murakumo Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 Not that I have not been painting.... however I have recently been very frustrated trying to take any images of my miniatures. I don;t have good access to the sun/the sun here in the desert actually distorts miniatures as bad as the artificial lights. I need to find some way to either adjust the lighting/image from photoshop or adjust it before I take a picture that doesn't require.... well.... so much space..... I live in a home with other people who use most of the available space and already my one table is crammed with miniatures in progress.... four bookcases filled with material on research and books I am reading... .ect. anyone have any clues? I could post a raw image on here but I doubt anyone can do anything with them as they are... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercius Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 Take a box, cut large square holes in the top and the right and left side and the front. Put vellum on the side holes and your lap over the top, add a background (I use blue tissue paper) then place the mini in the box and snap a pic through the front hole. With just one desk lamp and this setup I get these results.... Bryndi on facebook I can take a pic of the setup I use if needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sundseth Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 Not that I have not been painting.... however I have recently been very frustrated trying to take any images of my miniatures. I don;t have good access to the sun/the sun here in the desert actually distorts miniatures as bad as the artificial lights. I need to find some way to either adjust the lighting/image from photoshop or adjust it before I take a picture that doesn't require.... well.... so much space..... I live in a home with other people who use most of the available space and already my one table is crammed with miniatures in progress.... four bookcases filled with material on research and books I am reading... .ect. anyone have any clues? I could post a raw image on here but I doubt anyone can do anything with them as they are... Since you mentioned RAW format, I'm going to guess that you're using a DSLR. If so, and if you're using any sort of medium length lens, you should be able to get something much better than that. I can get far better results right now (after 8 pm), with the lights out and the shades down, without using a flash. Do you have the EXIF data from the image, specifically f-stop, shutter speed, lens length, ISO, and exposure compensation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murakumo Posted June 4, 2010 Author Share Posted June 4, 2010 Since you mentioned RAW format, I'm going to guess that you're using a DSLR. If so, and if you're using any sort of medium length lens, you should be able to get something much better than that. I can get far better results right now (after 8 pm), with the lights out and the shades down, without using a flash. Do you have the EXIF data from the image, specifically f-stop, shutter speed, lens length, ISO, and exposure compensation? actually I am not using .raw I just meant an image I hadn played with. I use a DMC-TZ3 from panasonic.... it's a profesional level camera that I bought about 3 years ago... exposure compensation is set to + 1 shutter speed I think is set to 1/8 other then that I do not find any of the other settings on the digital camera's menu system. lens length should be for zoom I am guessing? I always shoot in macro mode and never push the manual zoom beyond 2/10 Wes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sundseth Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 actually I am not using .raw I just meant an image I hadn played with. I use a DMC-TZ3 from panasonic.... it's a profesional level camera that I bought about 3 years ago... For reference, to most camera people a "professional camera" is a high-end DSLR body. I don't own one, and even the one I use every day at work (Nikon D300) is only semi-pro. Not a problem, just a terminology issue. exposure compensation is set to + 1 shutter speed I think is set to 1/8 other then that I do not find any of the other settings on the digital camera's menu system. lens length should be for zoom I am guessing? I always shoot in macro mode and never push the manual zoom beyond 2/10 Wes That probably makes it around a 50mm equivalent, which should work fine. The picture you posted is about 10 stops underexposed, which can't be fixed with software. It's also something that you shouldn't be getting from any automatic mode in any light that allows you to avoid stumbling over your couch. If you hold down the shutter release halfway, you should get shutter speed and f-stop on the bottom of your screen (per the DPReview explanations, anyway). And you can set the ISO from the "Sensitivity" menu (again, from DPReview). For reference (in case you or somebody else reading this don't already know), raising the sensitivity ISO number, lowering the f-stop number, and increasing the time the shutter is open will each brighten the image if nothing else is changed. The next thing I would try is a snapshot in bright light and auto mode. If you get a decent result, change things one at a time until you get to where you want to be or you figure out what the problem is. If you can't get a decent picture of a tree in sunlight in Auto mode, you might have a hardware problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murakumo Posted June 4, 2010 Author Share Posted June 4, 2010 well that helps a great deal just using the sensitivity setting... this is the first attempt which was to turn sensitivity all the way to my highest setting... nothing else was changed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murakumo Posted June 4, 2010 Author Share Posted June 4, 2010 updated it with a longer shutter speed and pulled it one setting back.... it's good but I don;t know why it is blurring his staff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sundseth Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 If you're using a long exposure time, any movement of the camera while the shutter is open (which can be caused, for instance, by pressing the shutter release) will cause blurring of the photo. You might have some motion blur here, but that isn't why the staff is more blurry than the figure itself. The downside of a large aperture (small f-stop number) is that your depth of field for macro work is measured in fractions of an inch. I suspect that's what's happening here. For completeness, the trade-off for high ISO is image noise, which you can see a bit in the gray background of the last photo. Photography is all about trade-offs and compensation for the limitations of physics, I'm afraid. The photo box that Mercius mentioned is one way to compensate. More light means you can use a smaller aperture (higher f-stop number), which will increase your depth of field. Or you can use a shorter exposure or a lower ISO. With enough light, you can do all of the above ... and bake biscuits in your photo box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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