Infinity: Defiance & Beyond

Before I go any further with the project I thought I would share this – a little bit of information on how I photograph the models. I have learned over the years, both from my own struggles and also seeing how other people have struggled, a few tips on taking good photographs with a camera phone, especially if you don’t get the opportunity to do so using natural daylight.  I should stress that natural daylight provides the best results, better than the ones you will get using this setup at least.  However, because I generally work during the day and paint in the evening, I don’t always get the chance to take pictures using natural light.

So to get around this, my photo setup consists of the following items:

1. Photobooth
2. Daylight desklamp
3. A patterned mouse-mat (or sometimes a piece of paper)
4. A bluetooth smartphone tripod

Despite what people say, I find the photobooth incredibly useful.  On its own, the light quality isn’t great and the backdrops that you get with them are often poor quality.  I have seen them come with an XPS foam sheet which collects dirt and scuffs and all sorts marks and usually provides a grey, rather than black background.  I have seen them come with a sort of weird cloth/material sheets that whilst not particularly reflective have such a loose weave that it creates a patterned background.  However the other items on the list will mitgate these problems.

The daylight desklamp is used to brighten the area because the LED lights in the photobooth aren’t really that powerful.  However using both the LED lights and the desk lamp together eliminates most of the shadows that are usually created when you shine light on things.  So it’s definitely worth doing.

Mousemats are a much better backdrop than anything I have seen supplied with the little photo booths.  They are not overly reflective, the material weave is very small and so tends to be less visible and, if you really want to, you can buy them with interesting patterns to act as a backdrop for the models, which can really help make the pictures more interesting.  For my infinity and other sci-fi miniatures I have purchased a mousemat with a sci-fi image printed on it, it was a couple of quid off ebay but I think it is perfect for what I am currently doing.  I might buy another one with a different colour, red or green perhaps, so that I can take photos of blue miniatures that would potentially seem lost on a mostly blue background.  I also have one with a parchment effect on it, which I use for fantasy models (although you can save money by using parchment paper) and I have recently purchased one with “the Matrix” on it for cyberpunk models.

The last item I use is a Tripod.  This is really important as it means that you are not touching the camera when the picture is taken.  I don’t think I can stress enough how important this really is.  If you set your camera up on a tripod and use either a timed shutter release or, even better, a bluetooth shutter release then the camer remains still and thus retains focus as the picture is taken.  This significantly reduces the likelihood of blurring with your photographs.