I can say one thing... You sure are patient... I need to have some of your patience

EDIT just relaized the word patient has 2 meanings :D I'm such a pateint for some mental clinic haha

Edited September 4, 201410 yr by Zblj

I would say using f22 is overkill. On many lenses, the shaprness and depth of field actually decreases once you go past a certain f stop. Each lens has its own sweat spot but often anything over f16 can actually hurt the picture. With the setup you have blakbird, you should be able to do f10 iso 200 and the shutter should be anywhere from 150-320 or something like that. It takes a lot of patience to get right, but the photos will look great once you get the setup complete.

tim

Thanks for all the feedback. Of course Jim is perfectly right that the shutter speed is calculated by the on-board light meter in Aperture Priority mode, so the brightness should be the same no matter what f-stop you use (and it is). Very small apertures can require very large shutter open times, but that's OK with a tripod. I will say that the light meter did it's job and did compensate for the aperture, but I think there is just so little light that nothing can be done. Going back and reading a review of the cheap lights I am using, many other people are saying that they are so dim as to be useless for anything other than filling in details of an already lit scene.

I did check all my settings and I'm not making any in-camera exposure changes. My lens is a Nikkor 18-70mm zoom, f4.8 so much slower than Jim's. I can actually stop it all the way down to f29. I can do some experiments stopping it toward f11, but if the light meter is doing its job the brightness won't change.

Jim, do you bounce all the light off the ceiling or do you point those reflector shields at your subject?

  On 9/4/2014 at 4:52 PM, timslegos said:

I would say using f22 is overkill. On many lenses, the shaprness and depth of field actually decreases once you go past a certain f stop. Each lens has its own sweat spot but often anything over f16 can actually hurt the picture. With the setup you have blakbird, you should be able to do f10 iso 200 and the shutter should be anywhere from 150-320 or something like that. It takes a lot of patience to get right, but the photos will look great once you get the setup complete.

tim

You are right about the F22, although F10 can be too "open". Maybe go for F16, depending on the depth of the model. I will also try to use F16 and see how that works for me.

Why use ISO 200 if you are using a tripod and Av mode?

  On 9/4/2014 at 5:01 PM, Blakbird said:

Jim, do you bounce all the light off the ceiling or do you point those reflector shields at your subject?

Prior to this my latest pictures I used three lights for a 3-point setup, but the distance to the model was too short, resulting in hard shadows and shiny surfaces. For the 42009 I used two lights and pointed them upwards, like shown in the picture.

They are indeed bouncing light of the white ceiling which might be helpful.

(didn't think of that by the way)

How many Watts are your lights?

  On 9/4/2014 at 8:20 PM, Blakbird said:

How many Watts are your lights?

I will check tomorrow, but I think 35W each (105W for total set of three).

Color temperature of 5600 Kelvin.

Mine are 45W each, 5500 Kelvin, compact fluorescent. However, my umbrellas are not reflective so there is no directed light. Only diffuse. What I'd really like is this!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002BWWST6/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2J6UZ62X2FGSB&coliid=I135MO4S68XCKB

I've got a set much like this, without the green backdrop. The set cost around 130 euro, which is quite cheap.

https://www.vidaxl.nl/p/160106/fotostudio-set-met-green-screen-3-daglichtlampen

  On 9/4/2014 at 9:01 PM, Jim said:

I've got a set much like this, without the green backdrop. The set cost around 130 euro, which is quite cheap.

My set cost about 40 euro, which is probably too little to expect much of anything. I think the key difference is the lack of reflective soft boxes, so most of the light gets wasted in useless directions.

That might indeed be the case. The Amazon lights are obviously a lot better, but I think you can find a less expensive solution. Each of my light banks uses just a single lamp!

A set like this probably will suffice too:

http://www.amazon.com/Fancierstudio-Digital-Continuous-Softbox-Lighting/dp/B0050K3DW2/ref=pd_tcs_subst_p_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=16N5PCTSDQBME5C3Y0V1

Or this:

http://www.amazon.com/Fancierstudio-Lighting-Hairlight-Softbox-9004SB2/dp/B0047FHOWG/ref=pd_tcs_subst_p_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=16N5PCTSDQBME5C3Y0V1

Those do look like they would probably work. However, having already bought something that was too cheap I am hesitant to do it again. PBL is a real photography lighting company. "Fancierstudio" sounds like they are trying too hard. Just the name of the company "fancier" is suspicious. Then they use the words "high quality" and "deluxe" a lot. You usually don't need to bother using these words when they are true. Then they misspell "perfessional" (sic). I'll have to think about this.....

The good news is that this is Amazon so if I decide it is crap they'll take it back. And no matter how bad they might be, they have 4x more light than what I am using now.

  On 9/4/2014 at 5:24 PM, Jim said:

Why use ISO 200 if you are using a tripod and Av mode?

I usually dont shoot with a tripod because of how long it takes to setup each shoot. I prefer handheld with an onboard flash bounced off the ceiling. I also shoot in the basement so the lighting does not change, therefore I shoot manual so that there will be absolutely no difference in exposure between shots. ISO 200 allows for a high enough shutter speed so there is no motion blur.

tim

Edited September 4, 201410 yr by timslegos

I did some experimenting. Same setup except I changed the way exposure is calculated. By default, the camera light meter looks at the whole field of view to determine exposure (in this case, shutter speed). Because the whole background was white, the light meter thought the image was already pretty bright which ended up making the subject dark. I changed the meter mode to only use the 8 degree circle I specify to determine exposure, and I chose the darkest part of the model. This resulted in a shutter speed about 3 times slower than before, and therefore a much better image. I also used f16 since I am really not that close to the image. The following is the result (no editing). Looks good enough to see how dusty it is!

Stupid, stupid, stupid.....that's what I forgot to ask you. I have had the same problem (more or less) with my cam. There's a real difference between spot metering and evaluative metering (not sure how Nikon designates them). Spot metering uses the center spot to calculate exposure while evaluative uses the big picture. My box images where over exposed because the spot the camera used was black. When I shot images of the model (which had a lot of white), the pictures got very dark. Now I use the entire scene to calculate exposure. I forgot to think about this, sorry. Although it does make a lot more difference than I would have expected.

Reading your post more carefully, I see you have switched the other way around. While this seems to work better, be mindful that there can be a significant difference between shooting white and black models. But now you are aware of the setting, you can play around with it. I will verify which setting I am using.

You are right about the cheap product slogans, being deluxe and all. However, my lights where pretty cheap too, so I guess it's worth a shot. Especially since you can return them.

Your last picture looks great btw

  On 9/4/2014 at 11:23 PM, timslegos said:

I usually dont shoot with a tripod because of how long it takes to setup each shoot. I prefer handheld with an onboard flash bounced off the ceiling. I also shoot in the basement so the lighting does not change, therefore I shoot manual so that there will be absolutely no difference in exposure between shots. ISO 200 allows for a high enough shutter speed so there is no motion blur.

I really recommend using a tripod. It doesn't take that long to setup. Most of the time you can set the cam to a fixed position, place your model on the table and start shooting pictures. When you use higher F-stop and you place the model more or less in the same position (distance from the cam), you don't need to change the camera position. So setup once, shoot many. Using a tripod will definitely improve your IQ (Image Quality).

Today I will do some tests with F-stop values to see when the back of the crane will start to get blurry.

I think its more of a personal preference. I know that on the lens I primarily shoot with the sweet spot is around f9 or so. Any smaller and the image does not get sharper, and only slows down the shutter speed. I would rather save the time and shoot handheld. I was finally able to put my photographic knowledge into practice with the pictures for the trophy truck and I really like how they came out. Let me know what you think.

tim

It's indeed a personal preference. While your picture looks fine, I prefer it to be sharp in every corner. Just like you would see it on the box.

Your picture is sharp on the focus point (probably left front wheel). The right wheel is already a bit blurry and the back of the car is rather blurry overall.

And did you apply some artificial vignetting?

You are probably looking for a more artistic expression for the picture. Nothing wrong with that by the way, but it's also a personal preference.

So I definitely like your picture, but I prefer tack sharp in every corner.

Nice MOC btw

  On 9/5/2014 at 2:13 PM, Jim said:

It's indeed a personal preference. While your picture looks fine, I prefer it to be sharp in every corner. Just like you would see it on the box.

Your picture is sharp on the focus point (probably left front wheel). The right wheel is already a bit blurry and the back of the car is rather blurry overall.

And did you apply some artificial vignetting?

You are probably looking for a more artistic expression for the picture. Nothing wrong with that by the way, but it's also a personal preference.

So I definitely like your picture, but I prefer tack sharp in every corner.

Nice MOC btw

Thank you! I only made minor exposure and color changes. I completely understand the look you are going for, and I must say it looks great!

tim

  On 9/5/2014 at 6:40 AM, Jim said:

Your last picture looks great btw

Thanks. It worked OK for the log loader which is black and red, but not so good for the white Space Shuttle. I was able to get the exposure right to make the model itself look very good indeed, but the background has so much shadow and is so dark that it is very distracting. I can see how a gray background like you are using would be a great benefit because it wouldn't show the shadows so much and also wouldn't affect the exposure so much.

Blakbird why did you have to choose to take a picture of the logger from all the rest of the technic sets,I have been after that set ever since I saw it in one of the technic catalogs.

Nice photo.

  On 9/5/2014 at 5:32 PM, Alasdair Ryan said:

Blakbird why did you have to choose to take a picture of the logger from all the rest of the technic sets,I have been after that set ever since I saw it in one of the technic catalogs.

Because it is part of 1996 which is what I am currently working on.

Anybody have a good recommendation for a remote with a timer? A couple years ago, I was reading about a cheap Chinese remote on Amazon. It had good reviews and had a timer, but now I don't remember what model it was. It seemed to be a favorite in the photography forums, particularly for time-lapse photography (or whatever that's called).

I can't find any info about it now, but maybe there is something better out.

  On 9/6/2014 at 3:06 AM, dhc6twinotter said:

Anybody have a good recommendation for a remote with a timer? A couple years ago, I was reading about a cheap Chinese remote on Amazon. It had good reviews and had a timer, but now I don't remember what model it was. It seemed to be a favorite in the photography forums, particularly for time-lapse photography (or whatever that's called).

I can't find any info about it now, but maybe there is something better out.

Don't exactly which one you mean. I have a simple remote for my canon, without timer.

What cam are you using? (maybe you've told me, but I can't recall)

You probably mean something like this, yet cheaper:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hahnel-Giga-Pro-Wireless-Nikon/dp/B003462ZV4

Let there be light!! What a difference some light makes. Take a look at my old light setup compared with my new light setup.

And now take a look at the first picture I took with my new setup (make sure to click through to the full size version).

Now we're talking!! That looks so much better. Great to see your efforts were not in vain

I see you have used a proper 3-point setup. The lighting works really well, since there are no hard shadows or very shiny surfaces!

You're lighting looks superb, but is it just me or are you pictures a bit blurry? They don't look that sharp...

Not a huge problem though, the picture is quite good and a lot better than this