Basic miniature photography

Photographing miniatures.......seem some great photos, seen a lot of photos that were the best that people could manage, and seen some others that made me wonder....

A few key items of equipment
- A camera (even a point and shoot can give good results)
- A tripod for the camera, or a stable stand for it
- A soft, diffused light source. Daylight standard flouro tubes are better, incandescent globes masked with a plain white sheet of paper give good results, bare bulbs create colour shifting in the photo
- A neutral background drop cloth.


In the photos above, you can see a simple tripod, a light blue cloth for the backdrop, and a light that has a daylight standard globe (It's an Ott-Lite, if you're wondering about the brand name).

I hang the cloth from my two workbench lights by use of bulldog clips, arrange the tripod and camera, switch on the light, and arrange the mini I am going to photograph.

In the second photo, you can see two reflectors I used to soften the shadows on the figures 'dark' side, one form the non- lit side, and the other from underneath, to help fill in the underside of figures (avoids long dark shadows under chins, noses, that kind of thing)

The use of a tripod is to keep the photos consistent, and one easy thing to do, once you have finished mucking about with set up, is start the self timer on the camera. press the button, camera counts down, click, photo. By linking the camera to tripod and self timer, there is nil risk of having a camera wobble at the last moment.

Like everything else, if the time is taken to prepare properly, then the results are that much more pleasing, and that little bit better.
The challenge is in finding the knowledge.