Snaptophobia

I’ve moved

2010-07-13T12:34:00.001+01:00

I mentioned it before, and I am mentioning it again.

Snaptophobia has moved. Here...

I was going to run things in parallel, but it has become increasingly obvious that blogging through Posterous is so much easier. I mean, send an email and I’m done. Even with photos. From my mobile phone. And it all gets passed to Twitter and then to Facebook. One stop shop.

I’ve already copied over pertinent posts to the new home. All my blogging activities take place at the new place. I think it’s time to pull down the blinds, put up the shutters and lock the doors for the final time on this place.

I’d like to say it was fun, but that’s not actually completely true, sadly.

See you in the other place. Try not to disturb the cobwebs and dust too much if you visit here again.

Photographing the smallest things

2010-06-02T20:36:00.001+01:00

Another quick link.

Back in the 1990s, in the pre-digital dawn, you had to feed reels of light-sensitive material into your cameras. Very often, you would be lucky to get 36 frames from a reel, which then had to be processed and developed. You’d end up with prints in a little wallet, smelling faintly of chemicals.

Happy days.

Anyway, a handful of shots taken using an Olympus OM10 and a prime wide angle lens, Ilford 400 Delta black and white negative film, some patience and Boots the Chemist. Proper old skool.

Istrane – pronounced “eye strain” – was a Z scale model railway, a scale of 1:220, and to date the smallest scale models I’ve had the privilege to photograph. Images taken at the Chatham & District MRC’s exhibition held in Anchor Wharf, Chatham Historic Dockyard, probably before the doors opened to the public. The models are based on proprietary mechanisms and chassis, with scratchbuilt upperworks to represent the LNER of the 1930s. I can’t really begin to explain quite how small these models actually are.

Has it gone quiet?

2010-05-26T14:42:00.001+01:00

It does appear to have gone quiet here, doesn’t it? That’s because I’m directing my blogging focus to a new Posterous account instead.

Why? Because it’s easier to use. If I find something blogworthy on the internet I can blog it right there and then. If I feel in the mood to vent, I can do it via an email to my account, and it’s there. Working with Blogger, even with ScribeFire, is just so much effort these days.

So, will this blog die? I don’t know. It was originally an experiment, tied to Softpress Freeway. Now it’s on its own, and I’ve transferred the useful content over to Posterous anyway. I’ll leave the final decision for now.

LNER K-2 Class 2-6-0 No 1742

2010-04-20T10:40:00.001+01:00

LNER K-2 Class 2-6-0 No 1742, originally uploaded by Snaptophobic.

There are regular open meetings of the ScaleSeven Group around the country. This past weekend saw the Thames Valley Group host a meeting in the delightfully-named Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, near Wallingford in Oxfordshire.

I've posted this image to illustrate two of the problems you can face photographing models in a public environment. The first is the lack of control over the backgrounds, despite this model being posed on a test track with a nice tall white backdrop. The second is the variable lighting conditions.

The hall is a light and airy venue, with tall windows high in the walls. The day was sunny and clear, yet we also had the hall’s fluorescent lighting on. As you can see, on a slightly shiny model, the reflections from the surroundings can be a little distracting.

I tried to counter the light spilling from the bright window above and behind me to the right by using a board as a block, and moving my own body around to act as a baffle. Under some circumstances, I’ve even used several bystanders to act as a shield!

Still, it’s all good fun.

Is it really a year?

2010-03-29T18:18:00.001+01:00

LNER Cavalcade at Alexandra Palace, originally uploaded by Snaptophobic.

A “studio” shot from the 2010 Ally Pally show. Shot under the hall lighting, with a little reflectivity from a sheet of A4 paper. The technical stuff is much as previously noted: Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens, set at 20mm, aperture at ƒ/22, and exposure worked out by the camera.

Tilt-shift reprise

2010-03-21T14:41:00.001Z

You may recall some time back, I posted about the tilt-shift fad sweeping the online photographic world. This is where a photograph (and increasingly video – no, really) of a real place is manipulated to make it look like a photo of a miniature.

Well, I’ve been fiddling about in Photoshop:

These images were taken last summer, with this experiment in mind, at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre, Quainton Road, Bucks. There’s a distinct knack to getting the blurred areas looking right, and rather too much time spent with layer masks and soft-edged brushes. Working out the detailed areas where the depth of field ought to be sharpest is fun, too.

Will I do it again? Not really. It was fun to try, and the effect can be stunning when done properly, but it’s not something I feel will enhance my work. I’m definitely not about to rush out and buy a proper TS lens, either!

That was quick!

2010-03-14T17:28:00.001Z

So, here we are halfway through March already. I’m not entirely sure how it comes to pass that the year is slipping away from me so quickly, but there it is.

I’ve found myself having to go out and earn a living. At the same time, I’m a co-founder of a new stock photography enterprise. Please pop over to Britstock Photo’s web site to find out about that.

All of that effectively means I haven’t found the time to update this blog since January! I promise and don’t deliver – and it’s beginning to really bug me. Either I’m going to make this blog worthwhile, or I’m just going to have to walk away.

See you again in three months. (Joke!)

A happy new year!

2010-01-03T14:08:00.001Z

Here we are in 2010 already. Where did that decade go?

I’ve been working on a short series of articles about model photography for a hobby journal. Having completed it now, I think they may be of use republished here. Essentially, I covered model photography for those with simple compact digital cameras, then moved to high-end compacts and DSLRs. I learned a few things along the way, too. There are basic tips and techniques, some of the wrinkles I’ve developed to achieve things, and useful links to other sites for information.

I think I’ll post it as a series of articles, rather than one huge one. The first part will be up in a couple of weeks. (Now, where have we heard that before!)

Reflections of reflectors, sort of

2009-12-14T15:46:00.001Z

Not specifically to do with scale model photography, more to do with proper full-sized human models, but it’s still a useful tip: A DIY reflector from a bed sheet.

I have a bed sheet I carry in my lighting case, which I can use as backdrops on shoots.

Putting light where you want it

2009-11-22T11:53:00.001Z

As you may now realise, I am a photographer that prefers ambient light to illuminate my subjects. When all you may have as a source of light is daylight from a window, you need to be able to bounce that light to where you want it.

Let’s not worry about how much light. I think it’s fairly obvious that you can take some pretty good images with quite low levels of light, provided you are patient and your camera can hold its shutter open long enough! Essentially, as long as you can bounce the light into a dark corner, and hold it still long enough, you will be able to take a picture.

So, reflectors. It’s a subject I have been meaning to get to for some while now, and as I find myself at a bit of a loose end for once, here’s my take.

You don’t actually need much to act as a reflector. A white shirt may well suffice, if you are wearing one; a large sheet of white paper or card is also useful. If you want to go to the expense, you can buy “proper” reflectors, some of which can be folded up into your pocket. (I’m not getting into the issues of controlling reflections, getting volunteers or using your own body to block unwanted light, and so on. That’s probably a topic for another time.)

Let’s assume you don’t want to spend a fortune on expensive reflectors, and won’t necessarily have a team of willing volunteers to hold and direct them at your bidding. What can you do? Well, I generally get by with the white paper — especially if the photographic session is a little ad hoc and I haven’t brought the full kit. For something a little more reflective, however, I made something from a sheet of hardboard wrapped in aluminium cooking foil. The board is A4, and was salvaged from a picture frame that was damaged. I cut a sheet of foil larger than the board, scrunched it up to scatter the reflection and, once flattened out, wrapped it around the board, dull side out. It’s held in place by tape, so it’s very easy to replace when it gets damaged — which it does when pushed into various pockets in the camera bag.

It’s something very simple and effective, particularly for the small scale of the subjects I specialise in! You might well find this kind of reflector useful if you want to play with macro work, but you don’t want to invest in ring flashes and other lighting gear.

In use, the technique is to frame your subject and get the focus where you want it. Set the aperture and shutter speed to taste. Look through the viewfinder while moving your reflector about. You should see subtle variations in the illumination of shadow areas. When you think you’ve got it about right, fire the shutter. For long exposures, you can actually move the reflector about a little to widen the illuminated area. It all seems a bit ersatz, but it can just provide enough to light the nether regions of a locomotive or wagon and bring out the details.

A technique I’ve not tried yet is to “paint with light”. With a long exposure, it is possible to use a torch or keyfob LED lamp to light areas. The pitfalls will most likely be colour balance, especially with an LED lamp: white LEDs are very white, as well as bright. I think I may do some tests to see what can be done.

Disappointment

2009-11-09T11:13:00.001Z

Today was the first proper day of autumn. It had been clear overnight, and we awoke to a mild ground frost and mist everywhere. “Excellent!” I thought, rubbing my hands together with anticipation. I thought it might be a good day to wander abroad with the camera and tripod, to catch some autumnal mist, shafts of sunlight through the trees, cars zooming by with headlights on, and so on.

So, I kept an eye on the weather, peeking out of the window all through breakfast. I aimed to be out around 9.30am, so I togged up, hoisted the camera bag and tripod onto my back, and headed out.

Unfortunately, despite my best laid plans, the sun failed to break through. The sky remained resolutely grey, and the mist clamped down further. I made an effort to get to one of the locations I planned—a footbridge crossing a dual carriageway—but decided it just wasn’t worth the effort. The sun was simply not going to burn off the mist layer sufficiently to allow any colours to come through. I was very disappointed, and also realising that I was not as fit as I ought to be. I was getting quite puffed climbing the mild slopes around my home.

So, reluctantly, I headed back home to a nice hot cuppa and a think.

Perhaps I gave up too easily. Perhaps I don’t, despite living in the area for a quarter century, really know the place well enough to know the good places for photography. I think I need to walk more often, too. I also think I’m more enthused about a location if I really have to plan it, and have to travel some distance to get there. When it isn’t so easy to turn round to the warmth and comfort of home, I think it makes me more focused on actually making the most of what is there.

So, don’t expect tons of images of my locality. While some may find it an interesting exercise in urban/suburban photography, I am not interested enough to make the effort, at least for now.

Whoops!

2009-10-25T11:10:00.001Z

I know, I know. My excuse is I lost interest. There’s been a lot going on, and time just slips by. Suddenly, you look up and realise a whole year has gone by and you’re still no further up the slippery pole, and may even have slipped down a bit.

I’m still no closer to my new camera, nor am I closer to a new lens I’ve had my eye on for ages. Likewise for potential computer hardware purchases. The day job has been a rollercoaster, and while I’m hanging in there for grim death I think it may not be long before I throw in the towel (or should that be shroud?).

In other news, I published my first photo book. Apple Aperture has a book publishing feature, so I created a single slim volume of model images as a test, with a view to further copies in due course to send out to various editors and publishers as a portfolio in an attempt to get some freelance work from them. The book quality was superb, absolutely ideal for the job. I am going to rearrange some of the pages, and swap some of the images for the final issue, but lack of finances have held me back getting the new copies. I doubt it’ll be much before the new year, now.

Yet more time wasted in procrastination and navel gazing. Seems to be the story of my life right now.

Some links

2009-09-10T15:23:00.001+01:00

I’m still here. =o)

I came across some interesting photography-related things that are worth passing on. I say I came across them, they came across me via my RSS reader.

Beautiful Black and White Photography, via Smashing Magazine
21 Great Shots (and how they were taken), via Digital Photography School

While I’m in linking mode, I want to point you at some brilliant blogs that are out there: MBT Blog! from Martin Bailey, and Chris Marquardt has kicked off his own blog, as well as Tips From The Top Floor and Daily Photo Tips With Chris and tons of other stuff as well. There’s also Photofocus from Scott Bourne. All of them also run regular free podcasts that are well worth subscribing to.

Right that’s it. Now, about that DIY reflector stuff...

Gah!

2009-08-30T11:06:00.001+01:00

Two months does not equal a week, at least not on planet Earth. I can only apologise.

If there are any excuses, they are of a personal nature. This past couple of months has been a bad time all round in the Snaptophobic world, and much of my time has been spent in dealing with that rather than worrying about updates here. Add into the mix taking time out for holidays and so on, it all slips by very quickly indeed.

So, with that in mind, I shall try to get myself back on track and post the promised entry on DIY reflectors as soon as I can.

I’m still here ... just!

2009-06-28T18:15:00.001+01:00

It’s been nearly a month since my last entry. My only excuse is I’ve simply not had the time to devote.

I will try to put together the second post on lighting in the next week.

Lighting (part 1)

2009-05-31T18:05:00.001+01:00

Enough of the spots, let’s get back to the real reason behind this blog.

When taking model shots, it helps to have some kind of light available, and the more you have the better. If you’ve been following this blog for a bit, you’ll know I’m a great fan of available light, and no lover of using flash. Of course, using available light can often mean lengthy exposures, and that’s not something some of the compact cameras are really adept with.

As part of an article I’m writing, I’ve been experimenting with various different digital cameras in order to see how easy—or not—it is to take half-decent model shots. As part of that experimentation, I used a small compact camera, set it to macro mode, and tried an image with the flash on, and the same image with the flash off.

That’s with the flash on. Obviously. Why is it bad? Well, imagine this was a real railway vehicle. It looks like the photographer was using a searchlight to illuminate the scene. There are hard shadows, the part closest to the camera is all but blown away, and notice how the light falls away part way along the model leaving the background in the dark. Yuck! It simply doesn’t look right, and screams “Look at me! I’m a model!” when we’re actually trying to fool most viewers into thinking it is a real full-sized vehicle.

Here’s the same model, photographed under the available light. Technically, it’s not a very good image, but we’re not interested in the depth of field as much as the quality of the lighting. The camera’s auto white balance—a subject for another day, I feel—didn’t really handle the fluorescent lights very well either, leaving everything tinged with green. In fact, this image is after colour correction, so it shows how bad it got! Again, that’s not the point of this shot. What I’m trying to illustrate is how the lighting is much more even overall. There are no harsh shadows, and the background is still lit adequately, although out of focus.

These examples are really the worst case I could come up with. The little camera, a Nikon Coolpix L11, is not really ideal for this kind of work, and I admit I was pushing it beyond its real capabilities. Having said that, when I tried similar shots outdoors in both direct sunlight and in shade, the results were a lot better—particularly the depth of field. Here’s the result in bright sunlight, where the camera’s iris closed right down:

The smaller aperture resulted in better depth of field by default, and proved to me the camera could take good model shots if there was plenty of light available. I was a little too close for the macro’s preferred 15cm distance, which is why the nearest buffer is just going out of focus, and the direct sunlight is throwing quite harsh shadows.

Here’s the result in bright shade, where the light was diffused and didn’t throw harsh shadows:

The macro autofocus went to the nearest point, leaving the furthest part just out of focus. I did try to force it to focus further away, but it didn’t want to play ball. While not as good as I’d like, I think you’ll agree both these images are pretty good for such a small camera, and I’d be happy to show them to anyone.

So, if you’re going to take photographs of your models, please don’t use flash, especially the built-in flash, if you can avoid it. To use available light, you will almost definitely need a tripod or be able to stand the camera on something solid, and may have to use the timer release to avoid jogging the camera when you press the shutter, unless you can use diffused daylight.

From these images, you can see that it also pays to consider what’s behind your subject! Next time, I will take a look at ways that don’t involve flash to help throw light on subjects, and how to lighten dark areas while making the exposure.

Thanks for reading!

Spotted! (take two)

2009-05-30T11:41:00.001+01:00

Spotted! (take two), originally uploaded by Snaptophobic.

As luck would have it, we have had some bright and cloudless mornings at work, so I’ve been able to repeat (almost) the previous shot that shows the dust specks.

As before, enhanced to show details, you can see there are still specks on the image after my cleaning session. They’re not quite as bad as before, though, so I shall leave them for now. I will consider a more intensive cleaning session if I feel it necessary.

Still spotted?

2009-05-25T21:00:00.001+01:00

Still spotted?, originally uploaded by Snaptophobic.

I received the Dust-Aid kit the other day, but I’ve not had the opportunity to try it out until this evening.

I performed the cleaning action twice, and while it has removed the specks from the upper left of the frame, there are some very stubborn spots in the lower third. I’m happy to leave those—for now—since they’re obviously going to need more intensive cleaning than I can achieve with the Dust-Aid alone. Spots in that area are also generally “lost” in more fussy areas of images.

So, a qualified success, I think. Would I recommend the Dust-Aid Platinum kit? I think I would, but only to remove the most superficial dust. Anything more stubborn is going to need a more intensive clean.

(The image has had contrast and sharpening boosted to show the spots. They’re all but invisible under normal circumstances.)

Spotted! (reprise)

2009-05-17T09:26:00.001+01:00

Well, I took the plunge and tried a manual clean of the sensor.

I did it three times. First, I did the mirror lock-up and blast of air. Reassembling the camera and taking an out-of-focus shot at high aperture revealed … the same dust spots in the same places.

D’oh!

So, I tried again, this time with a soft, clean, artist’s brush to gently move the dust away, followed up by a blast of air. Another photo revealed the situation had improved, but I had succeeded in moving the spots about.

Hmm.

A third and final attempt proved equally frustrating. The problem, I realise now, is that you simply cannot see the dust on the sensor when you study it. I did it under a strong light, and with a magnifying glass, but I could not see any dust physically on the sensor. So, that either means the dust isn’t really on the sensor (in which case how come it appears in the images not matter which lens I use), or I am not being brave enough to actually shift the particles with the brush.

I am about to wave my credit card at Amazon for the cleaning kit from DustAid.

I’ll report back if that works or not.

In the Zone

2009-05-11T17:06:00.000+01:00

This was posted by Nick Miners. It’s a very clear and concise explanation of what the Zone System for exposure calculation is, and how to do it.

The Zone System is something I’ve looked at for a while, but never clearly got my brain around what it achieves over existing exposure methods I can do with my camera. Nick has very adequately covered the why and the wherefore, although I’m discovering with my poor old stunted EOS 400D, it’s not actually capable of spot metering in the accepted sense.

So, I have to consider alternative methods, such as an 18% grey card and all other kinds of paraphernalia. I think getting properly into the Zone is going to have to wait until I get a better camera!

Spotted!

2009-05-02T07:50:00.001+01:00

Spotted!, originally uploaded by Snaptophobic.

With the expanse of clear blue May Day sky, this shot of a shuttle flying into London City Airport was taken from the car park of my current workplace.

ISO 100, 1/160th second, ƒ/16.

I've enhanced it a bit to emphasise the dust, but it really shows how much cruft has arrived on my camera’s sensor since I bought it. It’s rather shocking, actually.

So, I guess I ought to bring forward my dust removal expedition before the summer photography season really kicks in!

Dust on the sensor

2009-04-29T20:19:00.001+01:00

It had to happen. It’s inevitable, actually. I’ve got dust on the sensor of my DSLR.

I’d been careful to always avoid dusty areas when changing lenses. I’d followed the advice to always hold the camera facing downwards to help stop airborne particles settling inside. I’d cleaned the lens mounts before and after use. All to no avail. Even the much-vaunted self-cleaning system in the Canon range failed to shift the little blighters.

Stubborn. That’s what they are.

Of course, at first I hoped it was just on the back of the lens, so I diligently cleaned and tried again. Nope, still there. Nothing obvious on the mirror, and I’ve given the whole inside of the camera a good blast or three from the Giottos Rocket blower.

Under normal circumstances, you never see the tiny spots in photos. Only when you stop down to ƒ/11 or smaller do they become apparent, and then only in areas with little detail—sky or model railway backdrops.

Now, using Lightroom, or in my case Aperture, once I’ve identified the spots and cloned or repaired them on one image, I can “lift” the data to other affected images.

But that’s a drag.

So, when I’m feelin brave, I’m going to clean my work area thoroughly, make sure my hair is tied back, and have a go at locking up the mirror. I’ll fire the blaster at it again, and see if it makes any difference. (Knowing my luck, the dust will dutifully fly off, and then settle back in different places when I’m not looking.)

If that doesn’t fix the problem, then it’ll be time to call in the big guns. My Amazon shopping list has a proper sensor cleaning system which has been recommended. I’ll link to it another day. It literally uses adhesive pads that pick the dust off the sensor—it’s not a wet system, so it is apparently guaranteed not to damage anything sensitive. I hope.

If that fails, then I guess it’s either live with the dust and spotting out (how retro!), or pay to have a three-year-old camera professionally cleaned.

But it’s the locked-up mirror attempt first. Remind me to dig out some unretouched images that show the little perishers in all their glory.

Another bite of the cherry

2009-04-03T15:20:00.001+01:00

Following immediately on from my dissected image, here’s another from the same session. D1942 is still there, but this time it’s in the company of 37 007.

Both Richard Carr’s locos, both subtly weathered Heljan 7mm models. Essentially the same photographic techniques as just described. You’ll notice the giveaway signs behind and above the models. If this shot was destined for publication, I’d spend a bit of time retouching.

Dissection

2009-04-03T14:48:00.001+01:00

I’ve been meaning to post an image and dissect how I go about the mechanics of the shot. I’ve been lazy and chosen a recent image, taken of a pair of locos while attending the London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace at the end of March.

The locos here are owned by Richard Carr, which is purely a namecheck as it’s not really relevant to this post!

Why does this image work? Why does it give every impression of being a photo of real, full-sized locomotives, and not things you can carry under your arm? Well, let’s see…

The first thing you’ll notice is how the perceived eyeline is about where it would be if we were standing in front of the real locos. You immediately get an impression that these are large machines, where you have to climb up to gain access to the cabs or change lamps on the brackets.

The lens I used was my 10–20mm Sigma wide angle, and the models are approximately 10cm from the lens. I was careful to place the centreline of the lens so it was almost aligned to solebar level, and in this case looking slightly upwards as well, in order to emphasise the height of the locos.

Secondly, notice the lighting. It’s not harsh, it’s throwing soft shadows. In fact, it’s the ambient hall lighting which required a 10 second exposure at ƒ/22. To help things out, I used a simple reflector to throw a little light into the bogies so they didn’t come out as too dark and shadowy. As previously, I set the camera up to Av (Aperture Priority) mode, so that I set the aperture and the camera’s electronics worked out the required exposure.

To be completely honest, I really didn’t need to use such a small aperture. I could perhaps have used ƒ/11 or ƒ/16, but ƒ/22 is so ingrained into my working methods it felt the most natural. Also, the combination of this wide angle lens and small aperture meant the actual focal point wasn’t very critical. I’d have paid more attention if shooting a more three-quarters aspect.

The practised eye will immediately spot the small scale telltales, such as the unpainted (as yet) chairs on the track, and the slightly odd reflection in the right hand loco’s cab window. However, I think it’s fair to say that most often the reaction on seeing shots like this is “Is that a model?”

Anyone can take good model photos!

2009-03-22T16:45:00.001Z

The other week, Best Beloved acquired a Canon PowerShot G9 — after prompting for a while. It’s not the newest model, having been replaced by the G10, but it does everything we (meaning me) want it to. I really wanted something a little less in-your-face and generally small enough to drop into confined spaces on a model shoot. I had also been impressed at how good the current crop of compact cameras was.

I’ve been banging on about how I use a DSLR and expensive optics to produce the model shots I take. That is still my preferred method, giving me total control of the end result. Having had the chance to put the G9 through various tests, though, I think it’s fair to say you really don’t need to spend a fortune to get good pictures. You don’t need a DSLR to take superb model shots. Really, all you need is patience, good light and an eye for framing.

Take the image above. Forget the brick wall background — it was done in a bit of a rush before our friend John took his models away again. Notice how the engine and wagon from front to back is in focus? This was shot, hand-held, using the G9.

I had the advantage of a sunny afternoon, though we were in the shade (diffused light, no harsh shadows). The EXIF data for the image shows ƒ/5.6 at 1/80th of a second. If I’d taken this shot with the DSLR and wide angle lens, I’d have been faffing about with tripods and longish exposures at ƒ/22.

The thing is, with a P&S camera, the focal lengths are a lot smaller than on the larger DSLR-type lenses. The sensor is also a lot smaller, and the combination means that although it shows as ƒ/5.6, in reality it’s approximately three times that: an equivalent to ƒ/16 or so. So, ƒ/8 would give me an impressive ƒ/32. Most of my DSLR lenses won’t stop down that far!

And then there’s macro. Almost every P&S camera has a macro setting which lets you virtually touch with the lens the object you’re photographing. Macro on the G9 let me get up close and personal with the loco’s crew. Again, hand-held, ƒ/5.6 at 1/30th of a second. That big LCD showed me every detail I needed to see in order to frame the shot. Amazing, and all but impossible with the DSLR setup.

I think this is my favourite shot of the set that day. You know, I’m not even sure it was in macro mode, either.

I’m not about to junk the DSLR, mind. The compact is another weapon in my armoury, which lets me get shots of things I’d not be able to reach with the bigger camera, like standing on the track on a layout.

It’s not the tools that make the job, it’s how you use them. Knowing the limitations and capabilities, you can take good model photos, just like me!

Almost like the old days

2009-03-19T13:31:00.001Z

Almost like the old days, originally uploaded by Snaptophobic.

Back from York, tired but happy. Most of the best images are now in my Flickr photostream. This image taken in the National Railway Museum’s Great Hall is probably the most evocative, giving an impression of how the engine shed might have appeared in the days of steam. Only cleaner.

This was just hand-held, using the Sigma 10-20mm wide angle, making the most of the early spring sunshine coming through the skylights.

I had to share this

2009-03-16T09:21:00.001Z

35 (Really) Stunning Photos and Pictures

This arrived in my news reader this morning, posted by Smashing Magazine. Take a scroll down the page, and make sure there’s something soft for your jaw to land on.

By turns, I was inspired to try harder to get that kind of image and in despair that I never seem to be in quite the right place at the right time. I think I need to train my eye to see better.

New ideas

2009-03-15T21:40:00.001Z

While I think about and prepare for some new topics, I’m going to post some random model photographs. The thinking goes like this: it shows off what I do, and shows you what you can do if you try; it lets me test blogging via my Flickr account; and it fills in time while I come up with new topics.

I’m going to try to cover different scales, and subjects, in the coming weeks. This week, the image is of a 4mm OO scale layout called Wouldham Town, while it was being exhibited at the ModelRail Scotland exhibition in Glasgow at the end of February 2008. I think it would be nice to give a little technical detail as well, so let’s see if I can find out how this shot was created!

According to the EXIF data, the basic settings for the EOS 400D were as follows: ISO 100, flash off (good), aperture at ƒ/22 (about the smallest it will go with the attached lens) and the focal length was 18mm. Using the layout’s lighting, supplemented by the exhibition hall’s horrid mercury vapour or somesuch lamps, the exposure was four seconds. As a general rule, I tend to leave the camera to sort out white balancing issues, which in this case needed some adjustment in Aperture to correct for the orange tint the hall lights gave. Hindsight tells me I’d have been better served by balancing the camera on the shoot. Live and learn.

Essentially, what all that means is I was using the camera kit lens (18–55mm zoom) set at its widest setting. At that point, I hadn’t acquired the 10–20mm wide angle — it was to be another month or so before I could get my hands on one. I’d carefully placed the camera on the layout, using skill and judgement to frame the shot since I couldn’t look through the viewfinder. According to my archives, I took three shots in a row in order to get the framing right!

I had already set the aperture to ƒ/22, leaving the camera on aperture priority so it would work out the exposure it wanted. The nearest point in the shot is about 10cm from the front of the lens, while the furthest is about 120cm away. I admit the shot has been cropped to lose the nearest part of road, which was a little blurred because it was closer than where the lens can actually focus. I think it comes under the heading “hyperfocal”, which gives me an idea for a topic!

Using a cable release, I fired the shutter. The result you can see. I think it’s rather effective.

Incidentally, blogging from Flickr sucks. Well, it’s not bad, but it’s not good either. In the simplest form, it’s fine, but if you want to get clever and remove black borders, it gets nasty. And further edits still have to be done via your blogging software. I ended up working through ScribeFire, cutting and pasting, editing, reviewing, and generally stepping through as many hoops as before. Still, at least all the images I will link to live in my photostream, and I don’t have to maintain two separate libraries to play the game. It’s all fun, if you don’t weaken!

Housekeeping

2009-03-01T20:45:00.001Z

I’m still here, working out ideas. This post is just to sort out some housekeeping and welcome another reader. That makes two, not counting me!

(Only kidding. But you know who you are.)

I've rearranged the furniture a little. I will revisit the whole design in due course, but it’ll do for now. I need to sort out some of the graphic hosting arrangements to make things easier to tweak in future.

But that’s all by-the-by. This time next week, Best Beloved and I will be sleeping in a hotel in York. I’m really hoping the weather will be kind, for our first proper holiday where we’re not staying with friends in years.

Being railway modellers, we shall be spending a bit of time — quite a lot of time, actually — in and around the National Railway Museum. If we feel strong enough, we may well trek to either the North York Moors Railway or the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway for a spot of photography. I’m also keen to make a trip over to Whitby, so the NYMR seems highly likely. Not forgetting, of course, the city of York itself.

Expect to see my Flickr Photostream overflow its banks when we get back.

Perhaps I’m being petty

2009-02-13T20:06:00.001Z

As outlined in previous posts, I’ve switched to this Firefox plugin called ScribeFire to edit and manage Snaptophobia. It’s generally been a pleasant experience — until today. It’s the first time I’ve tried to add images — my bête noire.

Remembering the pain and anguish of doing this using the Blogger interface, I composed the text in ScribeFire, then tried to add an image.

I tried to add one from my Flickr account. ScribeFire couldn’t seem to locate it. I tried to add one from Flickr itself, which only works if I’m composing the post on the Flickr site. Gah!

I tried to add one from my local drive. This sort of worked, until it came to upload. How, in the name of all that’s holy, do I know whether Blogger is using API or FTP? It turns out to be an academic question, since neither worked.

So, and you may laugh, I ended up editing this post in Blogger. So much for progress.

Light-headed

2009-02-13T19:36:00.008Z

Light. It’s how cameras work. Light bounces off the subject, and some of it passes through the lens and hits the light-sensitive film or electronic device to record an image. Without light, it’s all but impossible to capture an image.

I’m a big fan of available light. Almost all of my model photography has been done using available light, relying on lengthy exposures to capture the image. Obviously, there are potential pitfalls with this, especially if you’re working in a busy exhibition environment — anything that moves in an exposure over half a second will become a blur.

For various reasons, I dislike flash photography for model work. If you use an on-board flash, such as that fitted to most compacts and relatively low-end DSLRs, the light is too harsh. On a DSLR, in close-up mode, you may well end up with a shadow thrown by your lens! If you have half-decent external flash, it’s cumbersome, and still ends up with a harsh light which throws dark shadows in a most unrealistic way. And let’s not get into the harsh spots of light on bright surfaces…

So, for most shots, I will try to use the available light. This may come from a layout’s own lighting rig, or from hall lighting, or even from adjacent windows. In an exhibition environment, there is the danger of passers by causing momentary shadows, but on a long exposure these become blurred and can be discounted. The problem can be that the lighting is not controllable, may contain daylight as well as artificial leading to colour balance issues, and you need to think on your feet to compensate for areas of shadow, or for situations where lighting is behind your subject.

Here’s a shot taken at a major model railway exhibition. I was using the available light from the hall, but this view really shows the perils of not being able to control the background of a model!

I find it’s beneficial to carry some sort of reflective material. You can buy some very nice professional reflectors, which I intend to acquire at some stage, but I like to improvise. I’ve used just a sheet of white paper before now! In the end, to ensure I had something a little more manageable, I created my own simple reflector. It's a piece of hardboard, A4 in size (210mm by 297mm), which I've covered in aluminium cooking foil. I scrunched up the foil to give a randomised reflective surface. I can now often be seen peering through the viewfinder of my camera, while apparently randomly waving the shiny material about — what I’m looking for is the best amount of reflected light illuminating a shadowy area. When I'm happy, I will fire the shutter.

I am considering making a reflector which I can poke a lens through, although that will mean I lose an amount flexibility in positioning the bounced lighting.

So, what about “proper” lighting? I’m happy to improvise lighting where I can, but nothing can really beat a dedicated lighting system. True professionals may well have vast lighting rigs that use a flash system, but I’ve acquired a set-up that works for video as well as stills.

A while ago, a close friend of mine, an ex-professional photographer, was trying to sell a set of equipment she no longer required since she had retired. Amongst the collection was a pair of kilowatt tungsten halogen photographic lamps, with stands, all in a nice luggable holdall. I jumped at the chance, and got them at a knock-down price.

Suited better to a studio environment — they pump the heat out nicely — I have set these up in an exhibition environment for a “mini studio” where I could pose models for portrait work. They're a little awkward to use in such environments, but with plenty of time to set up, and no people trying to squeeze by, they are an ideal solution to lighting a model shoot.

Photographed in the “portable studio” using the lighting rig. This image has been colour balanced in post-production, and I’ve left the sides in to show the roll of semi-reflective material I was using as a base. For future work, I’ll try to source a non-reflective material for the “infinity base”.

They do have problems. Being tungsten, they cause a distinct orangey-yellow cast in photos. This can be alleviated by setting a custom white balance in the camera, or adjusting in post-production. The key advantage is the lighting is controllable, and allows me to shoot using small apertures in short exposures. The stands can also be awkward in confined spaces, too. Using these lights is not ideal in exhibition halls.

At this stage, I don't have a soft box system for the lights. I'm a bit wary of fitting anything like that over the heads due to the heat output and potential fire risk. I get around the problem by bouncing the light from nearby walls and ceilings, but it’s not completely ideal. I really don’t want to throw harsh shadows by pointing the lights directly at the subjects, so this is an ongoing problem in search of an ideal solution.

If I want to photograph small items, I use a portable soft box which can be lit by desk lamps. Ideal lamps for this are daylight balanced fluorescents, which can sometimes be found in DIY stores. Two of these lamps, either side of the box, provide lovely even lighting.

A typical “portrait” using the softbox, which is a cube about 40cm on a side. Here, I used two fluorescent desk lamps to light the model. The downside is the background is hard to remove cleanly, and the wide angle tends to show the edges of the background. It’s not easy, this small scale photography lark!

An additional item in my lighting armoury is a large white bedsheet. Where I can control the conditions I work in, I will, but there are times where I may be asked to photograph a layout in an environment where the background may be cluttered by ceilings, other layouts and stands and so on. The sheet, a king-size white linen sheet, can be held aloft by two willing volunteers to provide a manageable background to the photographs. It is certainly easier than having to painstakingly retouch extraneous background clutter later on.

File this under “I Don’t Get It”

2009-01-19T19:46:00.000Z

When I sketched out my list of topics I wanted to cover in this blog o’mine, HDR was quite high up the list. I can be slow on the uptake sometimes, and it was only really last year I discovered what HDR actually was.

For those of you who are still in the dark, High Dynamic Range Imaging is a technique, actually a range of techniques, designed to give an image a much wider tonal range than can sometimes be achieved at the time of firing the shutter. As the linked Wikipedia entry puts it:

The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.

Further research surprised me, because the techniques and ideas have been around a lot longer than digital imaging, yet HDR has only really come to prominence through the ready availability of digital cameras and suitable software for subsequent manipulation of the image.

I won’t go into the how and why, because I’ve got some links to tutorials and how-tos which you can follow if you like. I really wanted to raise the topic because, well, I just don’t get the appeal.

From what I have seen, HDR or tone mapped images done well are simply stunning. It really suits some landscapes and architectural photos, bringing out details otherwise lost in a flatter and more accurate colour representation. When done badly, however, extreme halos and the almost pop-art colours only serve to emphasise the desperation of the photographer to salvage anything remotely artistic from a rubbish photo!

Here’s some links for you to explore, with examples good, bad and downright ugly:
That Wikipedia entry again
Digital Photography School, an introduction to HDR
Digital Photography School, discussion of HDR

I haven’t been tempted to try any of the techniques, I have to say. I do like a nice contrasty image, and while playing with sliders in Aperture, I can almost get an HDR effect without all that tedious mucking about with multiple shots or duplicated layers.

There’s another technique that’s been bubbling about the interwebnet, and it has a crossover with HDR. I’m talking about “tilt-shift”. Again, a technique that predates the digital age, but it’s only really come to the forefront because of the aforementioned accessible manipulation software.

Tilt-shift refers to special lenses which can be adjusted so the imaging elements can be held parallel to the camera focal plane while the whole lens can be shifted up or down. I think. Proper TS lenses are expensive: I think the one that would fit my Canon DSLR is just a smidgen under £1000. Such lenses are ideal for architectural photography, because the adjustments can correct for distortion (where a building may appear to be leaning backwards when framing with the camera pointing slightly upwards).

Why have I brought tilt-shift up at all? Well, the technique is being used to make the real world look like elaborate miniatures. By either using a proper TS lens that gives a true narrow depth of field, or “faking it” later in post production by cunning use of masks and gaussian blurs, the effect of tilt-shift can be startling. I think it’s kind of ironic to be discussing the idea, since this whole blog was aimed squarely at making miniatures look real—polar opposites, if you like!

If you’re still not sure what the fuss is about, here are some links. Be warned: some of the photos are absolutely stunning (and some use subtle HDR to emphasise the detail, which actually works well)!

Flickr set of Fake Miniatures
Smashing Magazine looked at 50 “beautiful examples”

Some of those images are taken with a proper TS lens. Others have been digitally manipulated. Can you tell which is which? No, neither can I, but I can make educated guesses in many cases.

Unlike HDR, I am intrigued by tilt-shift. I will definitely be having a go at this, using software, if I find suitable subjects.

By the way, happy new year! A little late, but there we go. Not sure what the next post will be about, so you’ll have to wait until next time!

UV protection

2008-12-20T16:02:00.001Z

From my earliest days with SLR cameras, I made it a point of principle to purchase a “skylight”, “daylight” or UV filter to screw to the front of any lenses I acquired. The reasoning was sound: if I accidentally clout the lens, the filter takes the strain and — hopefully — the expensive bit of optical glass remains undamaged.

As I moved to DSLR, I continued with that reasoning. Modern lens optics often have a special coating which replicates the job of a “skylight” filter, but the filter glass is optically clear anyway, and shouldn’t give any disbenefits. However, there has been increasing doubt in my mind about whether it’s worth all the extra expense at all.

Some pundits will argue that, for a relatively small amount of money, you’re buying peace of mind. It’s cheaper to replace a broken filter than to have a lens repaired, after all. Others argue that, even with quite expensive optically-corrected filters (and the filter on my Sigma 10-22mm wide angle cost nearly £50!), there may well be a one or two stop penalty in exposure. Another point is that professionals often prefer to use a lens hood as a form of protection against knocks. If you’re going to drop a camera from head height, something may well break whether you have protective filters or not, and a good robust lens hood will do the job just as easily as well as preventing some lens flare. Don’t forget, also, that when you’re not actively taking shots it’s sensible to put the lens cap on!

So, while most of my current lenses do have a UV filter, and I have tested the “one or two stop” argument — inconclusively, it has to be said — I think that in future I shall not go out of my way to purchase a “skylight” filter. I think it’s probably more prudent to spend out on some form of insurance against accidental damage! My shopping list includes some rather nice Canon lenses that come out around the four-figure mark, and I don’t think a thin bit of glass on the front will make me feel any happier if I break one of those!

This may be my last entry here for 2008. I’d like to wish my reader compliments of the season, and let’s see if I get a chance to go out and about with the camera over the next couple of weeks. See you in 2009!

Steady now

2008-12-07T14:18:00.001Z

A good tripod is one of those essentials that every photographer has to have in their arsenal. Even those posh lenses (or cameras) with image stabilisation occasionally require additional support. The requirement for good depth of field, especially when photographing scale models, usually means that with long exposure times at large ƒ-stops, a good sturdy tripod is all but essential.

I have two tripods. They’re both different, and have different strengths and weaknesses. There are plenty of good quality tripods out there by other well-known manufacturers, so please read the following as my own personal experience with the products I mention. The usual disclaimers ought to go here about there being many other reputable tripod manufacturers whose products are readily available through the usual channels, etc, etc.

The largest tripod I own is a Uni-Loc 1700. (I apologise for the link to an online photographic supplies store, which may break if the unit is no longer stocked, but after extensive searching I could not turn up the Uni-Loc web site — save for an engineering company which appears to make pool cue joints. Equally, I couldn’t find a home page for Benbo, from which the Uni-Loc system was developed.)

…the smallest of the System range of heavy duty tripods designed to cater for both professional and amateur user. The 3 leg sections mean it has a smaller closed size and is lighter in weight. Constructed from rigid aluminium alloy tubing and high impact nylon moulding, the tripods incorporate fully sealed lower leg sections with tough spiked feet, making them equally at home in the studio environment as well as outdoors even when immersed in mud and water. The single curved bolt and locking lever allows independent movement of each tripod leg and centre column, allowing the tripod to be locked into almost any position. The result is an extremely rigid tripod, versatile enough to be used on the most uneven terrain.

It’s a beast, to be sure. Coupled with the ball-joint camera mount, there’s virtually no position in which you cannot hold a camera. In fact, it’s really easy to locate the camera in positions where you are simply unable to look through the viewfinder, let alone operate without remote release or tethered to a computer! Despite being made from aluminium, this tripod is heavy, which is great for studio work where a rock steady platform is essential. The single locking/unlocking system is excellent, save it really does unlock the whole system, legs and central column at once — think wrestling bagpipes, then consider wrestling bagpipes when you have some expensive camera gear attached at one end, and you’ll have a pretty good idea! The system is awkward to set up in confined spaces, although being able to swing a leg up to a wall for stability is not to be sneezed at. If only I was still that flexible!

So, on the positive side, the Uni-Loc or Benbo systems are sturdy, versatile and rugged. On the negative side, they're quite pricy, hard to set up without practice, and hefty to lug about. I used the Uni-Loc on some landscape work last year, and that alone set my mind on purchasing something a whole lot more portable for when I’m lugging the camera bag and a tripod more than a few metres from my car!

After some research into a lighter tripod system (essentially posting a budget limit and asking for recommendations on a forum), I came down on the Giottos MT 9242 tripod. While you’re rummaging, check out the MH 5001 three-way head, because I added one of those after a while. (In this case, I’ve not linked directly to the Giottos web site, because it’s framed, which means I can’t link directly to the product page. How 20th century!)

MT professional classic tripod series made from classic aluminum by a precision manufacturing process, elaborately assembled by hand to assure the maximum stability and for maximum security. They are feature black and silver fleck hammered paint finish. The center column can be reversed to position the camera upside down. With Non-slip foam rubber sleeves, Non-slip shoulder strap, carrying bag and bubble level and compass. All the MT series have quick releases for individual leg spread at different angles.

I know this will sound like a completely Appleista thing to say, but from the moment I opened the box, I was struck by the thought that the design and manufacture of this tripod would not have been out of place if it had come from my preferred fruit-flavoured computer manufacturer. Please don’t bite my head off for saying that. If you haven’t experienced unpacking any Apple hardware, you won’t have a clue what I mean, and I’ll sound like a complete loon! Suffice it to say there’s a lot of thought gone into the Giottos range, from the packaging to the product, and I am still amazed at the value for money and the build quality. I bought it over a year ago, paid less than £90 (three-way head extra), and got a shoulder strap, weatherproof carry bag and a little toolkit as well as the tripod. I can’t recommend Giottos kit highly enough for anyone wanting a light, sturdy and well-made tripod that doesn’t cost the earth.

On the positive, then, the MT 9242 is a tripod I’m happy to sling over my shoulder in its carry bag or not, and trek across fields or set up in an exhibition hall. I carry it around in the back of my car, something I never did with the Uni-Loc. If there is a negative to the Giottos, it is that it’s not possible to get the camera over a layout — something very easy with the ~~bagpipes~~ Uni-Loc. Oh, and you can’t tilt the camera up and down when the head is set in portrait mode. (I did find I could fit the Uni-Loc ball head to the Giottos base unit, though.)

That’s it for this post. Next time, I’ll consider the efficacy of UV filters for DSLR lenses. Thanks for reading.

Interesting

2008-12-04T19:37:00.001Z

After a bit of research — it’s an amazing thing, this internet webby thing — I’ve found a way to edit Snaptophobia which may be easier on my head than the standard Blogger interface.

ScribeFire is the thing. It’s a free plug-in for Firefox, so I’ll have to get used to using that browser instead of Safari, which is my usual default. Still, if it lets me edit and handle the blog posts with less pain and hair-pulling, then I may well stay with Blogger for the duration.

Another time, I’ll tackle adding images, but for now let’s leave it there.

Swift follow-up

2008-11-29T22:32:00.002Z

I just wanted to add my thoughts and feelings about adding images to Snaptophobia, following the marathon effort to get the last post up and running. I ended up cutting and pasting HTML to get the images where I wanted, and edited the published post about six times before I was satisfied.

As I’ve already noted in a couple of previous posts, I have developed a hate–hate relationship with this particular blogging system. Essentially, it seems geared up for one image right at the head of a post, not embedded with comments further down. If that is the case, and in order to preserve my sanity for as long as possible, I expect future posts will be composed in the order that Blogger forces on me.

While I can work within those limitations, and will continue to do so as long as I can stand it, I am actively considering better weblog solutions. Once I’ve found one that works for me, I shall shift the whole Snaptophobia enterprise somewhere that gives me more freedom to lay the blog out the way I want it!

Topics in production for future posts include (in no particular order) choosing a tripod, HDR, protective glass on your lenses, and some thoughts on lighting. Thanks for reading.

Let’s do this thing!

2008-11-29T20:36:00.037Z

Okay, I’m convinced. I’ll keep plugging away.

I’ve decided to leave the rather limited sphere of small scale photography as just another part of this blog’s remit. This post will complete the short session on Depth of Field, started back on November 7, and then I’ll look at some of the other topics I jotted down. Right, into the fray…

These images were taken specifically to demonstrate why Depth of Field is important when photographing scale models. The set-up is simple: a length of track, a 4mm scale loco and seven wagons. Available light was from three standard five-foot fluorescent tubes, approximately a metre above and in front of the subject. The lens was a Sigma 10-20mm wide angle zoom (a tautology if ever there was one), set to a focal length of 16mm — which is almost the wide setting on most DSLR kit lenses.

A series of shots were taken, stepping down from the widest aperture available with the lens at this focal length, ƒ/5.6. I used the “standard” ƒ-stop notches of 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, and 29. Almost every DSLR can give fractions between those settings, but I wanted to keep it simple. I let the camera work out the exposure required, after stepping down to the required aperture. I broke a cardinal rule by focusing at infinity, rather than the correct one-third distance along the subject. The upshot is you should be able to see the sharp area advancing from the end of the train towards the camera, but it means the final shot is not as sharp as it could be at the nearer end. For some reason, I set the ISO to 400. Normally, I'd work at 100 to avoid excessive digital noise. Finally, I did a spot of work in post processing, to brighten the images, sharpen them for viewing on screen, and cropping out extraneous image.

The shots are in order: ƒ/5.6, ƒ/8, ƒ/11, ƒ/16, ƒ/22, ƒ/29.

At the widest aperture, nothing of the subject is in focus. The far distance is there, but it’s not easy to see in this shot.

At ƒ/8, the brake van is beginning to get a little clearer, but little else is in focus.

Things are a little sharper at ƒ/11, but not great. As a side note, if I had focused at the correct point along the subject, more of the nearer part would be sharp now.

Interesting things begin to happen at f/16. While the wagon nearest the loco is still not sharp, much of the rest of the train is.

At ƒ/22, we hit pay dirt. The whole train is now sharp, and the cabside number is legible.

Finally, at ƒ/29, we get the best we can. The nearest part of the loco’s tender is not in focus, due to my not focusing at the correct distance to begin with. This also shows a pitfall of using an SLR — you simply cannot see whether the whole image is sharp using the viewfinder preview or the screen review after the shot is taken. A way to counter this problem might have been to favour the loco as my focal point, letting the brake van fade into slightly blurred obscurity — but then I’m trying to make a point with these images, not make a technically perfect portrait.

Did you notice how the exposure time got longer as the aperture got smaller? Did you think I was joking about having a lunch break while making an exposure at ƒ/22 in a dimly-lit exhibition hall?

Okay, so we’ve seen how the sharpness of an image increases as the aperture gets smaller. I hope you could also see how the realism of the subject I chose improved as the depth of field got deeper. Not to blow my own trumpet, but the shots at ƒ/22 and ƒ/29 could be mistaken for the real thing.

Finally, if the dratted image embedding lets me, I prepared a rather extreme pair of images to show DoF at work. This time I've focused at the golden point a third of the way along the subject, which is just at the front of the loco in this case. I’ve also stuck a lens close to the camera as a graphic DoF demonstration. The first shot is wide open at ƒ/5.6, the second is at ƒ/22.

(Third attempt at adding the images…)

I think that explains it quite well, don’t you?

Whether to let wither

2008-11-22T19:18:00.007Z

I’m still considering whether to let this thing die. I thought it would be a relatively simple job to keep going, uploading images, describing the techniques of scale model photography. Instead, I find the difficulties of doing relatively simple tasks are making me disinterested.

Equally, I don’t even think the raison d’être behind my original plan — to share what I think of as my skills — holds water any more. It’s too narrow a subject, for example. However, to widen the scope of this blog to cover all kinds of photography would be just as much a waste of time. Others do it far better than I can do it, so why waste effort duplicating everything?

So, what to do? I think I shall continue to mull over my original ideas, to see if there is any merit in perseverance. If I find there is not, then I shall scrap the whole thing. Alternatively, I may just slide Snaptophobia gently sideways to make it a more general photographic rediscovery blog. Watch this space, as they say. Oh, I forgot — hardly anyone does!

Incidentally, the name Snaptophobia came from an old friend, who would refer to an attractive assemblage of items as “snaptophobic”, meaning it would make a great picture. I fully realise -phobic means to have “an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something”, which means this whole blog really ought to be about my irrational fear of photography! Then again, the more correct -philia (denoting fondness, especially an abnormal love for a specified thing) could be taken completely the wrong way by certain sections of our society who perhaps don’t have an adequate understanding of our glorious language and who may link it to other less savoury practices involving … let’s not go there.

Why is it so hard?

2008-11-08T16:47:00.005Z

Perhaps I’m missing the obvious – it has been known – but why is adding images to this blog such a pain in the aperture?

I decided I ought to set up the Picasa end of this thing properly, so I got all signed up. And, sure enough, there were multiple copies of images I had previously published through this blog, but then edited and republished. Being of a reasonably tidy mind, I set about managing the multiples by deleting those deemed unnecessary. I was aware that this might break the blog image links, but I figured I could relink directly to the Picasa album.

Huh! Fat chance. Not once would the copied and pasted Picasa URL to an image work. I had to resort to uploading from the blog interface, again, and then deleting in Picasa. How awkward is that?

Add in the fact that whenever I add an image to upload it is dumped at the head of the post, when I want it where my cursor was last positioned. So, I have to get down and dirty with the HTML, cut it from the top, and then rummage about to try and isolate where I actually want it. Rinse and repeat three, four, maybe more times for every image added to a post.

It’s at times like that, when you’ve spent the best part of an afternoon fumbling about in this poxy web interface and basically got back to where you started having achieved very little, you wonder why anyone ever tries to blog at all!

I promise, if I can muster the stamina, to post the sequential DoF shots later this weekend. But don’t be surprised if I despair of it and end up just letting the whole thing wither on the vine.

Be sharp: learning about Depth of Field

2008-11-07T17:43:00.037Z

Depth of Field (DoF) is one of those terms you see bandied about in photographic circles – a bit like bokeh – but it’s usually assumed you already know what it is and how to do it.

Put in the simplest terms, depth of field is how much of an image is in sharp or nearly sharp focus from your camera’s imaging sensor (or film) to the horizon. There’s plenty of discussion, including useful links and a series of hideously complex-looking tables that help you calculate DoF at the Dofmaster.com web site. If you’re lucky enough to own a PDA or even one of those shiny Apple iGadgets, then there are also useful downloadable bits of software that will do all the complicated stuff for you. But, I digress – something I tend to do a lot…

Rather than go into all the technical stuff about focal lengths and circles of confusion, which Dofmaster does with alacrity and far, far better than I ever can, I shall concentrate on the practical use of DoF in model photography. As you will see, I take a more laid-back attitude to working it all out, but first, a quick resumé of why DoF is important in this sphere of photography.

The chief aim in taking photos of models is to fool the viewer into believing they are looking at a picture of the real thing. We achieve this by setting the camera at the right angle, and by ensuring that as much of the image as possible is in sharp focus.

Here, then, in a nutshell, is the technique I use to take a photo:

– Set the camera to Aperture Priority (Av) mode, and switch focusing to manual. Yes, you can use it in full manual mode, but let’s just say I’m happy to let the camera’s sophisticated electronics work out the exposure for me.
– Get the camera as low down as possible, preferably on a sturdy tripod, in relation to the subject. Remember, we’re aiming for a view that looks as if you’re holding the camera to your eye at head height if you were in the real world, say about 1.6m above the deck.
– Frame the shot, and manually focus about a third of the way along the subject. It’s also useful to check the nearest and furthest points of the subject will be in focus at this stage.
– Set the camera’s aperture to ƒ/22, or higher if the lens will do it.
– Press the aperture preview button (check your camera’s user manual to find it) and have a good squint through the viewfinder to see if it sort of looks like it might actually be in focus where you expect it to be.
– Nearly forgot to connect the remote release cable! This is important so you aren’t likely to jog the camera when you press the shutter button. You can set the camera to timed release, where you press the shutter and there is a countdown of several seconds before the shutter fires, but the remote cable looks more professional! Camera shake is not much of an issue with shutter speeds of 1/100th of a second or higher, but very likely to be a problem with the shutter open for several seconds – which it most likely will be.
– Once you’re happy that all is set, stand away from the camera and tripod, and fire the shutter. Depending on how long the exposure turns out to be, make light conversation with those around you, or go for a long lunch. Do not be tempted to move the camera until you hear the shutter close again, or the new image is displayed on the camera screen.

With DSLRs, you can see a preview on the back of the camera, so you have a fair idea if the shot worked or not. This, however, is really only good enough for exposure, so focus checking has to wait for viewing on your computer later.

When I can, I like to take my MacBook Pro with me on a shoot, and tether the camera via USB so the download occurs as soon as the image is being dumped to the CF card. This allows me to view the new shot very quickly to assess for lens flare, straightness and, of course, DoF.

I’ve cooked up some samples to show how changing the aperture changes the depth of the sharply focused area. I apologise they’re not particularly photogenic model shots, but I wanted something reasonably extreme to demonstrate how DoF works. I’ve also thrown in a couple of zoom shots to show why such lenses are not ideal for this kind of work. Remember, several posts back, I said that one of the secrets is to “go wide’.

The first image is telephoto. According to the EXIF data, the focal length was 96mm, 1.6 seconds at ƒ/29. Technically, it’s not a bad photo. A lot is in focus, but it lacks a certain something. The viewpoint appears to be a long way from the subject, making the viewer feel cut off, away from the action.

The second image, on the other hand, places the viewer right in the action. This time the lens is a wide angle, 20mm focal length, with a two-second exposure at ƒ/29.

In the next post, I’ll post a sequence of photos taken from the same vantage point, but using increasingly smaller apertures.

Minnie versus larger stuff

2008-10-22T10:34:00.021+01:00

Okay, so the Minolta with added close-up filters was adequate in “studio” situations. What was it like in other environments, such as photographing whole layouts while at exhibitions?

(All the images used in this blog are of models built to a constant scale of 7mm to 1 foot, or 1/43rd scale.)

Well, to be honest, it was okay. Not brilliant, but okay. I was asked by some fellow members of the ScaleSeven Group to photograph their new layout Ellerton Road at its first outing at Telford (the Gauge O Guild convention) in 2006. I had access to the layout before the show opened to public, so I could take my time, while the guys set things up around me.

The problems I encountered were these:

– Taking images from a low angle means you see a lot of ceiling. Convention and exhibition hall ceilings are not that nice to look at, unless you’re a heating and ventilation engineer.
– The hall lighting was orange. You don’t notice this when you’re looking about, but electronic devices (and film cameras) end up with a distinct colour cast if you don’t consider white balance.
– The lighting caused lens flares.
– Lack of depth of field.

Let’s take these problems in order, and look at how I solved them.

– I had to live with the ceiling. I will not take photos of models from a helicopter looking down, because it instantly ruins any illusion of realism. I figured I could remove the worst excesses of air conditioning ducts and lights in post production, so I concentrated on getting nicely framed shots as best I could.
– I let the camera handle the lighting. The Minolta Dimage, being a sort of hybrid digital stills camera with video camera technology, usually managed reasonably well with auto white balance. I decided to let it do its own thing, and adjust in software later.
– Lens flares were all but impossible to avoid. Looking generally upwards, there were lighting systems in frame most of the time. Anything that obviously caused a flare could be shielded by holding my hand to block it.
– Depth of Field. Not one of the Minnie’s strongest points. To counter this, I did a series of long-ish shots to take in the general view of the layout, then concentrated on small detailed sections.

Here are the results:

That sky looks wrong, doesn’t it? There’s also a bit of flaring going on up there. But, on the whole, it works well. Nothing half an hour in Photoshop with an alpha channel or two couldn’t cure. In fact, the DoF here looks really good. I put this down to the Cokin close-up filter.

The next shot suffers badly from the stand beyond with their own lighting. It sort of gives the impression of the foreground action taking place under floodlights – hardly appropriate for 1910! Again, the DoF is adequate, if a little soft in the foreground, but a bit of creative cropping to lose those lights would work wonders.

The third shot works quite well, with the locomotive framed nicely between wagon on the left, and the sheeted load on the right. Even the walkway at the back, actually part of the main exhibition hall, doesn’t look too out of place. Sadly, the DoF lets the foreground down. Pity.

The close-up filters let me take some shots inside the goods shed, which was perched at the front of the layout. This image shows the lighting problem well. It’s very bleached and orange in tone, which meant that any colours on the layout simply did not reproduce well. In context with the period in which the layout is set, it doesn’t look so bad, but orange mercury vapour lights (or whatever they were) were not ideal for this job. What I didn’t see until back at base and downloading the images to the Mac was the dust on the filter. Live and learn!

At another exhibition, this time in London, I took a series of shots of Clydesdale Iron Foundry. This is an industrial layout, set unsurprisingly in the network of lines of a foundry, and is one of the S7 Group’s Scottish area group layouts. Of note is the tramway style electric loco.

I didn’t have my tripod with me, as I hadn’t been expecting to take any photos. However, while the exhibition was quiet, I managed to get some very good shots handheld. I did this by boosting the ISO to 400 so the shutter speed could be faster with a smaller aperture. Luckily, the barrier I was leaning on was sturdy, and my hands weren’t shaking too much!

Again, I was using available light, but this time I didn’t have the close-up filters on. I guess I was just lucky.

Well, the Minnie was okay for working with the larger stuff. Still, it wasn’t perfect, and certainly limited what I wanted to do with the small scale model photography. It seemed the only way forward was to move to a proper camera. It was back to the saving for the proper DSLR.

Next time I’ll take a look at why Depth of Field is so important to what I do.

Images – at last!

2008-10-12T15:07:00.029+01:00

I promised some sample model images, so here we are. I'm presenting these in some sort of chronological order. We start with images taken with the Minolta Dimage 7, so you can see some of the issues I encountered with what was then a high-end digital camera.

The first image is of a 1/76th scale model lorry. 1/76th means literally that one inch on the model is equal to 76 on the real thing. It’s also known as “four mill”, because 4mm equal 1 foot.

(For the truck spotters, this is a British Road Services Bristol HA6L motive unit, coupled to a BTC 4-in-line semi-trailer of the late 1950s. I built this from a Langley Miniature Models whitemetal cast kit.)

The biggest issue in this image is depth of field. We’ll get to DoF in more detail another time, but you can see that the cab is fairly sharply in focus, while the nearer end of the trailer is slightly out of focus. The goal for anyone photographing scale models trying to make them look convincingly like the real thing is to maximise the amount of the model that’s sharply in focus. The problem I faced with the Minnie was that it had a smallest aperture of ƒ/9. This came as a bit of a blow to me, as my work with film SLRs had been around ƒ/22 or higher! The result was as you see above. Not a bad photo, but not technically that good.

Here’s a tip for the budding model photographer — go wide. Don’t think that a zoom lens will make things easier, because all it does is close down the field of view, and compress the effect of distance. In worst cases, telephoto will give you an even smaller DoF. In almost every case I will show you, I've had the camera set at the widest angle and the smallest aperture (largest ƒ-stop) possible. In the case of the Minnie, I think had an equivalent to a 35mm lens, which is not an ideal model photo lens but, as it was fixed to the camera, I had to put up with it!

The next image is also of a Langley kit, this time an Austin FX3 taxi. To overcome the shallow DoF, I’ve changed the angle at which the model sits in relation to the camera. I was reasonably successful, though if you look carefully the rear bumper is just going slightly soft.

Both these models have been in what I laughingly call my “Studio” – a large sheet of white paper, stuck to the wall and draped across the desk to give the infinity curve effect. The lighting here was two standard desk lamps, one each side. I think I also used a reflector, fashioned from a sheet of A4 cardboard and cooking foil, to bounce some light into the shadow areas. The “Studio” is fine for these small scale models, but becomes a bit of an issue when I try to photograph anything larger – especially since a wide angle lens, and low camera position, will often end up showing the top edges, and the detritus on my desk! You’ll see what I mean later.

Incidentally, I needn’t mention I’m using a tripod at all times, do I? Thought not.

By adding Cokin Close-up filters, I could actually force the Minolta to focus a little closer to the subject. I used the Cokin Close-up 1, 2 and 3, sometimes in multiples.

Here, for example, is a heavily modified Airfix/Dapol Scammell Scarab. Again, I’ve opted to have the model broadside to the camera in order to maximise the DoF available to me. The close-up “filter” allowed me to bring the subject much closer to the camera than the standard minimum focus would allow. The effect is a cruel enlargement of a model that is only about 25mm in length.

Okay, so photographing small scale models was acceptable with the Minolta. How did it cope with the larger stuff? That’ll be the subject of my next post. Thanks for reading.

Tweaks and Topics

2008-10-11T13:47:00.005+01:00

I think I’m getting there. Hope you like the look, too. Thanks to Keith Martin, a fellow Freeway user, who pointed out where I had been going wrong with the link colours yesterday. It’s all fixed now, which is nice.

I'm working through some topics I want to talk about. Some of it is of general photographic interest, such as choosing lenses, whether to have a UV filter or not, general chatter about the kit, and some will be aimed squarely at the techniques of scale model photography. This latter part – the main thrust of this blog – will cover the hardware, the philosophy (sounds clever, doesn’t it?) and also post-processing once you’ve captured your shots. Overall, though, I want this blog to be about model photography, so that will always be somewhere in the background of any topic I raise.

When I photograph a scale model, whether it’s a car, a boat, a plane or a model railway, the first thing I try to do is get down to a level where my eyeline (or lens line, if you prefer) is about where it would be if I were the same scale as the subject. The snag is, once I’m down at that level, there’s a lot of what’s above and behind the model that appears in the frame, and that will often be distracting and can potentially ruin a shot. Sometimes, I can contrive a backcloth – if I have control over the set-up, in a proper shoot, for example – but most often I end up having to strip away the unwanted background in Photoshop, and replace it with something more appropriate.

Incidentally, I’ve noticed a trend in the past few years, as the technology and software has become better and more readily available, for magazines to use “faked” backgrounds and even steam effects on model railway shots. Now, I’m not a great fan of adding the steam effects, unless a client specifically asks for it, but I will happily substitute a background sky if necessary. If you like, I prefer the models to speak for themselves, and the viewer can add their own special effects if they wish!

I'm currently very enthused about this blog, even though it’s unlikely I’ll have many readers for some time. Let’s hope I can maintain the interest and keep it fresh. Thank you for reading.

New Clothes

2008-10-10T21:17:00.008+01:00

I’ve worked out, more or less, how to tame Softpress Freeway to let me produce a custom template. I think there will be some tweakage to go before I am completely satisfied.

I know, I know. I want to get the look right, and get a good list of topics in place before I worry about posting some images. If you want to see photos, check the Personal Pixels link. There aren’t any scale model shots there yet, but give it time.

Meanwhile, over at the Dennis Publishing forums, we’ve kicked off another of our monthly photographic competitions. (I know this link will eventually break, once the thread stops being a sticky, but isn’t that one of the joys of this interweb thing?)

The theme for October is “Macro”, and that has sent me scurrying to find out more. I know the principles, but I don’t have the kit. That is to say my current set of lenses do not have a true macro setting, so I’m going to try and improvise with the reverse lens technique. There’s a good video tutorial over at the DPS blog which explains it way better than I could ever manage. I’ll also dust off my Cokin dioptre enlargement filters and have some fun.

I promise I’ll pull together some sample model shots for you over the weekend. In fact, I’ve written it out on a piece of paper in front of me so I don’t forget.

Still here, still thinking

2008-10-08T14:54:00.004+01:00

I’ve added a list of what I use for this snaptophobic hobby of mine to my description. It may help shed light on what I blog about.

I’m still working out the scheme behind this blog, and some sensible images to illustrate things. Today I took the step to allow unregistered comments, so let the flood (!) begin. Bear in mind I’m moderating all comments, and if it gets too much I’ll turn the feature off again. You have been warned.

Blimey!

2008-10-04T17:18:00.008+01:00

Well, better late than never. Here I am dipping a tentative toe into this blogging lark. Let’s see how it goes.

The plan is to share my experiences as I rediscover photography. I used to do a lot of it when I was younger, but as the digital age leapt upon us, my old film SLRs were getting a bit, well, old hat. I've still got them, a pair of Olympus OM10s if anyone’s interested…

Back to the digital stuff. For years I owned (still own, actually, though Best Beloved uses it now) a Minolta Dimage 7, which was an excellent first step for a budding digital photographer. However, while excellent for most image needs with the 10x optical zoom, it’s quite another prospect for some kinds of specialist stuff I wanted to take. We’ll come to that — patience, please. You need the backstory before we get into all that stuff.

So, for a few years, the Minnie did me fine, aided by some Cokin enlargement filters and a bit of ingenuity. All the time I was keeping a weather eye on the SLR market, to see what was occurring and whether any of the cameras would ever be affordable! Then Canon came up with a relatively affordable digital SLR, the EOS 300D.

(For overseas viewers, I will be referring to the European/UK naming conventions. I apologise if Canon have made things complicated by naming my camera something else where you live!)

I was sold. I spent the next couple of years saving, dreaming and scheming. Eventually, I decided the time (and price) was right to move into the DSLR world. Although not at this stage with the magic 24x35 full frame sensor, but having a 1.6x enlargement factor on the APS-C sensor has certain advantages.

So, late in 2006, I finally got my EOS 400D. Since then, I’ve added lenses, remote cables, filters, extra batteries, bigger memory cards, new tripods… hell, this photography game can be expensive if you get too carried away! I've found blogs and books to fill in many gaps, and I’ve tried to get into the habit of pointing the camera at anything and everything. Digital photography doesn’t need the film processed before you can see the results!

And that is more or less where we are now. Nearly two years on, and I've still got the 400D. Canon recently announced a new version of a full-frame sensor camera, the 5D Mk II, and I hope that I will be able to afford one at some point down the line. In the meantime, I carry on taking photos with the 400D.

Oh yeah, you want to know what specialist imagery I do. It’s nothing amazing. Best Beloved and I are fairly active railway modellers, and I like to take photos of our models. Oh, and other modellers’ work, naturally. The aim is for realism, to photograph the model in such a way that you’d not immediately twig it’s a photo of something you could hold in your hand. I will add some images in due course. Just want to find my feet with this blogging thingummybob first.