Search the Community

I've just whipped up a very cheap and easy light stage which will make photographing my miniatures about a bajillion times easier. That's not the best photo in the world; I probably should have moved the light out a bit so that the stage isn't so over-exposed. Essentially, it's just a seamless stage built from foamcore and light card, surrounded by a cardboard cylinder, painted on the inside with matte white paint (I also tried silver; it's not that great), and with a cut-out in front to shoot through. A single daylight bulb provides all the light I need; a key overhead light, and lots of diffuse reflected light from all around. It's not a lighting setup that would suit portraits of human beings, but it shows promise for little toy tanks and roleplaying dollies. I've done some quickie test shots to try out various parameters — the results are entirely unsurprising. The best, easiest results come from using a matte white reflective shell, and a neutral grey background. That ensures that the stage itself isn't affecting the colour balance or under (or over) exposing the image. White shell, neutral grey stage Silver shell, neutral grey stage. Not too bad, but I notice it starts to blow out some highlights. White shell, light blue stage. The background colour forces the camera's automatics to under-expose the image, so the miniatures look darker than they should, and tonally flat. It could be fixed with post-processing, but why go to all that trouble if you don't have to? Silver shell, light blue stage. Pretty much the same issue as the last one, but slightly worse.