Is there a topic on photographing playmo?

[reimagination]

Hello.

I've tried a few things in the search bar, and couldn't find an entry, but I can sometimes be search dumb.

What I'd like are tips on how to photograph Playmobil, especially without expensive equipment. I have trouble with lighting, and really in the end, my photos aren't really spectacular. I don't expect them to be great, but I would like to make a somewhat nice online portfolio of my collection.

I have an inexpensive fujifilm camera. I don't know photo terms, but if you were to say change ISO to 100 for example, I know how to do that even if I don't know what it means.

I know daylight can be best, but I rarely have time during daylight hours for this kind of activity. What kind of lighting should I invest in, and where can I get it inexpensively? Lately I've been using a flashlight taped to my bed post. Maybe two flashlights would be better? I also set the Playmo up in the bottom of a black shoebox set on its side. Would white be better? I do use a tripod, and I also use the setting with the flower meant for tiny things.

I just really have no idea about photographing tiny things and getting goode details and good colors.

Thanks for all your help.

[Ismene]

Daylight is best, but since that isn't an option, try to recreate it. Get 2 or 3 daylight bulbs (Michael's often has 40% off coupons, which you can use to buy Ottlight bulbs - You don't need the fixtures; just put the bulbs in the lamps you already own). Try to bounce the light off of white walls or paper, so that you get indirect "soft" lighting on the Playmo, rather than shining the lights directly on the Playmo.

A white or light background would probably be easier than black because it reflects the light.

Make sure you don't hold your camera too close (certainly no closer than 2 feet, but it will vary by camera) to the Playmo. Use zoom instead.

[Tiermann]

There are some details about bulbs and how I do it over in the How To forum in my My Photo Space thread. Natural daylight spectrum lighting is good, and as much of it as you can get. It's really most about the light. Most cameras these days can do just fine, even phone ones.

[reimagination]

Hey, I actually have some compact flourescent in a drawer somewhere that I completely forgot about. They were in the ceiling fan of my apartment when I moved in, and yeah, they were so bright, I felt like I was in an operating room or something. I'll dig them out, and see if I can find a large enough shoebox with a white interior from work. Or I have some white paper; I could just line one.

And that's interesting about being at least two feet away. So it's better to take it from farther away then just crop it? I'll experiment with distances. It seems like you'd want to get closer for better detail, so that's interesting.

Thanks for the advice. Now I have a bit more direction.

[Tiermann]

The distance will depend on if your camera automatically goes int o a macro mode or not. Mine does it auto, so I don't worry too much about the distance. If it doesn't then you need to be far enough away that the auto-focus can actually focus on the items. That will be trial and error based on your camera. Take a few photos and look at them in the preview mode. If it allows you to zoom during preview then zoom in and see if it is sharp or not.

[Ismene]

If you can ditch the shoebox and just set up some sort of background (like a big piece of paper or something), it would be better. The walls of the shoebox block light.

The "two feet" is based off of using an "inexpensive" camera. Mine will go to macro automatically, but it still doesn't like super close photos. You can use zoom and/or cropping to make up that last little bit of distance.

[GrahamB]

I agree with all that Tiermann and Ismene have said. For me, the four things that are likely to make good photos of Playmobil are bright lighting, sharp focussing, good depth of field and avoiding camera shake (using a tripod helps this, so you are OK on that one). Oh, and good setting up, but this topic is more about the technical stuff, yes?

Without knowing a little more about your camera, it's not easy to give detailed advice. My guess is that you will get the best results by using the 'flower' setting (as you already said) and not getting too close (as Ismene said). If you take some photos and then check them carefully (on the camera's screen if it has one, or even better, by loading them onto a computer so you can get a better view), you will see if the focus looks good. If not, try moving the camera back a
little.

The other thing which helps with focus is good bright lighting which gives good depth of field (so close and more distant parts of the object are both in focus at the same time) and you get a better margin for error with focus. Technical note: in brighter light, the camera adjusts to a smaller aperture (hopefully), small apertures have better depth of field. You could try changing the ISO setting to 200 or 400; this may also give better depth of field, but it will increase the 'graininess' of the pictures when you crop and enlarge them.

I usually 'brighten' my pictures using software (ACDSee, brightening shadows) because even with good lighting, the colours often come out better when the picture is further brightened. And PM colours are so brilliant, I like them to look their best!

Hope this helps. If you tell us the model of your camera, it might be possible to give some more tips.

[reimagination]

Thank you. My camera is a Fujifilm Finepix Z70, although, in a couple of months I'm thinking of getting a new one since this one is starting to act weird sometimes, but it's likely to be inexpensive, and I've been happy with Fujifilm, so probably a newer version of what I have.

I haven't had the time yet to take pictures and test out your advice. Although, I did check out animobil, so I can greatly trust Tiermann, because that site looks amazing.

I was thinking of using a sheet of newsprint to play around with these ideas. A shoebox was what I had around at the time that was a clean, neutral background. I don't really like pinning stuff to the wall that isn't flush to the wall, because my cat will try to get behind it, but I'm sure I can figure something out. I can just out him on the porch while I shoot. He likes the porch.

[Ismene]

Low end cameras are getting better and better, so even if you can't spend much, you should be able to get a camera that can photograph Playmo fairly well.

[GrahamB]

I looked up the specs for your camera online. The minimum focus using macro mode (flower symbol) is 9 cm (3.5 inches) so you should be able to take good close-ups. Using the zoom feature, you need to be 1 metre (3 feet) from the subject and in this mode you will lose a lot of depth of field, so it's probably best to move the camera closer to the Playmobil, rather than use the zoom feature. Have fun!