Buying a digital camera for MOC photography

[Brickdoctor]

Since you guys probably will end up resizing the pic, you could always set the camera farther away from the subject and then crop the pic if you can't focus that close.

[Darth Dino]

Maybe I´m just frustrated. If you can tell me how to take macro pictures with my Canon PowerShot A560 I´ll be most gratefull. Right now, I´m convinced it can´t.

Hi

i will try to do so:

I checked dpreview for you cameras features, so everythink i will ask you to do should work.

- do you light setup without using the flash but use lamps/lightbulbs

- do manual/custom WB first

- zoom out

- place your closest subject not closer than ~5 cm, because that is the closest focus your camera can do. In telephoto the closest focus should be much more far away.

- focus manually to the closest focus point, your camera can do this via menu!

- if you have an A or M mode use this and set f to 8

- iso should be at smallest level

- for A the exposuretime will be calculated

- for M set the time as long as neccessary, look at the exposure control level!

- use the time lapsed automated shooting, this will prevent shaking if you press the button

- upload te result here ;)

Dino

[harakiri]

>And to focus they need light. Obscene amounts of it. It drives me nuts.

Something like this might help to solve the light issue:

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent

I am actually planning to build myself something like this for taking pictures of Lego.

There are lots of instructions on how to make a light tent on the net, the one above is just a random example.

Instead of a flash I will get one or two LED lights that one can get cheaply everywhere (like Homedepot, OBI, or whatever they are called in your country)

In order to arrange the camera before the object you could get something like that: http://joby.com/gorillapod

Or you go to your local asia shop and buy some rice, fill it in a cloth bag and sew it shut -> self made bean bag.

Then follow the advice Darth Dino gave you in his last post and I am sure you will make quality makros using your existing camera

[SearchFunction]

Hi

i will try to do so:

I checked dpreview for you cameras features, so everythink i will ask you to do should work.

- do you light setup without using the flash but use lamps/lightbulbs

- do manual/custom WB first

- zoom out

- place your closest subject not closer than ~5 cm, because that is the closest focus your camera can do. In telephoto the closest focus should be much more far away.

- focus manually to the closest focus point, your camera can do this via menu!

- if you have an A or M mode use this and set f to 8

- iso should be at smallest level

- for A the exposuretime will be calculated

- for M set the time as long as neccessary, look at the exposure control level!

- use the time lapsed automated shooting, this will prevent shaking if you press the button

- upload te result here ;)

Dino

I can set iso level, but f is no where to be found. I did find the expose/shutter time? control and as I understood from the site it should be set as high as possible. I can set it to 15 seconds, though it dosnt seem to take that long to take a photo.. Looked up the description on dpreview as well. It appears that this camera has a special button that looks like a flower that one needs to press to get it into "macro" mode.

I feel so stupid now, but it really isnt very obvious and it isnt availible in every auto-mode. The result is plenty good for me, though I still need to find out exactly how to manipulate the rest of the settings in manual mode to get the colors straight. Thanks for clearing it up!

[Darth Dino]

Hi

What characters or symbols you have next to the flower? Is there no A, T and M? But the "macromode" should close the aperature also. But it is always better if you do that by yourself because you will learn to understand your camera and photography.

In the early 2000er i took professional (= for money!) macro photos with a Olympus C3030. That piece of camera would make everybody laught today :) It was just 3x zoom and 3 mp.

Beside your equipment discussion:

Keep in mind that amateurs worry about equipment (i have a too bad camera), profesionals worry about money (i got too less money for that) and masters worry about light (i really need good light for that photo).

Do not worry about your camera, worry about the light, and that you can steer it and you can play with it while changing your aperature and shutter time ;)

Dino

[CP5670]

A small digital that will be good for macro images like minifigs and costs little is the Cannon Powershot ELPH SD or HS series. These are under $200 usd and I used one (SD200 $129) for years until I could afford a dslr. You can look it up on Amazon website and there are example photos sent by actual customers and read the reviews. These little cameras are also very tough and I never had problems even after I gave it to my 9 year old niece (who didn't treat it as carefully as I did).

I have an SD870 and it's decent. It can take good pictures but has the same issues that most small cameras have, although I've gotten used to its limitations and learned to work around them to some extent. I almost always have to use flash to get a completely sharp picture indoors. Any unflashed image has some degree of blurriness, regardless of the ISO sensitivity or if it's on a tripod. The flash makes some colors look odd but I find that sharpness is more important than color accuracy in pictures of Lego. The built-in flash is weak and doesn't cover the whole frame uniformly, but I often move away from objects and zoom in on them to correct for this.

I still haven't found a good way of getting pictures of dark, enclosed areas like this though. It's hard to get external lighting inside or point the camera there from a tripod, and flash is useless at close range. I usually resort to taking 10 or so identical, unflashed macro images at ISO 200 or 400 and just taking the least blurry one. Any ideas for these kinds of pictures?

[SearchFunction]

Hi

What characters or symbols you have next to the flower? Is there no A, T and M? But the "macromode" should close the aperature also. But it is always better if you do that by yourself because you will learn to understand your camera and photography.

Dino

The flower can be seen at the right on the circle in this picture.

You set it to manual by setting this wheel to "M".

dpreview says manual focus is availible, but it isnt EDIT(I think what they mean by that is that something called "AiAF" can be turned off and instead of auto-focusing on something random, it will autofocus on what is in the middle of the display. The manual to this camera explains nothing.). aperture is choosen automatically in manual mode. I can see what it chooses before taking the picture though, and try to nudge the camera slightly to see if it chooses a higher aperture.

Edited September 25, 2011 by SearchFunction

[Darth Dino]

Hi

@CP5670: For dark areas you will need straylight. If you have a build in flash you can put an unfolded kleenex or similar in front of it. The flash will go into the paper and will produce a LOT of straylight that goes in the darkest corners. Butit took some work to place the camera and the kleenex - the closer the flash to the lens is, the more diffficult.

Second most important possibility a a REFRECTOR! Use a white pieace of paper (letter) and place it against the flash but on the oposite of the object. So you will get direct light from the flash and indirect light from the reflector. 45 degrees down will be good.

@ searchfunction: Maybe the manual focus will just be available in the manual mode!? If you choose M can you steer the shuttertime plus the f value with the arrow buttons top buttom left right?

Unfortunately i do not have for any camera the menu in my mind - but i am working on that :)

Dino

Edited September 25, 2011 by Darth Dino

[CP5670]

@CP5670: For dark areas you will need straylight. If you have a build in flash you can put an unfolded kleenex or similar in front of it. The flash will go into the paper and will produce a LOT of straylight that goes in the darkest corners. Butit took some work to place the camera and the kleenex - the closer the flash to the lens is, the more diffficult.

Second most important possibility a a REFRECTOR! Use a white pieace of paper (letter) and place it against the flash but on the oposite of the object. So you will get direct light from the flash and indirect light from the reflector. 45 degrees down will be good.

I'll need to try that out, thanks for the idea. A tissue over the flash might make it usable at close range. This is a small point and shoot camera though, and the flash is in fact quite close to the lens. This is probably a good thing for that particular picture I posted though, which involved sticking the camera into a 6x6 opening with just barely enough room for the lens to fit in.

[Darth Dino]

Hi

if you stick with you camera in the 6x6 hole there is no wondering why you hardly get light into that. Try to use a higher focal length, zoom in. Then you have to get away with you camera from the object, and light could go in.

Many macro photos are taken by higher distance. E.g. i shoot fireflys 1-1,2m far away because they fly away if you come closer. My 150mm macro is exactly made for that.

Dino

[Lipko]

Hi all!

I'm planning to buy a camera, but I don't want to spend too much on it yet.

I want an entry level camera which is enough to make videos of Lego Technic creations. I think a 720p resolution would be enough to see the little details of a model, I'm more concerned about how well the camera handles movements. I've seen videos of MOCs, where moving the camera resulted in a rhomboid distortion of the image (I can't find an example at the moment).

I don't want to attach the camera on the models, I would use a tripod or hold it in my hand.

I'm thinking about the following camera:

Polaroid XS7

Does anyone have experience with this camera? I watched several reviews but most of them were putting it to the extreme.

What cameras are you using for shooting your videos?

Thanks for any hints in advance!

Edited November 17, 2013 by Lipko

[Phoxtane]

Personally, I use a GoPro Hero3 White Edition, but I have access to a Nikon DSLR should I need it. Another thing to consider apart from resolution is framerate and low-light performance.

[Lipko]

Thanks for the reply. I forgot mention one thing, the scenes would be well lit.

[Lego Otaku]

I believe it's the really cheap camera such as those built in cell phones you get free with contract that has ugly distortion. Decent camera should have at minimum electronic image stabilizer which helps reduces the shaky video. Good camera have optical image stabilizer. Also tripod will help a lot, set the camera on the tripod and it stays still, no shaky video.

[Darth Dino]

Hi

dedicated video cameras in that price segment have their focus on being simple in use, not being flexible. Whitebalancing, exposuresettings and so on often just automatically set. Those cameras are "good" for action shots where af is important.

I would go for a still camera that can do videos. Those cameras have often whitebalancing optiona and manual settings for exposure, aperture etc... I would go for this. Those cameras are better for "studio" settings, when you setup light, background etc.

Video cameras have better performance in af and are easier to use. Still cameras with video options have better image/video quality because you can setup all/most of the important values.

Go for 2-3 high power 500w halogen lamps which are used in building sites etc. They are cheap but bright as hell. 2-3 of the, reduce shadows. A still camera should be able to get the right whitebalancing.

Dino

[RaincloudDustbin]

Nikon Coolpix L110- £80 great camera. 12x zoom and fab macro mode on top of that.

[Andy D]

I have been using the Panasonic Lumix DMC - ZS (or TZ) series "Travel Zoom" cameras for several years. They have good zoom, macro mode and video mode.

There is a table on this page: http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Sensitivity-Digital-Camera-Optical/dp/B00728ZBA2/ref=pd_cp_p_0 on Amazon that shows cameras fro $119 to $300.

Andy D

Edited November 18, 2013 by Andy D

[WaysofSorting]

I am yet to try these myself, but friends who have them really speak highly. They don't use them for LEGO (nor for video) so I am curious as to their usefulness. For still shots, I think they would be great.

I'm linking to the whole store, but point you to the first category, the Macro lenses:

http://photojojo.com/store/

It's all "Gadgets" made for smartphone/tablet photography (with a strong preference for the iphone market).

[Balrog]

I'd rather not cut on features like resolution. Get something that can record Full HD now. Believe me, you're gonna bite your megablocks if you don't.

When I bought my DSLR I went the cheepskate way and bought a Nikon without video recording functions. I could still kick myself for that.

[dr_spock]

What quality of video are you looking to produce? Is your computer powerful enough to handle the editing of the video? What is your budget?

The link for the Polarold camera doesn't show the spec for the minimum focus distance or macro/close up modes. That could be important for close up shots of your MOCs.

[JGW3000]

For SLR, you can buy a used Canon D50, which is nominally a still-frame digital camera, and hack the software with MagicLatern to make the camera a full HD video unit, but no sound. Works great and you can attach many different lens for zoom, close-up, etc... Has excellent low-light and dynamic response as good or better than most high-end cameras.

Mid-end, any of the newer $100-$200 dollar range point-n-shoot cameras will work great, I am happy with the video coming from my Fuji Finepix XP200, which by the way is waterproof and also shoots underwater for your submarine MOC builds. Many of these also allow some degree of in-camera editing and direct posting to social media sites, reducing or eliminating the need for computer processing.

Always use a tripod, or build a follow-focus focusing rail out of LEGO parts and PF's!

[Phoxtane]

What quality of video are you looking to produce? Is your computer powerful enough to handle the editing of the video?

I'll provide a benchmark in that I run a quad-core AMD 9750 @ 2.4Ghz and 4 gigs of DDR2 RAM. I can handle Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 quite well, and the only time when I experience real slowdowns is when I'm trying to do something other than IRC while I'm exporting video. On the other hand, I tend to max out the RAM I have available when doing so - thus the slowdowns. I suppose as long as you have at least something similar to that, the only thing you'd need to have is patience and a big enough hard drive for the video files you'll be producing. Not that it's not impossible to do so if you don't have this, but it makes it much much easier to do so.

Edit: Of course, if you want to try running anything newer than CS6, I can't help you there. RAM seems to be the thing to have a lot of when working with video; processing power encodes it faster; and hard drive space is a factor to consider when working with HD video files. RAM will also help with bottlenecking, as running out of it will make your computer try and use the hard drive as a giant RAM stick, which is extremely slow and bogs down everything else as well

Edited November 19, 2013 by Phoxtane

[Darth Dino]

Hi

well guys, you are starting to recommend to someone that have posted a 80buck camera a DSLR plus Adobe Premiere. He was not asking for Hollywood equipment or has the same budget.

Recommending a spcific camera only makes sense if you do exactly the same as he wants to do. Why should i mention my 8000€ equipment?It simply do not fit in here.

There is a german spellword that fits here very well. Literally translated it says: Do not judge the chef/cook for his pans.

It does not matter what kind of equipment you have, it matters if you know to use it. MOST could do what he wants to, or could at least impress most parts of the audience. Light is SOOO important, much more than every camera is, becaus its the LIGHT that makes the picture.

That is why i recommended a camera-type that can do specific things which are most important (do whitebalancing on vidoes, manual exposuresettings ....).

Dino

[Lipko]

Thanks for the comments!

I'll decided to raise the budget a bit more, after all, I spent almost twice the money for a Technic set. I will look at reviews, look at Lego MOC videos and ask what camera they used (to be honest I was expecting something like: "hey, I use XYZ cam, and here's the youtube video:" I should have made myself more clear).

Dino: I agree, but you must have at least something minimal. My girlfriend's current camera has maybe a vertical resolution of 240 when shooting videos.

Maybe I could illegally get it hacked somehow, but I think it's a better idea to buy a dedicated machine after all.The other thing that concerns me is image stability. Maybe it is only an issue with cheap, cellphone cams, but whatever.

I have literally zero knowledge and experience with cameras. With photos, the only experience I have is that my lights suck mostly, but I can make okay photos (where you can at least see the details in somewhat convincing colors)

Edited November 19, 2013 by Lipko

[dr_spock]

I have a $40 Creative Labs Vado HD 4GB 720p video camera and here's a video shot hand held.

I also have an old Fujifilm F40fd camera that does 640x480 video. Here is a hand held video.