Gallery, Projects and General > How to's

Taking photos in the workshop

<< < (2/6) > >>

Bernd:
Have to admit you take darn good pics. At least they're bright enough and in focus to see the detail.

Yes, I like your yellow scrap boxes. :D Brightens things up a bit.

Bernd

John Hill:
All good advice Tim but I must ask how one is supposed to find a clean site in the workshop suitable to taking pictures? :scratch:

spuddevans:

--- Quote from: Bernd on May 18, 2009, 06:56:34 PM ---I've also noticed that many are not aware of the background color in their photo's either. That also makes a big difference in taking a picture of a part. I usally try for a neutral color such as gray.

What is your opinion on background color.

--- End quote ---

That's a good point Bernd. Background can be important as it can give context to the photo, so if the pic is of a part being made then having the lathe ways or the mill table as part of the background  can help. But the finished article will look better if the background is a neutral colour, and the darker the background is the more you will focus attention on the model.

An interesting experiment is to take a photo of a plain white sheet of paper, fill the frame with the sheet, most camera's when on "Auto" mode will actually give you a picture that will look a mid-grey. This is because the camera averages out all the shades in its frame and reckons that the average of most scenes will equal a mid-grey.

So when taking photos in the workshop, if your background is lighter than your subject then your camera may well take an under-exposed(darker) photo. But if your background is darker then the opposite is true, it will give you a brighter photo. Armed with this you can simply place a piece of mid to dark grey card behind whatever you want to capture to fool the camera into taking a brighter picture without getting your head around the manual controls (if you camera has them).


--- Quote from: John Hill on May 18, 2009, 10:38:26 PM ---All good advice Tim but I must ask how one is supposed to find a clean site in the workshop suitable to taking pictures? :scratch:

--- End quote ---

Good point, the only clean workshop is one not in use  :lol:

Think about what you are photographing. If it is just a part of an engine, or even a work in progress on the lathe or mill, you dont need to have a clean site, in fact it may look strange without some swarf. However, unless you are building a full scale project, most of what we photograph is relatively small, so a clean site is not that hard to make( I have a couple of 2" paintbrushes that I use to sweep the ways clean, they work well as mini sweepers to clear a little site ), even putting a sheet of a4 paper down, or even better, use the plans as a base and a bit of grey card for the background for the picture. To keep the plans or background cleaner, find some poly-pockets that are matt in appearence, they will just wipe clean but not reflect any glare.


Just one other point about backgrounds, give your subject room to breath. If you are introducing a background in the form of a bit of grey card, dont put it right behind the subject, leave a bit of space otherwise the photo will look cramped.

One final thought for now (groan), when you see someones photo that you like and think is well taken, just ask yourself what about that photo makes it so attractive to you, is it the background, the lighting, the composition? Then just try to copy that. Practice is what will improve you photos, and dont just "take" the picture, "make" it work, just give some thought to what you want to capture.

Hope all that makes sense.


Tim

sbwhart:
Thanks for the post Tim very usfull

I've been using elcheepo Kodak compact camera my wife bought me as she was P****d off with me using her Ixus in the shop, I've been meaning to rig up some sort of stand using a magentic base to try a reduce the camera shake, I think this will be the spur for me to get on and do it.

Cheers

Stew

Bernd:
Tim,

Your last paragraph is how I learned to take pics. Also what helped was way back when we had a couple of people that worked at Kodak that were also model railroaders and had articles published in major modeling magazines. They gave a few classes on how to take good pics. Helped a lot with my picture taking.

Great tips in this thread. Hope it gets read a lot. Time will tell. Now lets see if the photos will increase in quality.

Bernd

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page