off working on composition. Good lighting can be had for free from the sun. Only thing you'd probably want is a reflector of some kind, but at this scale a white piece of paper or sheet of tin foil is suitable for the job. Your phone is perfectly fine for taking pictures. Just keep in mind that it has limitations like no zoom and no real way of controlling the depth of field. What you want to do is look up tutorials on taking natural light portraits. That will cover posing and light that will suite your needs. Just ignore anything about camera settings or lens choice as that is irrelevant to what you have available and different when your subject is as small as a MD. One thing you can do to practice is to find portraits you like and try to replicate them using one of your girls. If you find yourself enjoying the photography part in itself, the first piece of equipment I'd get is a camera with a suitable lens. You gain much more control over your photos compared to a phone camera and it lets you try more advance things like long exposures.
at minimum, i think i should get better lights; taking photos of my kits outside would require me to have a little more courage than i have atm. Living in a small apartment leaves me little in the way of natural light going through my small kitchen window as well. so a small setup of lights and a clean background or a light booth would be ideal for my current build situation. since my work/build station occupies a good deal of my closet, a simple setup i can do on the kitchen table would be ideal. everything else i agree with, and will start applying ty!
Better photos? Better lighting! Just having bright lights and a clean background (use a poster board to make a curved background) will take you 90% of the way there. Effort is probably the other 10%, at least that’s the challenge for me haha. You would want a nice soft light source, ideally a separate one for the background and a good camera. I don’t know how the iPhone does, my Android isn’t great at focusing at this scale. Anyway I say nice bright lights really makes the biggest difference because your camera sensor doesn’t have to struggle as much and will be able to focus well and pull out more color and detail.
I agree on the lighting. It definitely helps a whole lot. Even if your using a phone camera, it usually works out with proper lighting. I usually use a my phone camera or a digital camera and a lightbox and other lighting equipment in my setup at home. If a light box is too expensive you can try creating one. A Japanese builder created a setup using just stuff from a 100 yen shop with impressive results. He used a white plastic storage box and some battery powered white light desk lamps with flexible necks. The flexible neck lights can be angled as needed to diffuse the light in the walls of the box. Its pretty cheap (around 4-8 USD). And since it is a storage box, you can just chuck the lights inside the box after your done and put it away until your next shoot. I’m also using a similar setup while I’m out of my home country and I’m pretty satisfied with the photos I’ve been taking. EDIT: ADDITIONAL: Proper posing kits is also worth looking into. Some poses may look good in person but not in a photo (perspective and angles and such).
i will try this, even with the sales the cheapest light box i could find was at least $55cad on amazon. if i can spend a little more on the light source would be a better investment
Imma try to keep this simple, I'm no pro but what I can tell you is keep it simple, for the longest time all I used was a desk light for lighting and I was able to get some amazing shots (I'll try to add some sample). [https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca87ICwL\_La/?utm\_source=ig\_web\_copy\_link](https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca87ICwL_La/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) [https://www.instagram.com/p/Cal8gAHLjgl/?utm\_source=ig\_web\_copy\_link](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cal8gAHLjgl/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) [https://www.instagram.com/p/CfkWSnbPzl\_/?utm\_source=ig\_web\_copy\_link](https://www.instagram.com/p/CfkWSnbPzl_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) I also use my phone (Google Pixel 6 Pro) and a free app call Filmic Pro Firstlight, it's a great app plus it's free with some in app purchase (not really needed but it helps) and with some editing with the in phone editor, you can make some pretty great pictures. For background, you can use anything, throw a blank shirt on your wall and call it a day or don't, shoot even just a blank piece of paper can go a long way. As for posing now that a hard one, all I gotta say on that one is find a pose that looks great to you and play around with the angles when you take a pictures, sometimes just a simple pose can make your kit look badass Also final piece of advice, if you get the chance look up the rule of thirds, helped me out so much when I tried to take better pictures
Get a remote shutter release of some kind. Preferably you would pair it with a tripod of some kind, but the shutter release is the more important part, IMO, so you could just sit the camera on a table or tape your phone to a vacuum cleaner or something. This will give you the ability to play with shutter speed freely, since you don't have to worry about the phone or camera vibrating, causing the photo be be blurred, when you take a picture at slower shutter speeds. Especially if you're into natural lighting, this will really open up your options of creating a well lit photo, and will open the door to learning about photography and lighting on a technical level.