Show us your photo setup(s) and/or camera(s)!

I thought it would be fun to change up our SUYs a bit and do something different than animal species/types.

How about photo setups and cameras?

This is what my photo light cube looks like:
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It's a cube made from PVC pipe from an old cat tower, with a piece of blue fabric draped over the top back bar. Then a "see-through" white sheet covers all of this, with the front almost completely covered.

As you can see, it's set up with a chair in front for me to sit on, with my back facing the window. This is a typical lighting trick for photography - you always want your back to the light. On days when it isn't very sunny, I also have the overhead light turned on. Sometimes I can't use the overhead light to photograph glossy models, as the light reflects on the model, even through the white sheet!

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The model goes inside, as far against the back of the fabric as possible. This is what it looks like inside:
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The camera lens goes just under the white sheet, with the flash outside of the white sheet (not inside of the box). I keep the flash covered up by the sheet to diffuse the light, otherwise the lighting is too harsh.


Then you get photos like this:
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and this:

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My camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T5 and I use an 18-55mm lens. I also have a 75-300mm lens for outdoor faraway photos. But I  use the 18-55mm lens for my photo cube.

Here's a horrible cell phone photo of my camera, that I desaturated because it really was that bad and still is really bad. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]





Now show us your photo setups and cameras!

GREAT setup
What a fantastit topic , and brilliant intro

It is important to get the base up, and a good palce to sit, in my experience, - I love your recycle cat-tower materials
Lots of inspiration to getting good light too !

Now I'll have to clear away tea-cups, books, models, pens , flovers, the cat's drinking bowl etc, so I can take a picture also

That's very interesting, LeeAnn! I actually got some excellent ideas... I should maybe build a photography box like that and use that sheet with lightning.. Taking photos inside with lightning is hard. Specially of small models - always something wrong and then I give up
Thanks for opening this! I'll show my camera setups and cameras ASAP, and looking forward to see others setups too!
Thank you very much

Glad you two both like it! Can't wait to see yours.

So that's how you make such fabulous pics. I must try it sometime.

I will have to set up my "set up"  for a photo sometime today!

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

So that's how you make such fabulous pics. I must try it sometime.

Awww! You're so kind

Here is mine

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This is where I take all the pictures for Animobil and ToyAnimal.info. It is a closet space in my finished attic. As you see there is a clothes rod across the space that I have hung a two bulb fluorescent light fixture from. The bulbs in that are just standard ones. There is also a three light spot light fixture. The bulbs in that are special ones. They are 13 watt mini fluorescent spiral bulbs. The type is Natural Light at 5000 kelvin with an output of 880 lumens each. The equivalent of a 60 watt incandescent bulb, but in a natural light spectrum. There are three of them so that's giving me 2640 lumens quite close to the photo area, plus the light from the big tubes as well. In a small space with light colored walls to reflect the light down it provides quite a bit of light so that I never have to use flash for my camera and only have to make minor light adjustments and no color adjustments on the photos.

My standard background for site images is a piece of Canson grey artist paper. I chose the grey because it shows black and white items equally well and doesn't splash any reflected color onto the items being photographed. This is important for color trueness. If you use a colored background the light reflected onto the item from the background will join with the light coming at you directly from the item and effect the perceived color. You can see it's a large sheet that has been taped up and then curved. This avoids any seam in the image, and if there is enough curve the light with be gradated rather than in solid bands of lighter and darker tones.

My camera is a Canon PowerShot SX 210 IS that is now about 4 years old. Between photos for the website, travel and other things I have lapped the counter twice, so that's over 20,000 pictures with it. So needless to say I have been happy with this one. Most shots are taken in the auto mode, which adjusts to macro automatically depending on the auto focus. I am not doing anything too fancy, it's just a basic point and shoot type camera. It does have a decent 14x optical zoom, but that is used mainly outside. Image size is always set to the maximum size and quality. It's much better to reduce down for web use from a really big image than to have one that's not high enough quality to start.

So my basics for good item photography -
1. As much light as possible, but not so strong and from a single source that it causes dark shadows. Ideally this is in a natural light range that is well balanced.
2. A camera that has good sensitivity, decent quality but it certainly doesn't need to be thousands of dollars with multiple lenses etc.
3. A neutral background that wont alter the colors

Thanks for the great topic, it's interesting to see what other people do. :)

Fanatstic sets ups! Mine is very small and not very professional looking But here it is anyway...

A chair...
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And add a sheet

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Smooth the sheet back a bit


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And there I have a place for photographs  

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And I can take photos that look like this...


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What an intricate setup Tim! It's interesting to see the inner workings behind your fabulous TAI photos.

And Emma, sometimes small is good! Nothing you have to move around and control, very nice and functional!

Tim and Emma your setups are wonderful! Tim, I just noticed that is the place where many of ToyAnimalWiki photo have been taken
Thanks for showing you both

here is mine :
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Very nice

So that is how you get so muct atmosphere in your pictures

SUSANNE wrote:

So that is how you get so muct atmosphere in your pictures

This is exactly how I think! I love those dark brown photos you always take, Nando

Interesting to see all the setups here! Nice topic!
I build mine every time over again so next time when I will take photos I will also take photo of the setup

Lovely setup Nando

Wonderful set ups everyone. It's interesting to see the variation and see how all of them give great pics.

NandO wrote:

here is mine :

You're not even using a flash are you? How do you get them so sharp, long exposure or very steady hand?

smallscaleworld wrote:

NandO wrote:

here is mine :

You're not even using a flash are you? How do you get them so sharp, long exposure or very steady hand?

Thanks My Friend :)

Yes, i dont use the flash, i take pict more than twice because sometimes its blurred the figure and just focus on the background..

NandO wrote:

...I take pict more than twice because sometimes its blurred the figure and just focus on the background..

A very good point !!! One of the joys of digital cameras, you don't need to save film
If you take several shots of a motive, chances are much higer that you get a good picture.
I also move the camera and/or the models a little between shots. Funny enough no. 2 picture is usually the best one for me

SUSANNE wrote:

Funny enough no. 2 picture is usually the best one for me

Yes, my mid-session shots are always better than the first, but then they seem to tail off?

smallscaleworld wrote:

SUSANNE wrote:

Funny enough no. 2 picture is usually the best one for me

Yes, my mid-session shots are always better than the first, but then they seem to tail off?

Exactly

I have to build my photo setup almost every time all over again but most of the time it looks similar.

Something like this
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Now some details:

Grey coloured background paper pinned to magnet board and table. Then on the top of that also decorative paper, also pinned this way. Normal day light from the window and some kind of counter light (not always).

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My camera is Canon 450D, most of the time with lens 18-70mm. I try to avoid using the wide angle 18mm because it distort the picture too much. I usually use RAW format so I can correct exposure later on. I prefer using long exposure then flash light so every time I stabilise the camera and use 2 seconds self timer (then don't touch the camera or table). If I'm not lazy I use also tripod but often I use simpler methods to stabilise camera (see the image)

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And, yes I like buying and collect decorative background papers
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That's all I guess

WOW! Anna, smart and beautyful as always

Your backgrounds always makes your photos look very special, - like the smell of flowers

Now I will begin to look for a magnet board also