Filius Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Hi there, I just started with the Hobby and recently bought some Minifigs. I thought about making highres Photographs of the Spures, because the ones to be found on the Games Workshop and Forgeworld Sites really lack some details. Has anyone some Experiences and Tips photographing Sprues? My first tests didn't lead to the results I hoped for. Oooorr is there a good Resource for highres Photographs of the Sprues? Thanks a lot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quixus Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Do you really need the sprues or are the bits enough? If it is the latter most bits sites have suitable pictures of the bits. You just have to look around not all sites group the bits as the boxes they come from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Filius Posted March 28, 2015 Author Share Posted March 28, 2015 Do you really need the sprues or are the bits enough? I don't know, if I ever really need them again … but I was a bit frustrated about the "official" Sprue-Photographs, as you hardly see, what you really get, and how compatible it is. So I thought, it might be a good Idea to just photograph the sprues, when they are still complete. So I browse through when deciding what Box to buy next, or which to to buy, when I am looking for a certain piece … Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
infyrana Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Some of the Forumites have in the past made posts with high res sprue images. Front and back, as GW's site doesn't do both. They are always a great place to start when wondering what bits you want, that or bits sites. If there was a collective sticky post on this forum that didn't breach any copyrights etc, then that would be awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucien Eilam Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 The classic technique to improve the appearance of unpainted components in photographs was to give them an all-over wash with undiluted Tamiya Smoke to accentuate the detail. Even GW used to do that. The downside is that undiluted Tamiya Smoke goes on quite thick, so you'll want to strip them afterwards before using them. Other than that, it's all in the lighting. That and remembering to take a photo of both sides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJB2K3 Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Hi there, I just started with the Hobby and recently bought some Minifigs. I thought about making highres Photographs of the Spures, because the ones to be found on the Games Workshop and Forgeworld Sites really lack some details. Has anyone some Experiences and Tips photographing Sprues? My first tests didn't lead to the results I hoped for. Oooorr is there a good Resource for highres Photographs of the Sprues? Thanks a lot! Tablets/cameraphones and P&S camera's rarely take a good image. You need a good bridge/SLR/SLT camera, good lighting and understanding of you camera and its lens focus distance. Then install GIMP, (yeh dodgy name but its been in use for over 15 years) it's free and very powerful and close to being as powerful as full Photoshop without a price tag. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurth Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 Tablets/cameraphones and P&S camera's rarely take a good image.I beg to differ — I take photos of 1/72 scale models with my iPad fairly often and am quite happy with the results. (For comparison for the die-hard 40Kers, a typical 1/72 scale tank model is maybe a bit larger than a Space Marine bike, but not as tall.) The trick, though, is knowing your tools, and that’s where most people who take model photos with phones go wrong. No idea how it works on other operating systems, but with the standard camera app on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you can tap the screen to indicate where you want the camera to focus and to adjust brightness to — this simple “trick” goes a long way to taking decent model pictures. Also, be sure to make the camera app display help lines (the two vertical and two horizontal lines that divide your screen into nine equal rectangles), as those will help a lot with lining things up correctly. Good lighting, as you said, is a major factor — get that wrong and you may as well give up. Here’s an example of my set-up, a cheap folding photo studio and two cheap lights (€7.99 each, as I recall): http://gurth.home.xs4all.nl/troep/fotostudio1.jpg One light on each side means you don’t get shadows on one side only, and the white cloth panels of the folding studio cause the light to be diffuse when it gets to the model, avoiding harsh shadows. Here’s the model you can see in the photo above, taken freehand with an iPad: http://gurth.home.xs4all.nl/troep/fotostudio2.jpg I also use this same set-up to take photos of 1/72 scale model kit sprues — I just lay them flat and hold the iPad horizontally above them. Then install GIMP, (yeh dodgy name but its been in use for over 15 years) it's free and very powerful and close to being as powerful as full Photoshop without a price tag.Good choice if you use Linux, reasonable option if you’re on Windows, while on a Mac I’d recommend not buying another box of Space Marines and instead investing the money in Pixelmator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Filius Posted March 30, 2015 Author Share Posted March 30, 2015 Tablets/cameraphones and P&S camera's rarely take a good image.I beg to differ — I take photos of 1/72 scale models with my iPad fairly often and am quite happy with the results. Oh, wow! That's impressive. I do have a Lumia 925 whichs Marko is quite good. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6191405/40k/wp_20150204_09_23_04_pro.jpg (I also do have a "real" digital Camera) So I gues I have to bastel me such a "Light-Box". Thanks for the Help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurth Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 You can buy them for a few tens of euros, or a bit more if you also need some lamps. This seems to be the one I have, as seen in my photo above, and which folds flat into a square maybe a centimetre thick. This one, on the other hand, seems reasonable but turns out to be very awkward to fold back up (I had one for about a day, when I had ordered the one in my photo above but the shop had made an error, which I only discovered when I got home ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJB2K3 Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 Then install GIMP, (yeh dodgy name but its been in use for over 15 years) it's free and very powerful and close to being as powerful as full Photoshop without a price tag.Good choice if you use Linux, reasonable option if you’re on Windows, while on a Mac I’d recommend not buying another box of Space Marines and instead investing the money in Pixelmator. Thats funny all I use is a mac and gimp to get my shots, why pay for unneeded software when you can get pro used (yes gimp and its derivatives have been used in the film industry) for proper free. On the subject of light box's I have one of the folding one (used for the photo's of my World Eaters.) but be warned that the blue doesn't always work but they often have gray back's. If your camera has colour balance use the grey side for calibrating. BTW what camera ap are you using as the default is yet to produce an exceptional shot but my 5s (when used in very good lighting) can produce minimal ps requiring shots. And just to contradict my comment above above phones Taken on a 5s on a good day on the side of a south facing hill in the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffTibbetts Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 I also use my iPhone 5S for pics. While I don't mess around with light boxes (yet, I'd love to go there but I need to actually finish models...) I'm pretty pleased with the pics it takes. I can't wait to get my next phone. After almost 2 years, this is still a pretty dang good camera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurth Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Thats funny all I use is a mac and gimp to get my shots, why pay for unneeded software when you can get pro used (yes gimp and its derivatives have been used in the film industry) for proper free.Ease of use perhaps? If there’s one thing GIMP isn’t, it’s overly user-friendly — certainly not on a Mac, due to its Linux-style GUI conventions (though at least it’s not Blender ). Maybe the more recent versions have improved, but the one I used to use some years ago required a major mental switch every time I used it to make sure I was looking for the right thing to click on — and this as someone who used to use Linux for years before buying an iMac. FWIW, I use Photoshop for my image editing needs, but if you don’t want to pay through the nose or don’t want copied software on your computer, Pixelmator is IMHO the best alternative I’ve used. It certainly beats Photoshop Elements in ease of use, not to mention in price. On the subject of light box's I have one of the folding one (used for the photo's of my World Eaters.) but be warned that the blue doesn't always work but they often have gray back's. If your camera has colour balance use the grey side for calibrating.The blue sheet in mine is white on the other side, but it’d be easy enough to make one in a completely different colour just by buying a bit of cloth and some velcro to sew or glue to it (the sheet attaches with that at the top). BTW what camera ap are you using as the default is yet to produce an exceptional shot but my 5s (when used in very good lighting) can produce minimal ps requiring shots.Like I said, I use the standard camera app that came with my iPad. TBH I preferred the iOS 7 version over the iOS 8 one, but one of the drawbacks of using these kinds of devices is that you can’t just install an old version of software so I guess I’ll live with it. In any case, for things like “in progress” photos or quick shots of finished models, I find it all works fine. If I were to take photos of models for more professional use, or to make them appear the real thing, I’d use an SLR camera, but for ones like I posted above, I don’t see the need when a quick snap with an iPad gives the results I want too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJB2K3 Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Thats funny all I use is a mac and gimp to get my shots, why pay for unneeded software when you can get pro used (yes gimp and its derivatives have been used in the film industry) for proper free.Ease of use perhaps? If there’s one thing GIMP isn’t, it’s overly user-friendly — certainly not on a Mac, due to its Linux-style GUI conventions (though at least it’s not Blender ). Maybe the more recent versions have improved, but the one I used to use some years ago required a major mental switch every time I used it to make sure I was looking for the right thing to click on — and this as someone who used to use Linux for years before buying an iMac. *snip* Can't say I have every had a problem (Yes I agree with blender *shudder*) as I have been using gimp since 0.9b on windows, Fedora, Ubuntu, Susi, (some other distro) and Mac. Sorry OP, were dragging this OT! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffTibbetts Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Thats funny all I use is a mac and gimp to get my shots, why pay for unneeded software when you can get pro used (yes gimp and its derivatives have been used in the film industry) for proper free.Ease of use perhaps? If there’s one thing GIMP isn’t, it’s overly user-friendly — certainly not on a Mac, due to its Linux-style GUI conventions (though at least it’s not Blender ). Maybe the more recent versions have improved, but the one I used to use some years ago required a major mental switch every time I used it to make sure I was looking for the right thing to click on — and this as someone who used to use Linux for years before buying an iMac. FWIW, I use Photoshop for my image editing needs, but if you don’t want to pay through the nose or don’t want copied software on your computer, Pixelmator is IMHO the best alternative I’ve used. It certainly beats Photoshop Elements in ease of use, not to mention in price. On the subject of light box's I have one of the folding one (used for the photo's of my World Eaters.) but be warned that the blue doesn't always work but they often have gray back's. If your camera has colour balance use the grey side for calibrating.The blue sheet in mine is white on the other side, but it’d be easy enough to make one in a completely different colour just by buying a bit of cloth and some velcro to sew or glue to it (the sheet attaches with that at the top). BTW what camera ap are you using as the default is yet to produce an exceptional shot but my 5s (when used in very good lighting) can produce minimal ps requiring shots.Like I said, I use the standard camera app that came with my iPad. TBH I preferred the iOS 7 version over the iOS 8 one, but one of the drawbacks of using these kinds of devices is that you can’t just install an old version of software so I guess I’ll live with it. In any case, for things like “in progress” photos or quick shots of finished models, I find it all works fine. If I were to take photos of models for more professional use, or to make them appear the real thing, I’d use an SLR camera, but for ones like I posted above, I don’t see the need when a quick snap with an iPad gives the results I want too. Again, sorry to keep the sidetrack going but I strongly recommend the Camera+ app. I use it once in a while and it takes markedly better photos, with excellent editing options to boot. There's even a software Macro in there that does a good job without using a separate lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurth Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 Can't say I have every had a problem (Yes I agree with blender *shudder*) as I have been using gimp since 0.9b on windows, Fedora, Ubuntu, Susi, (some other distro) and Mac.That’s probably exactly why you don’t have a problem with it Anyone new to it is probably going to face a user interface that doesn’t quite do what they expect it to do, compared to the other programs they’re used to on their computer. Sorry OP, were dragging this OT!I wouldn’t say it’s OT, since the thread started off as being about ”High-Res Photographs of Sprues (or making them)?” and we’re discussing ways to get good photographs. Again, sorry to keep the sidetrack going but I strongly recommend the Camera+ app. I use it once in a while and it takes markedly better photos, with excellent editing options to boot. There's even a software Macro in there that does a good job without using a separate lens.I may have to check it out … Not having my iPad here with me I’m kind of hoping it’s free to try so I don’t need to buy it before coming to the conclusion I don’t need it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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