How to Photo your Scaler like a Ninja

[HANgOVER Airbrush RC]

I'm not sure if this is where this goes....but I figure Scalers care more about this than anyone else.



The first rule of Fight Club is we....wait. oops.


First off the bat. I am not a "pro photographer." But I paid attention in Photography class at Crestwood HS. Both years.

"Scale Photography" is about tricking the eye into believing the subject is real. Like (spoiler alert) the mini's used in Star Wars, or Star Trek.

There are certain techniques we can use to fake realism.

In this "tutorial," I speak mostly about DSLR cameras, but most of the techniques convey to POS (point and shoot) and phone cameras.
After all, the BEST camera is the one that you have WITH you!!!

First, let's look at what NOT to do.



(above)...lighting is harsh. The subject is in direct sunlight. This makes a very dark, contrasting shadow. The camera is at an "unrealistic" elevation. Was the camera guy on a radio tower???
Later I'll talk about "Flattering angles," which is the opposite of this. I can see thru the truck... FAKE!!



(above) This is worse. Now there is a shadow from a "giant" in the photo.
Again, we're supposed to believe the camera is 40' in the air.
The grass certainly isn't scale either.

Points made:
Shoot from a flattering angle. I like to photograph from an "elevation" that would relate to someone taking a pic in the "real" world.

Mind your shadows. Or better yet, shoot on a cloudy day. (More on that later.) As much as I preach, "keep the sun to your back," having the photographer's shadow in the pic is a sure fire way to kill the illusion.

Scale (and un-scale) items. Include those that help, omit those which do not. Right?

Here's a better example. (below)


Selective focus (AKA Depth of field) can be used to hide elements in the background, foreground, and confuse the viewer. There aren't many things in the pic that can be used as a "scale reference."

How about this one? (below)



Notice "scale items" are conveniently placed in the background. Heavy use of selective focus (DoF) and there are no scale-breaking items anywhere to be found. (I wish I could have hid those nasty R-Clips)
Which brings me to my next point...

Shooting from a flattering angle/perspective.

In the second pic (from the top), we were looking down at the truck. The way we look at toys.

In the last (above) pic, I chose a lower angle, and even though the R-Clips are clearly visable, the pic looks more "realistic" because that's how we view "the real trucks."

Some takeaways,
Camera placement is maybe more critical than anything else. If the perspective makes it look like a toy, then the photo will convey that.

Shadows. Hard shadows look fake. As fake as Michael Jackson's nose.. (too soon?) Look for shade, or a cloudy day. I don't wanna get into fill lights, bouncing light, and all that nonsense... Just try to avoid hard shadows.

When you can....Control your Depth of Field. Throw that background and foreground out of focus. It's an "artistic choice," but I feel it helps to sell the illusion. The DoF is controlled by the camera's "f-stop." The bigger the number (f-22) the larger the DoF(think of it as how much of the pic is in focus). So, the smaller the number (f-1.8 the more shallow the DoF. When focused close up, those "rules" are exacerbated. When focused to "infinity" it's a bit harder to notice a difference in f-stop, unless the background is really far away. (Can you say, "proportional?")

F-22 (below) Deep DoF. (That means objects from 2' all the way to 15' are relatively in focus.)
Not bad. Good framing, composition. exposure seems right. But, something still seems...off?


So I leave you here. Extreme example of cropping the pic with camera placement, selective focus (DoF), shooting from a "flattering angle," and having no outside reference to scale.



Literally, only the front bumper to about half-way down the front fender are in focus...so, DoF is about 3 inches? That's shallow DoF.

A few other points worthy of mention.

Not every pic needs to be "tire stuffed-full-flex-max-articulation." Yes, it's cool, and the reason we play with our toys, but let us not get carried away...Right?

Avoid Flash Photography. This is a matter of preference, actually. However, I believe it makes the pic look "flat." It also creates those hard shadows I hate so much...

These are general rules. Unlike the RC Crawler forum rules, they can be broken. Sometimes you want "sun flare." So you would have the sun behind the subject.

Photography is Art. Art is subjective. If you have techniques that work for you, use them. My goal is simply to give you more tools for your arsenal.

And of course, these pics could further be modified and tweaked with Photoshop, or the Gimp2.8, but that's a different post...

Cheers,
Jack

 

[fla_cracker]

Thank you for that write up. I never really understood the "depth of field" or F-stop stuff until the way you explained it. Makes sense now. "thumbsup"

 

[Zookk]

Nice little how to. Explained in a way that is easy to understand with examples. One of these days I'll try more than point and shoot.

 

[2EZ]

Good read makes me want to go take photos!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[kind325]

Why were you shooting at ISO 800 with a shutter speed of 1/4000? You were shooting with a prime lens which I'm sure is less then 85mm given you were at f1.8.

Rule of thumb is never shoot slower then your lens focal length, e.g never shoot slower then 1/85 with a 85mm lens. On the flip side there is no reason to shoot a still subject at 1/4000 because you aren't getting maximum light absorption as well shooting at ISO 800 is also degrading the quality of your image with noise.

Other then that good tips!

I'll add a few things....

1. Shoot at the lowest possible ISO.

2. For optimum image quality try to refrain from shooting with an aperture smaller then f11, e.g f22. What begins to happen on all lenses is called defraction and what it is is the light bouncing around inside the lens and it never combines back in sync with the other color spectrums before hitting the camera sensor. It's the nature of the beast when tightening up the f stop.

3. Longer focal length lenses compress the background into the subject vs wide angle lenses which separate the background from the subject.

4. The further you are away from your subject the less DOF you'll need to get your subject in focus.

5. There is no rule of thumb on where to have the sun in relation to you and the subject. There are only what works for the photographer and the image they want to capture. There are certain positions that may make the image more balanced but there is no must be way of doing it.

6. Flash photography when used properly is extremely nice when done properly e.g fill flash. When you add just enough flash to fill in the shadows but no so much you over power the sun.

Enjoy.

 

[HANgOVER Airbrush RC]

Kind,
Good eye. I can tell you are into photography more than I.
I was using my "nifty fifty" for this shoot.
My goal was simply to try and illustrate extreme examples of both situations. So, In order to make that point more clearly, I chose to keep the variables to a minimum. Hence the broad daylight ISO 800, and only changing shutter and aperture.
I know I should have went with native ISO, but I didn't want to confuse the issue by changing too many settings on the camera. Besides, I was trying to time the clouds to my advantage, outrun the looming t-storms, and I was shooting at a breathtaking resolution of 720x480...lol, who's gonna notice a little noise?

Please, keep in mind, these "rules" for miniatures are just settings and techniques that I noticed I use frequently. You are correct, there are completely different "rules" for real world photography.

Valid point made with your no.2. I do get refraction when taking landscape pics at f22. And it's less noticeable at f16.

3. didn't have time to swap out to the 85-300mm to illustrate effects of focal length. (maybe you'd like to handle that one?)

4. I believe I made that point with different words(?) err, maybe my point was the opposite. The closer you are to your subject, the more "out of focus" your background could be...

5,6. A matter for future tutorials, perhaps? I was trying to keep everything simple. Flash does have it's purposes, but I don't..."prefer" to use it. Just like Picasso didn't use red paint during his "blue" period...Besides, Flash photography is a Book all in itself...

Thanks for taking to time to contribute to the post!
I value your opinion.

BTW, I was shooting a shutter of 1/4000 because my camera doesn't have 1/5000.

Cheers!

 

[kind325]

It's all good man. More info the better. But you had said it correctly in your primary post about perspective and it being ever so important when capturing our tiny trucks.

As far as the flash part goes, to everyone... Never use direct flash e.g the flash on your camera. It's harsh and very un-pleasing in most circumstances. Off camera flash is the best kind of flash if you are going to use it. But that requires buying more gear to produce the image. Best bet is just to use natural light whenever possible... Unless flash is your thing lol.

I'll try and get some shots up showcasing focal length when I can.

 

[gottorque]

It's all good man. More info the better. But you had said it correctly in your primary post about perspective and it being ever so important when capturing our tiny trucks.

As far as the flash part goes, to everyone... Never use direct flash e.g the flash on your camera. It's harsh and very un-pleasing in most circumstances. Off camera flash is the best kind of flash if you are going to use it. But that requires buying more gear to produce the image. Best bet is just to use natural light whenever possible... Unless flash is your thing lol.

I'll try and get some shots up showcasing focal length when I can.

I second the part about flash. While I only have a point and shoot, I put electrical tape over both the flash and AF light. Much better results in more difficult lighting situations in my opinion.


Very good writeup OP and kind325.

 

[Disturbd]

Off camera flash with a sizeable light modifier is awesome, brings out the details and gives soft and perfect shadows.

 

[HANgOVER Airbrush RC]

Okay,
Now to more Advanced Photography.

Let's see if I can make this photo jargon translate....

By using different "focal lengths" we can effectively "crop" the background from our picture...Or, vice versa, we can include more background...

Focal Length isn't something I can define. But, know that it's definition isn't as important as knowing how it works. And that part I do understand.

FL is a term we now use instead of referring to the power of zoom, like in the old days. It translates to "the bigger the number, the bigger the zoom."
I'm told (with a cropped APC) that a 50mm is most like "what the human eye sees." We consider something like an 18mm to be "wide angle," and a 300mm to be somewhat of a "zoom lens." Because the size of every camera's sensor can be different (Full Frame, APS-C, 1/4", etc) they will react differently to the change in FL, resulting/comparing to the "zoom ratio" of different lenses.

None of that is important in understanding HOW focal length affects pictures.


In the PIC above, we have a red truck. Imagine that we want to "fill our picture frame" with nothing but truck. So we physically move the cameras until we are in the "perfect" spot. The camera on the left (with a longer FL) will show less of the background (green lines), while the camera on the right will show a "wider" background, due to it's shorter FL(blue lines).

Run-on sentences aside, the biggest (I think) effect Focal Length has, is how much of the backgound can be included.

Focal length also affects/distorts the subject. For example, if we look at the same pic (above) but this time at the back side of the truck. Look at the distance between the truck's right rear, and the closest line. (along an imaginary plane down the truck's right side)
We notice that the distance is greater with the shorter FL. Okay, So the "wide angle" lenses distort. Got it. Well, that is only kinda accurate. Long FL lenses also "distort" the image. But they do it "differently." Think of the early GoPro's and the "FishEye" footage we got from them, vs. a zoomed in picture of an Eagle. Even though both pictures have some sort of parallax distortion, we only really notice it with the "Walleye Vision."

Of course, this concept can be combined with DoF or any other photography tools in your arsenal to get really unique results.


I hope the way I explained this is accurate, but I'm sure any discrepancies will be pointed out, with the help of our friends here on the forum.

(This post was, in part, made possible with the help of Coors Brewing co. Although they didn't donate (I wish they would) or contribute in any way, they did provide a little inspiration.)

What's next guys? Light bouncing? Flash with modifiers?

Cheers,
Jack

 

[Disturbd]

I would like to add that a wide angle lens gives a deeper DOF (depth of field) than what a tele lens would at the same distance.
Whilst the DOF/focus plane in a 100mm at 5m would be relatively narrow and giving you excellent blurry backgrounds a 14mm at same aperture and distance woul nearly focus until infinity.

A shot of my scx10 from my D3s with a samyang 14mm at f2.8, Just raw-jpeg converted without touching sliders in camera raw.

 

[Disturbd]

Forgot to add the pic

 

[Habanero]

You can also get good results with a point & shoot. This is with the zoom maxed out:

 

[HANgOVER Airbrush RC]

Disturbd...nice pic. Habenero...nice pic too, love that color... but did you forget to re-size?
lol, thanks for contributing, guys...

 

[Habanero]

Thanks it's spazstix purple dynamite. Resize ? Nah I'm too lazy - That's what the gold membership is for - certainly not for the "free prizes" lol.

 

[Disturbd]

Yeah, it's the person operating the camera that makes the shot, not the camera.
I didn't intend to come off like a elitist prick if i did, just shared what i did to get my example shot

 

[Habanero]

And oh I see now - by posting large pics it throws off the whole proportion of the forum itself and the text gets tiny- so my bad I should resize.

 

[EeePee]

Yes you should. Even the rules state 800x600.

 

[Devwon]

Always looking for good shots. I'll start posting here when I'm lucky enough to get one, hope others follow.

 

[Mike Flea]

Then you can post it here: http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/general-scale-talk/362689-wow-thats-rc-truck.html

You'll find that thread on Pg 12 of General Scale Talk, near the bottom of the page