Photographing a build

[Oldiron]

peter195124, do you just crop in a photo program or process it in another way? I was thinking poster board from the office supply might be useful for a back drop but what color so as to not mess with the cameras settings. White, gray or something else? Bob

 

[Jasonb]

Something a bit more flexible than poster board is what I use then I can have a smooth transition from vertical to horizontal which seems less prone to showing hard shadow and can give a nice transition of colour. Overher it is called "covercard" and 300gsm which is about four times what photocopy paper is.

Mid-blue or mid-grey is what I use. A bright white will have the camera adjusting for the overall brightness and much like excessive back light result in the object being too dark

 

[peterl95124]

peter195124, do you just crop in a photo program or process it in another way? I was thinking poster board from the office supply might be useful for a back drop but what color so as to not mess with the cameras settings. White, gray or something else? Bob

if you take a close look at some of my photos you'll notice the parts or models are always sitting on a pad of extra large, 1/4" grid, white graph paper and a background of white poster board or white insul-foam. I don't do any post-processing. I use magnification lenses built in to the camera so I'm not losing resolution, likewise I don't crop after shooting for the same reason.

 

[mrehmus]

The best color is an 18% gray card which is the what the average scene looks like to a camera. Colored backdrops tend to reflect off the bright metal components of the subject and end up looking strange in the final picture.
In my magazine, all the pictures are made in a light tent if possible as the lighting is then very uniform. Then the subject is always cut out of the picture so there are no distracting elements showing.

 

[krypto]

It's somewhat disappointing that a topic about model photography only has one picture!

If you going to upload photos onto a forum, remember you don't need to leave it at a 4032x3024 pixel resolution. Yes, most forums will automatically resize the picture, but why push all those pixels around when it's going to be massively downsized anyway? You can get bonus points if you know how to adjust the JPG quality level.

 

[Richard Hed]

It's somewhat disappointing that a topic about model photography only has one picture!

If you going to upload photos onto a forum, remember you don't need to leave it at a 4032x3024 pixel resolution. Yes, most forums will automatically resize the picture, but why push all those pixels around when it's going to be massively downsized anyway? You can get bonus points if you know how to adjust the JPG quality level.

That's true and since GIMP is a free software package, why not learn how to crop a shot and even change the pixiel amount. Easy peasy

 

[ChazzC]

That's true and since GIMP is a free software package, why not learn how to crop a shot and even change the pixiel amount. Easy peasy

Can’t speak regarding Windows OS, but the (free) MacOS includes Photos which is a reasonably powered editing tool, which allows limited tweaking of exposure/color/etc. as well as cropping and exporting to a number of formats & file sizes.

Radiant has also just released a mobile app (Android & iOS) based on their professional software, and the basic mobile app is free (no need to put any files in the cloud).

[BTW, the purchase of a Mac system includes lifetime licenses for Pages, Numbers & Keynote (MS Office), which can open Office format files & export into MS formats, so no excuses for not having access to software to create documents, spreadsheets & presentations.]

 

[awake]

It's somewhat disappointing that a topic about model photography only has one picture!

If you going to upload photos onto a forum, remember you don't need to leave it at a 4032x3024 pixel resolution. Yes, most forums will automatically resize the picture, but why push all those pixels around when it's going to be massively downsized anyway? You can get bonus points if you know how to adjust the JPG quality level.

I wrote a utility to let me resize and correct rotation on a batch of pictures at once, with several options for how the results are saved (new directory, suffix added to name, or overwrite). It also allows adjusting JPG quality. Happy to share the source code (or the working program) if anyone is interested.

 

[GreenTwin]

I tried a light box with the green twin, with different incandescent lights at different angles outside the box, different lenses, zoom in, zoom out, etc.

I just don't know how to use a camera, and after trying all sorts of things, I think I got as good or better of a photo with the model just sitting on the table under the fluorescent lights.

The various camera settings affects the color/tint/hue (don't know the correct term) of things like the bare metal on the flywheel, and you can get a silver or gold tint, and often an unwanted tint.

I seriously need to take a photography class, but I am up to my neck in other things at the moment.

Second photo is outside the light booth on the tabletop.

I never could get the focus and lighting effects I was looking for, and had to leave photography as a exercise to be worked on another day.

.

 

[Richard Hed]

I tried a light box with the green twin, with different incandescent lights at different angles outside the box, different lenses, zoom in, zoom out, etc.

I just don't know how to use a camera, and after trying all sorts of things, I think I got as good or better of a photo with the model just sitting on the table under the fluorescent lights.

The various camera settings affects the color/tint/hue (don't know the correct term) of things like the bare metal on the flywheel, and you can get a silver or gold tint, and often an unwanted tint.

I seriously need to take a photography class, but I am up to my neck in other things at the moment.

Second photo is outside the light booth on the tabletop.

I never could get the focus and lighting effects I was looking for, and had to leave photography as a exercise to be worked on another day.

.

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There's lots of things you can learn in a Photo class but if you have no time or $$, you can learn a lot simply by PAYING ATTENTION to what you are doing. since we are no longer beholden to the high price of processing film we can take thousands of photos. Even the phone apps are reasonably good, but a digi-camera is even better. I used to take thousands of photos using film per year (before i was married) and now I take very few when the "film" is free and the only processing necessary is GIMP for enhancing.

During the summer, a friend of mine photographed using his phone app, a bright series of bright lights--UFOs, they were in perfect order and they were DEFINITELY NOT military or civilian. He took the photos near MOses Lake. The Phots were really something to see. Well when I got home, I was telling my son about them and he showed me what HE photographed. He was walking th e dog and saw the same lights and photoed them moving. Not as high quality as my friends but at least two people saw them and graphed them.

So, last week, I was at work where I don't have a whole lot to do, so I was outside taking a cig break when a cloud of birds, lookt like swallows, at least that size. flew by in a giant rope, I could see the cloud at least to a mile to the nor west and at least two miles to the south east. The cloud was approx 100 yards diameter. The birds were the densest formation I had ever seen. I estimated at least 500,000 birds. Unbelievable. but I didn't even thimpfk of taking a photo. I was simply amazed at that mass of tweeties. Never seen anything like it, however, this year my kidz and I observed geese that also was a flock about three miles in every direction. That is also the most geese I have ever observed. Even when I was a kid (last week) I never saw a flock like that. The tweeties were in a rope formation but the geese were in their typical "flat" formation.

So a good thing for people to do is just click, click click click that shutter. You can take a couple hundred photos a day, take them to GIMP them and toss 90%--just to get a feel for what is a good photo and in that 10% you will find a couple GREAT photos. One bad thing amateurs do when the photo people is to point the camera at their faces which give a huge space above their heads--imagine a movie where the action is all done with a head below the center level of the screen--not good. When photoing people, point at their belly button and be close enough that their body takes up the whole vew. You'll start getting better photos by doing that. However, for the photos we are taking for our builds, one of the fellows says to take photos from back a ways--don't try to get a phot up close. That's VERY good advice. Most apps nowadaze have a zoom function--use that and stand back further. Also, as has been discussed, the lighting is critical indoors.

So take hundreds of photos, from different angles. Look for good photos that are not too dark or have reflections or are in such a view that your audience can't tell what it is. Frankly, I see a lot of that--I can't tell what is being shown.

 

[ajoeiam]

I wrote a utility to let me resize and correct rotation on a batch of pictures at once, with several options for how the results are saved (new directory, suffix added to name, or overwrite). It also allows adjusting JPG quality. Happy to share the source code (or the working program) if anyone is interested.

Might be interested - - - but - - - which OS is the utility meant for - - please?

 

[awake]

Might be interested - - - but - - - which OS is the utility meant for - - please?

Joe, I wrote this using the wxWidget framework, which can generate results for Windows, Linux, and (at least supposedly) Mac. I am able to generate the Windows and Linux versions, but don't have a Mac and don't know how straightforward it is to generate for that platform.

 

[trlvn]

For batch operations on image files on macOS, there is an inexpensive program that is outstanding. And does much, much more.

https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/graphicconverter/key-features
Craig
(Long time satisfied user; otherwise no affiliation.)

 

[ajoeiam]

Joe, I wrote this using the wxWidget framework, which can generate results for Windows, Linux, and (at least supposedly) Mac. I am able to generate the Windows and Linux versions, but don't have a Mac and don't know how straightforward it is to generate for that platform.

I'll take a gander - - - if you wish.

TIA

 

[awake]

I'll take a gander - - - if you wish.

TIA

I've no particular wishes either way! But I'm happy to post it. The code was set up using the Code::Blocks IDE, so will need some adjustment if using another IDE. But this is a simple program, so the gist should be there. On my Linux laptop, I can compile this code for Linux or cross-compile it for Windows.