Photo / Showroom advice

[Stefan(2)]

Hi!

Story up front:

I take real pride in keeping my showroom & pictures as

up to date as possible.

trying to make it look good to, having a bit of a background story

on it or extra misc info about the model. Stuff like that.

Got a decent digital camara, ( kodak dx 6490 ) so taking the pictures should not be a problem

Now the real quistion, i have updated today 2 of my entery's, good weather outside (outside pictures give the best result for me).

Could you guys give me a advice to do a better job ?

More realistic, better looking ect.

In basic, how could i do a better job then i do now?

There are a fiew showrooms on tc with some real pro pictures, so there should be guys around to give me some good advice!

These are the pictures i took today, the king hauler is relisted, after updating, after updating the showroom entery just dissepeared on me!

King Hauler with the new alloys on the photo's

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...=30690&sid=1546

M4 Sherman, the first one

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...=30348&sid=1546

Thanks! Stefan

[tarznatz]

I'm no pro but my only suggestion would be to have something "scale" looking in the background to make the car look real when you take the picture. Buildings and street curbs and pathways usually give it away. I usually get the best shots with closeups of the vehicle (lay on the ground) outdoors with shrubbery or "nature" stuff in the background (even snow) because you can't tell really how big or small that stuff is supposed to be in comparison. Makes it look like a life size ride!

And of course sunny days are key. The paint jobs we work so hard on require full sunlight to get the best result on camera. Cloudy days just don;t cut it.

My 2 cents.

[Mowerman]

Also set the camera to give a very shallow depth of field (wide aperture)so that the background is fully blurred out - like when you use portrait mode on the camera (if it has one). This can also cause the back of the car to be slightly out of focus relative to the front which can help to give an idea of scale, but be careful not to overdo it!

[supergreg]

first: Try to take the photo from the same angle as if you were photographing the real thing! In other words: get down on your knees and lay down in the mud/tarmac/sand/grass/whatever and photograph from a veeeery low angle [] NEVER: take shots from a normal standing position. It will make your car (where your spent 1000 hours of work on to make it look realistic) look like a cheap Nikko toy.

second: Take some decent close-up shots of details of your vehicle. Usually I try to take 1 or 2 shots showing the car in total and then a few pics that show the details I want to point people to. Showing a vehicle 6 times from the same angle and simply from 6 different directions is boring.

[jozza]

Low depth of field so that the model is in sharp focus and the background is slightly blurred is one way to make it look good.

Or, if possible, find an industrial area with a large carpark with some sort of warehouse type building in the background, stand the model a long way away from the building, and then take the picture of it from a really low angle (it helps if the lorry is on a slight upwards slope from where you are taking the picture). If you can get it far enough from the building, with the camera close to it, it will look like the lorry is a full size one standing in front of the building (for this sort of shot you would probably want a longer depth of field though to keep the building in focus as well as the truck).

One of the key techniques for photographing models is to keep really low down. Lay on the ground if possible, or make sure the model is on a mound higher than the camera - it always makes a shot look more dramatic/realistic. The second shot of your King Hauler is at a much better angle than the first in that respect.

On the (rare) occasions that I've taken pics I'm really happy with, I have experimented with lots of different settings like depth of field, positioning and so on. The main problem with a digital camera is that once you've taken a shot it will always look good on the little screen; it's only when you get home and load it into the PC that you realise there was something not quite right about it.

You can also do a good aftershot job on the PC, for instance if you want to blur out the background most graphics programs like Paintshop Pro will allow you to do this, or you can clone bits of background to remove things that you didn't want in the picture.

[Stefan(2)]

Thanks for the advice guys,

Gonne take my next shots on a lower angle ,

See if i can make some better shots then.

Crawling back in to the mud again will it be!

(though i left that behind when leaving the army! lol)

Next try when the weather gets a bit better, indoor shooting

just don't work out that mutch for me. (or the photo cam that is)

Stefan

[simensays]

stefan, I spent about 30 minutes on a reply with lots of links and pictures yesterday - when I tried to post the reply, the site was down - and everything was gone...

[Stefan(2)]

Agh! []

thanks for the try/effort mate!

Not going to ask you to go do that again,

But, i do thank you for the intention/try/ ehm, you know what

i mean

Stefan

[jozza]

quote:Originally posted by Stefan

Thanks for the advice guys,

Gonne take my next shots on a lower angle ,

See if i can make some better shots then.

Crawling back in to the mud again will it be!

(though i left that behind when leaving the army! lol)

Next try when the weather gets a bit better, indoor shooting

just don't work out that mutch for me. (or the photo cam that is)

Stefan

---

id="quote">id="quote">Just had a thought, why not go out and take some industrial and general shots for the background, then set up a plain white background indoors and take some shots of the truck, then use Photoshop/Paintshop Pro or something like that to superimpose the truck over the backgrounds? Saves laying in the wet []

[Stefan(2)]

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...d=31072&id=1546

Better now ?

(about the only dry place i could find!)

Stefan

[supergreg]

[^][^][^] Great pics mate. What a difference!

[Stefan(2)]

Thanks

i sometimes do something with advice !

Not fully happy yet, the saga goes on.

(learning to take pictures part IIX)

Stefan