Friday, June 17, 2016

Miniature Photography the Oldenhammer Way





In the last couple months I've gotten a couple questions about how I take pictures of my miniatures. For me, learning about miniature photography has been one of the best things about starting this website and participating in our hobby's online community.  In my view, shooting miniatures is as creative an act as painting miniatures, with some hobbyists transforming it into a veritable art form. Some of my favourites include:

I -- of course -- have a different approach to any of these gentlemen...

And I guess that's the first part of miniature photography: you have to decide what you mean to accomplish. Although I experimented early on with photos that place my miniatures in the context of the games, I realized that what I really wanted was a clean, distinctive and uncluttered look for my photos. I wanted something that mirrored a clean, distinctive and uncluttered blog. My aim is to make the miniature (and the paint job) as "readable" as possible. In this sense, I'm similar (if inferior) to artists like Stro'knor at Quindias Studios or Jinnai at the Realm of Jinnai. Like them, I focus my photography on the miniature itself, not on the flavour of the underlying game.

The Ghoul (1985) from the Talisman Range, sculpted by Aly Morrison

Well, enough about philosophy - let's discuss practicalities. The number one requirement for miniature photography isn't the camera, or the background. You need light. Lots and lots of light. Natural light (outdoors on a slightly overcast day) can produced marvelous effect. I still remember a magic day when I took a series of photos in my backyard of my Wild West town. However, because I wanted more consistency and reliability in my photos, I ultimately opted for indoor photography using a light box. I won't dwell too long on this topic because I've already written about the Foldio Light Box that I use for my shots. Almost 2 years on, I'm still happy with it, although I'm looking forward to the arrival of the new (and larger) model, which will help me take photos of bigger units and "360 degree images".

I also use a Flotone Blue Jay graduated photographic background on all my shots. These backgrounds are huge, poster sized sheets, so obviously you have to cut them up to fit inside your light box. I've also written about this fantastic product, and I will just emphasize that it's incredible how the colour of the background alters the appearance of the miniature. If my miniatures seem brightly coloured (or if they seem to have a strong cel-shaded look), I think at least part of the praise/blame can be laid at the feet of all my lights working in conjunction with the Flotone.

I don't own a camera. All I've ever used is my Samsung Galaxy s. 4 smartphone. So I don't think an expensive camera is necessary. But I have given a terrible amount of time to thinking about tripods, experimenting with half-a-dozen before settling on this cheap tripod and bluetooth shutter control purchased on eBay. The tripod is all important because the position of your camera changes the perception of your miniature.

I like very close shots, which Smartphones pull off with alarming ability. Usually, only about 1-3 inches separate the miniature from the lens. The positive side of close-ups is that you attain a very high resolution to your images. This captures a lot of detail on the figure, right down to individual brush strokes. But there are several downsides: very small flaws in the painting a glaringly obvious. Even specks of dust that are invisible to the naked eye flare on the miniature like stars emerging from the evening sky. And finally, when your lens is that close to the miniature, you have an extremely narrow depth of field (i.e. you have a narrow band where things will be in focus). This means that if a particular miniature is throwing one hand behind him, that hand may not be as sharply in focus as the miniature's face because of the difference in their distance from the lens.

Of course, sometimes a narrow depth of field can produce dramatic effects, like in this photo of my orc baggage train:



I spend a lot of time thinking about how to position the camera. If you want your miniature to look like it will on the gaming table, it's best to shoot them from a higher angle, since this is how the players see them. Personally, I want the viewers to see my miniatures as I see them while I paint them, so I shoot them at a low angle. I also think this adds a sense of life to the miniature, since this is the perspective at which we all view each other in the real world.

For some miniatures, I angle the camera almost below level to make them seem more threatening or heroic, like this shot of Han Solo:




And then there is post-production. In order to achieve a clean, uniform look, I generally crop my photos to a 3x5 ratio. For many shots, I use Photoshop's Photomerge Panorama function to give both the front and back of a miniature in one frame -- this is part of my quest for a highly readable image that other hobbyists can use as a reference tool for their own work. (It took dozens and dozens of hours to create these duplex images when I assembled my galleries of all the Talisman miniatures, so I hope you lot appreciated it!)

For the sake of maintaining a high resolution, it's generally a good idea to let the miniature fill as much of the image as possible. Sometimes however, it can be fun to play with composition. Every once in a while, I enjoy expanding the negative space in the frame in order to accentuate the silhouette of a particularly dynamic miniature. For example, here's Han again, spinning to shoot at someone that the viewer can't see: 




So that's how Oldhammer in Toronto does it. Please share your own photo tips, or feel free to ask any questions in the comments. Cheers! 

27 comments:

  1. That's a really interesting article. Photos are something I think a lot of us 40k bloggers could do much better. For my part I think the difficulty is always getting the time to take good pictures and treat them properly in post production, so most of my photos end up snapped on my iPhone at my desk and not properly composed.

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  2. Very nice and informative tutorial Mathew.

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  3. Really comprehensive article, cheers. Just another thing to remind me that I need to make much more of an effort when taking pics of my own minis!

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  4. Great read. Light is definitely key and background color can dramatically affect how the finished product looks.

    My camera's pretty basic. Getting it to focus on what I want consists of putting that something in the middle of the shot and hoping for the best. Using the timer to avoid the shakes as well as a tripod are musts.

    You make good points regarding viewing angles. At least one close-in head-shot with the subject looking into the camera is something I try for. Can be dramatic when it works to plan. Its necessary to zoom in for this but not so much that depth of field becomes a problem.

    I use Picasa for post production & always include a white reference when shooting so that white balance can be corrected later.

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    1. I like the idea of using a white reference for purposes of colour correction. I've never advanced that far in my own photography, but it sounds like the next step -- so thanks for that tip, Finch!

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  5. A thoughtful and interesting post! I've noticed your pics are often not just "documentary shots" but have some unusual off-centre composition etc. Also they're generally excellently lit, I might add. I always struggle with that myself.

    And also thanks for the shout out :D Because I don't game, I don't have a collection of tabletop terrain to pose my figures with, but I do enjoy putting together little "stage sets" to photograph them in action as it were. I'll admit the first link you included does have a background photoshopped in, which I usually do if I can't get rid of glare on a printed backdrop or I don't have something suitable printed out. My favourite images are the ones that are 100% physical sets with no post-production, like this. But they sure are more work!

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    1. Ps, I also like your comments on shooting angle, it definitely does add some drama to shoot individual figures from a low angle vs. the near "aerial" shots of tabletop setups.

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    2. I find it fascinating that you paint but don't game. Your miniatures have such a playful sense to them, it seems especially surprising.

      And that's true about the glare -- it can be a real pain. Probably one more reason that I gravitated to the Flotone. By the way, I love that shot that you linked to!

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    3. Thanks... I'm glad you think they're playful, but honestly they're also all over the place, thematically. I'd be hard-pressed to come up with two decent squads in my collection to play even a skirmish game with... The upside is that if I like something, I just paint it!

      I never really got into gaming, since I didn't know enough other nerdy people to get a game going. Probably just as well, since there's no way I could make time for it now.

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    4. Boy is that ever true. The only thing that's more time intensive than painting is gaming.

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  6. Excellent post ! I have to say I share most of your views on photos and have used the fading blue for some time? Learning to take proper pics is a long journey though and there are very good points for those who'd want to start here.

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    1. Oh and I totally back your view on the Private's eternal.

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    2. Private's stuff reminds me of the movie MARWENCOL. I don't know if you've ever seen it or even heard of it, but it's a wonderful documentary.

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    3. I've never seen Marwencol either, it's about the guy who makes all the little war stories with dolls, right? Remarkable but definitely a bit sad too.

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    4. That's right. The guy in the movie is also a cross-dresser, which adds an extra layer to the burrito. I'm sure some people found it sad, but I thought it was an amazing story about quite an amazing fellow.

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  7. Thank you for your post, pics are truly my weak spot, I cannot take decent pics of my minis for the sake of my life, I find this educational!

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  8. Very nice post and a lot of good tips. I'll have to go and look at the links as I am not familiar with all of the blogs. Light is the key. If you have a fancier camera you can use longer exposure times to compensate. I think we choose different styles to express different things. I mostly do display shots, and battle reports. I want to do more staged/diorama type shots. I'll also look at your background links as I am always on the lookout for useful stuff.

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  9. Thanks for all the feedback everyone! It's nice to hear that this post might be helpful.

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  10. Hi Matthew,

    Thanks for the nice shout-out and the kind words! And thanks too for the links to those wonderful sites!

    It was fascinating seeing your photo set-up and reading of your method - I had always liked the look of your photos. I especially love Han in the last picture in this post! Thanks again!

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  11. Thank you so much Matt. Really appreciate your approach to taking photos. Does the light box come with a standard back drop? The gradiant back drop you use is really eye catching. Thank you for sharing.

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    1. Glad you found it useful, Mike.
      The Foldio comes with 3 monochromatic back drops. I didn't find that they were particularly impressive, which is why I switched to the gradient.

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    2. Thank you mart :)thank you Matt :)

      I finished Bespin and should have a light box in a few days. I need to create a website so I can share.

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    3. My photos skills suck :(. Can't figure out why need to read some more tutorials.

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  12. Great set of links there!

    I have learnt through trial and error. The first few months of photos on my blog are abysmal!

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    1. Shout out to Silver Whistle and Shed Wars, their setups are spectacular!

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  13. That's a very cool box; I'm afraid if I used one that my miniatures would show all their many flaws.

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