How do I take good pictures on the cheap.

Now by this I mean that I don't want to spend any money! I have far more important things to be spending my limited resources upon. But I am frustrated. the photo's on Rellik's WIP BLOG and some others I took tonight just haven't come out right.

I understand about white back grounds and bright daylight bulbs (although who actually have those?!?), but it's not as easy as it might be to find them

Does any one have any thoughts? And preferably examples of where it has worked for them?

Cheers

T

youve probably tried this, but i have one word

Macro Mode

Ok, so thats two. but its still the way forward!

Um depends what you're after, has a flash not helped?? My phone has a HDR mode (whatever that means!) which takes 2 pictures but the HDR one is brighter and sharper, failing fiddling with camera settings n wot not, have you tried in the kitchen as that's a bit brighter?

I'm a terrible photographer - normally I set it it all up on a nice back ground take 20 shots with the flash - 20 without - add an extra light source take another 20 - there's gotta be 1 good one in there somewhere?

I'll be giving this a go either tonight or tomorrow as my first necron is pretty much done now....

are you using your phone or your camera? obviously the camera is better, but here are few main tips beyond macro mode which is designed to take pictures of little things like ants, pollen and space marines:

1. daylight - nothing beats it, though it does show up all of the bits that you thought looked great while you were painting in a darkened hovel
   
2. failing that, otherwise all around light - bathroom and kitchen lights work well. pointed light like the flash tends to distort images i find.
   
3. if you use the flash, then its better to take it from further away, zooming in slightly, than right up close to avoid the light distorting and casting shadows.
   
4. this also prevents fuzziness, as cameras are notoriously long sighted and will focus better at 18" than 6"
   
5. considering the above,always stay within digital zoom range, optical zoom is rubbish

not that im an expert photographer or anything, but i guess these are the obvious theoreticals!

How would you know which type of zoom it is? I need to get the instructions out really to figure this macro out. Nowhere has a lot of light sadly. I may have to spend some cash after all and pimp up my kitchen lights. 4 oglf the bulbs don't seem to work,lol

Wtf is ogif??? Haha!!! With the zoom, on a camera, generally I think it'll be split on the display, although I believe it's the other way round to hobo's declaration - so you'll have a bar or similar when you zoom and then it'll change to a digital/pixelated image which zooms further (I may well be wrong mind) but the quality is far inferior because of the zoom - changing the panoramic view would make a difference too

well, on cameras zooming tends to bring up a bar, and theres a divider between digital and optical - it also usually physically jerks between the two.

your camera should say what zoom it has (3x digital zoom, 5x digital zoom etc), so when you do zoom in you can see what number youve zoomed

but again, the main difference with a camera is macro mode. with that you *can* go right up close without worrying about zooming and it will focus fine.

btw, i think the lighting in your kitchen is fine - your pictures normally seem adequately lighted, so judging by the power sword photo that triggered this i think you just have to worry about focus

Hi guys

I have recently found some really useful tips on ho to do better photos. That said, I should probably ask if people think my photos are looking better first,lol.

Assuming they are, they are randomly on on miniwargaming and are pretty quick to use as a guide. To find them, simply pretend to download a photo in the webstore (click on a mini and press submit photo).

It helped me out, maybe it will you too! As always here if you have any questions!

shamelessly bumping this and will continue to for the immediate future so

A) I remember where it is
B) It stays near the top

so I can look it when I find my damned camera

dont lie, you just want more posts so you too can be a xenophobic space marine!

You've seen through my sham - I can't keep it up anymore!

It's the awesomeness rating! I can't work out how to be awesome in real life so I have to try and built up my rating online

the rule i havent told anyone about awesomeness is that the first person to 300 gets a beer bought for him by all the rest of the good folk on this forum!

fine by me - your is waiting for you at the Grenville pub at the bottom of my road

Haha and mine is already here waiting for yo..... Oh wait, nope sorry I've drunk it; next 300??