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 | Figure Photoshoot Improvement
Posted: January 21st, 2009 12:14 pm (Wed) by Divine Fang
Last Edited: February 7th, 2009 12:46 am (Sat) Views: 4234 [Permalink]
Tag: Figure, Photography, Canon, EOS 450D, Macro Lens | | | Improving on figurine photoshoot have always been something I wanted to do in year 2009 and these are my precious figurines used as today's subjects. With better lighting, the results turn out to be better than all the photos I took before this entry but they were still quite heavily Photoshop'ed -I moved the Level slider quite a lot to achieve pure white background-. Camera: Canon EOS 450D DSLR
Lens: Canon Lens EF 50mm f/1.8 II (MF used, the lens AF is not accurate!)
Original EXIF Info: Manual Exposure Program, 1/6 sec, F11, ISO100, 50mm, Flash did not fire. While I'm quite happy with the current lighting condition, I couldn't not seem to improve on the image sharpness. With 50mm as my maximum focal length, overall sharpness became worse when I slowed (or stopped) my lens down to F20 as I had to move closer to my figurine for close-up shots. That has led me to consider investing on a macro lens for better close-up shots, particularly the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Lens but I do not know if the sharpness will improve significantly -Google doesn't seem to return any excellent reference in this regards :(-.
| | | Above: Beat Angel Escalayer |
| | | Above: Beat Blades Haruka |
Update 2009-01-24: I moved my T5 tubes further and wrapped them with white papers and I got better results. Overall contrast has been greatly reduced as shown below:
| |  Read or post comment (12 Otaku comments)  | nanu
(USA)
Posted January 21st, 2009 2:15 pm (Wed) | These look good. It seems the source of light is very important—are you using high output daylight-temperature bulbs now?
|  | jusuchin85
(Penang, Malaysia)
Posted January 21st, 2009 8:21 pm (Wed) | I heard that macro lens improve figures photography by a milestone (although I have yet to try that). I asked Danny once what did he use for his figure-shoots, and he told me that by using a macro lens, you can reduce the grainy effects a lot.
Also, lighting plays a big part in these kind of shoots. I regreted using my room's lights for photography so now I'm keeping a budget on getting a couple of lamps so I can take shoots in a dark room. The lighting in your photographs has improved, but maybe you can play with different backgrounds with your new setup? Since the white background gives off kinda a bland outcome... >.<
Do you use a tripod, by the way? Since my photos ended up being -2secs shutter speed, I have to use a timer of 10 seconds and a tripod so that the images come up good...
Sorry for the *extremely* long comment! ^^
|  | ron~
(Australia, Melbourne)
Posted January 21st, 2009 8:38 pm (Wed) | hmm the photos still look unnatural, maybe the contrast.
you definitely need to play around with the lighting more. For sharpness, you may need to get macro lens :).
normal lens cant do this kind of photo http://www.otadesho.com/files/shuraki/02/w_y_01.jpg
|  | Dvine Fang
(Kuala Lumpur, MY)
Posted January 22nd, 2009 4:18 am (Thu) | @ nanu,
Source of light is crucial when it comes to figure photography! I was using 4 T5 Tubes for the above shots :)
@ jusuchin85,
Yes, another problem that I still have now is the grainy product. That might just be another good reason to get a macro lens. You can give T5 tubes a shot. They are damn cheap! As for now, white bg comes first, fancy setup will be last.
Of course, I did use a tripod :)
Loooong comments welcome!
@ ron~,
Yeah, still unnatural. I guess I placed my lamps too close to my figure. Will work more on lighting.
I just took my very own Shuraki Mei's photo and the difference was very significant when it comes to sharpness. Mine looked so bad when compared with yours!
|  | Rin
(Toronto)
Posted January 22nd, 2009 7:03 am (Thu) | WOW!!!!!!
Just amazing quality of photos!!!!!
I'll be expecting awesome photos from you!!!!!!
I'm still messing with the settings but I hope I get better soon...
| | Dvine Fang
(Kuala Lumpur, MY)
Posted January 23rd, 2009 9:07 am (Fri) | @ Rin,
ARIGATOU! Me too, it's all about lighting. I am going to diffuse my tubes with white paper and see how thing turn out (^_^)! Ganbarimasho!
|  | meronpan
(ca, usa)
Posted January 25th, 2009 6:28 pm (Sun) | ooo more inspiration for me ^^ your shots are way above and beyond anything i'm doing so it's hard for me to make any constructive criticism/insightful comments ^^;; as such, just leave it at, 'looks spectacular!' ^_^
i definitely need to give a lot more love to my lighting situation...
| | Dvine Fang
(Kuala Lumpur, MY)
Posted January 26th, 2009 12:57 am (Mon) | @ meronpan,
Thanks (^_^)!
|  | Leonia
(France)
Posted April 5th, 2009 8:06 am (Sun) | Melissa, Yumil, Haruka and Char are my preferred on this shooting. Great job!
| | Divine Fang
(Kuala Lumpur, MY)
Posted April 5th, 2009 8:46 am (Sun) | Leonia,
Thanks! I remember very well that I was having difficulties with Char. Getting light onto her face was quite a challenge.
|  | Tim
(California)
Posted January 23rd, 2010 9:13 pm (Sat) | Macro Lenses will make the photography 10,000 times better. This is speaking from one who has been shooting macro for about 2 years now. You will absolutely want to get a tripod though- especially if your camera/lens combo won't have shake reduction technology (I'm not familiar with Canon products- I shoot with Pentax gear for some weird reason!.
Here's my Photography Blog for reference (though no anime figure shots are posted there- I've done a few shoots myself): www.chayacitra.com
BTW though- your lighting IS fantastic! This is one aspect that I'm terrible at- what are you using to get the even lighting that you've so masterfully achieved. There are no shadows anywhere and I love that!
| | Divine Fang
(Kuala Lumpur, MY)
Posted February 10th, 2010 3:15 am (Wed) | @ Tim,
Many have suggested a macro lens for shooting figurine but I am just not ready to invest on one yet. I am quite happy with the kit lens (18-55mm) now. My next upgrade would most likely be the walk-around super-zoom lens 18-200mm.
WOW! You have breath-taking photos there!
I did not purposely eliminate the shadows there, it just turned out to be almost shadowless with my lighting setup -just some cheapo T5 tubes-.
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