Photographing Your Miniatures

Every so often you finish a great mini and want to share the photos. And those damn photos just don’t come out right!

So, how to do it right? That’s what I’m going to talk about.

 

Note, however – I’m not going to talk about professional-level macrophotography (i.e. making pics of tiny things like flowers, bugs and the like – though I had someone who really knows that stuff check this text for me, so I’m not talkin’ utter rubbish here!). Just as much as every ordinary Joe the Infinity Player can manage.

First, if you’re worrying about the camera – don’t. Having a professional camera, with pro lens and pro-whatever isn’t necessary (though it does help, indeed). A compact, automatic digital camera is enough.

What you really should worry about is light and the exposure time. But let’s start with the basics.

Also – let’s mention it at the beginning – a photo-editing software can do marvels, but it is far easier to make a decent photo if the material you started the editing with was at least acceptable.

All pictures in this text are raw – just as taken.

Modern cameras, at least the popular, cheap (i.e. non-pro) ones tend to rely on autofocus to make the pics right. Which means – you want your camera to focus on the mini, and only on the mini. You therefore want a non-reflexive (i.e. not glossy!), bland, unfeaturing background, preferably neutral in colour. For starters – a sheet of white paper, for example printer paper, will do. You could buy special background foams at wherever they do cater to the photographing crowd, and these will work better.

It will also help you manage the light.

Oh, and while we’re at it – set your camera into macrophotgraphy mode. Y’know, the one intended for details, looking like little flower, not the one for family photos or landscapes.

Exposure time. The darker there is, the more time you need to have a picture that isn’t dark. Compact camera set this automatically (which is nice, as I had problems with manually setting that on an analog camera years ago), but – a critical thing – you can’t shake your hand when the photo is being taken.

I’d therefore suggest you use a tripod (tall and secure ones are quite expensive, but a small one that will work for your compact camera on a tabletop should be pretty affordable), or, if you lack one, at least prop the camera against some books. Also, select automatic, delayed shutter setting. This way, you’ll have your hands completely off the camera when the photo is taken, and therefore it should be completely immobile – exactly what the doctor prescribed!

It has a lot to do with the lens of your camera, too, but since compact cameras don’t tend to have a replaceable lens, we aren’t going to cover this problem. 

Light. One photographer I once knew used to say “An amateur worries about the equipment. A professional worries about the money. A master worries about the light!”. Well, the guy was a patented pain-in-the-butt, but he had this one right: light is crucial. One doesn’t always have the luxury of full daylight, so I got used to artificial light sources.

You want a lot of light. However, light is going to affect your colours, with something known as “light temperature” being a factor. Traditional light bulbs are excellent for that job, halogen bulbs are good, too.

Energy-saving bulbs and LED lights can be tricky – you can get good ones, but they are difficult to find sometimes, and often not cheap. Request lightbulbs / LED that produce light of temperature no greater than 3 200 Kelvin (candlelight is 2 000 K, a lightning bolt is about 30 000 K, and there are loads of LED and energy-saving bulbs on the market that are rated at 10 – 14 000 K, if the producer cared to rate them at all!). Too hot light, and your pics will be ugly…

And yes, the flash your camera has is pretty high on that scale too.

Direct light from a lamp can do, but it isn’t the best thing. A dispersed light is much better for our purpose – a canvas or thin paper (tissue paper or paper towel could work in a pinch) screen in-between your lamp and the mini will help that.

 Of course – if you want to go and buy a light tent, or even build one yourself on a budget (the tent itself is easy, the light sources will be more difficult), that’d be great. It will cover both the background and light-dispersing screens, and ready-made ones tend to come with some light sources and pod for stabilizing your camera too.

Using the flash – well, I’m not a pro myself. Sometimes you need flash – I tend to just make two variants of a photo (one with, one without flash) and ditch the less successful one when editing / uploading my pictures. Pro tip: don’t use your flash, small pocket cameras have no possibility to adjust the strength of it. Instead check if your camera have a Exposure or EV setting by increasing it to + setting your picture will be brighter. Also if possible change your ISO setting, maximum recommended is 400.

Zoom. The less you use it, the better. Of course, there’s a limit on how close you can get to an object with your camera physically (below it, it won’t be able to focus correctly). You’ll have to find that by trial and error, but I’d call 30-40cm a safe distance. Then use zoom if you really need.

Well, off you go. Have fun taking pics of your miniatures!