DINO-FIGUREs PHOTOGRAPHY ( Image Heavy Thread )

[ceratopsian]

@acro-man - I miss seeing you around.  And yes, the photographic dioramas you have shown to us have been excellent.

[RobinGoodfellow]

Welcome back to some tips about photography.

I saw many times, when a new figure comes out, people judging right proportions through promotional images, even comparing them with skeletal reconstructions.
I really think it's a mistake unless you know exactly how the picture was taken.
And by "how" I mean which was the lens and the camera used to shoot pictures you're evaluating.

If you want that proportions in pictures seem to be similar to naked eyes, you've to follow some rules.
Otherwise proportions can be distorted by the lens, no matter what camera you're using.

The first thing to know is the size of the photo sensor:




Knowing the size, you've to calculate the diagonal:



The lens with focal lenght closest to sensor' diagonal (in mm ) will result as close as possible to naked eye perspective and proportions.

So if you're using a camera with a full frame sensor (= same size as "old" 35mm), 24x36 mm (example = Canon 5D ), the diagonal is 43mm.
For a full frame camera 24x36 mm the lens with the same human eye' perspective is the 50mm.

And so on..

If a photographer wants to show the right proportions about a model (with a full frame camera), only a 50mm can do that.
And if camera & lens used is unknown, the viewer cannot use the picture as a visual reference for naked eyes' proportions..

I did some examples about that with the new PNSO Parasaurolophus.
Please, see the difference in visual proportions (expecially for the head..)
The camera used is a full-frame Canon 5D.
I tried to maintain the same size for the PNSO figure.


15mm


24mm


35mm


50mm


105mm


200mm



Lens used:





In my collection thread, almost every picture is taken with a Canon 5D + fixed 50mm lens (for a right comparison and proportions):







https://www.flickr.com/photos/130140542@N03/albums/72157655387495041/with/50999553015/

[Bokisaurus]

Wow, fascinating information!
Great to see the difference between each one and how it really does affect the overall visual of the subject.

😃

[Kapitaenosavrvs]

Fantastic Post, thank you!

The difference in the Proportions is immense, i never thought that is matters this much. I often find it hard to do Figure Photography with my phone. I never get the Angle or the Proportions i want. Especially if it is something i made myself and in know the proportions better. But of course it is the tinie tiny Camera in the Phone. Maybe it was too obvious Time to crawl out my old Camera and try it.

[RobinGoodfellow]

I recently took different group pictures of models.
Due to the very different coloration between figures and background, it's not easy to do a right exposure, specially with a white background.
Even the High Dynamic Range technique (HDR) could be weak for that.

I found out that a partial use of HDR could be great, an Hybrid HDR technique..
It mainly constists in one Photoshop layer with an HDR image + one layer with a normal exposure image.

It's simpler than it sounds.


An example:




Looking at the picture, figures are right exposed while background is partially darker and partially overexposed.
Background should be fixed.
Mainly with the HDR; but figures are right exposed so they don't need HDR.
An HDR exposure for the white background will result in washed-out figures..
Here:



Obviously the solution is using a Photoshop' layer with the HDR background + a PS' layer from the old (and normal exposed) picture (for models only, deleting the background).

First of all we have to create a black&white high contrast mask to help PS' Magic Wand tool to select background only:




Now we can easily select the HDR background, using PS to further soften the exposure.
Here:



Done this, it's easy to use the previous layer with the normal exposed figures (without the background).
We can just use PS' to strengthen the image with models.

Job done !!

Here:






Other examples of Hybrid HDR
On these pictures, the main figure is HDR exposed while background is normally exposed ( the exact opposite of the previous case ):







Thanks for watching. 

Regards 


https://www.flickr.com/photos/130140542@N03/albums/72157655387495041/with/51058612512/

[Newt]

Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge.

[ceratopsian]

Thanks for the explanation of how proportions are affected by the camera and lens.  My general experience of photography already told me that proportions in photos are not trustworthy - it's interesting to see this backed up by good evidence!

[Halichoeres]

I used to encounter this problem when photographing large fishes for morphometric analyses. For those, we would photograph them against a grid so that the dimensions could be adjusted digitally if necessary.

[RobinGoodfellow]

I'd like to talk a little about outdoor photography, not intended for diorama but figure's documentation.

Probably one of the most important thing about outdoor photography (for documentation ) is choosing the right background.
The background must not be too much confusing for the main figure who have to remain the protagonist of the picture.

Here an example:






A good way to have that it's using an out-of-focus background.
An out-of-focus background can be obtained with a telephoto lens, used at low value aperture (f/2,8 - f/4 ), maintaining some distance from the figure.





A colorful background can be perfect if it's completely out of focus.


Here my rearview background (with a wide-angle lens).




Using a telephoto lens you can select the best part of a colorful background to right match the figure.


Maybe the figure could be darker than background; if it's the case, you can use a daylight led-panel in front of the model.



Nowadays led-panels are quite inexpensive: you can find one for 15/20 USD in a DIY store..


As usual, you can refine the final picture with Photoshop if necessary with a figure/background separation by a mask:




Job done !!




Thanks for watching 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/130140542@N03/albums/72157655387495041/with/51016531795/

[Halichoeres]

@RobinGoodfellow Do you have a recommendation for a camera body that handles both outdoor/nature photography and indoor/model photography? I can spend around $600. I'm definitely encountering the limits of what my phone can do.

[edited to add: obviously I expect to also have to purchase separate lenses for the tasks.]

[RobinGoodfellow]

@RobinGoodfellow Do you have a recommendation for a camera body that handles both outdoor/nature photography and indoor/model photography? I can spend around $600. I'm definitely encountering the limits of what my phone can do.

[edited to add: obviously I expect to also have to purchase separate lenses for the tasks.]

I'm a Canon user.
Probably this one:

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/details/cameras/eos-dslr-and-mirrorless-cameras/mirrorless/eos-m50-ef-m-15-45mm-is-stm-kit



It's an entry-point camera with quality images and easy to use.
A medium quality pro-camera body starts from 1000 USD.
What do you think?

[Halichoeres]

Thank you! This is one of the models I had encountered while searching. I think it would suit my needs well. Thanks again!

[RobinGoodfellow]

Recently I received the 1:18 Creative Beast Dimetrodon.



So I had to re-arrange my Permian/Triassic resins' shelf for the newcomer.

At the same time I was testing a new lens for my camera: a full-frame  Irix 11mm f/4 .
Irix 11mm was developed by a swiss company and manufactured in Korea.
Currently it's the widest angle (field of view = 126° ) , fixed focal lenght (=not a zoom) , rectilinear lens (= not fisheye ) for Full Frame cameras  ( https://irixlens.com/photo-lenses/11mm/ ).




I used the Irix to shoot a frame of the re-arranged shelf.

As I said before ( http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=3562.msg286680#msg286680 ), wide-angle lenses are not the best to shoot models/statue/toys because of the distorsion.

This is a picture taken with a 15mm lens:




The best way to portrait figures is using a 50mm lens (for Full Frame cameras) for right proportions.
But if you're shooting with a 50mm (inside an house), probably you can't stay enough distant from the subject to keep it all in frame..
And a wide-angle lens is the only way.

There are simple tricks to do that the right way.

Firstly I selected the maximum resolution on my Canon camera (6K).
I put my camera not too near to the subject (and perfectly levelled )



I decided to use only the distortion-free center of the image, doing a crop with Photoshop.

The full image (see distortions on the border):


( I also used a paper to cover lights; on-frame lights cause flares and glares on image)


The final cropped image is almost distortion-free, even with a super wide-angle 11mm lens :




Here it is my new Dimetrodon on its shelf.. 



_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

See the difference with my previous image, taken with a 17mm near to the subject:



The distorted proportions are highly visible on Eritrosuchus' head and Scutosaurus' body.


Full Res pics here:   https://www.flickr.com/photos/130140542@N03/albums/72157655387495041/with/49904606433/


Thanks for watching


-

[Megalosaurus]

Pretty informative.
Thank you for sharing.
This thread should be pinned.

[Kapitaenosavrvs]

Again, a well done Post from you. Thank you for sharing your knowlegde with us. A lot of arguments and fights could stop, if more People would read Threads/Information like this :-D

Until now i wasn't brave enough to try my old FinePix S602 Zoom for better indoor Pitures. It is not an SLR, but it should still be better, than my phone. Even with its 3.1 MP. My biggest Problem is the small lens on the phone and the digital corrections, the Phone does in not perfectly bright conditions. Everything is just pixelmess.  But i do have a 55mm 0.79X Wide Lens for the FinePix. I will try to use the Camera for the T. rex Diorama, when it's finished. Really interesting read. As always.

[RobinGoodfellow]

This time I try to talk about video.
I really don't know if there is someone interested in it on DTF but who knows..

Even if usually I define myself as a photographer (it's much more simple), I'm a camera operator (mainly for commercials, music videos and documentaries).
So video is my real job.

Cinematographers do not possess the equipment for shooting because it's always rented from rental-houses.



Recently some small clients asked for some less-budget works so I decided to buy a basic equipment to work on my own.
Of course I didn't go for an expensive high-end camera but I bought a solid, on-budget-but-still-pro one: a BlackMagic 6K Pro.

 


Because of the heavy files created by that camera ( 6K - 6144x3456 pixel - not compressed Raw file format) I had to upgrade my home post-production with a brand new Mac computer.

Before any real on-set work with my new equipment, I had to test it.
And there is nothing better than a new resin model to do that   

The result:  SenSen Eryops


Link to the video:    https://flic.kr/p/2nahAKL






On this post I like to talk about post-production in video .

Photographic post-production is mainly done inside Photoshop.
In the motion-picture industry there are lots of different softwares for post-production (all extremely expensive..).
One of them is DaVinci Resolve .

DaVinci Resolve is an high-end software suite mainly optimized for color grading.
And it was very, very expensive.

But all changed in last few years.
The australian company called BlackMagic Design bought the all suite and did a real revolution.
They lowered the price of the pro version to less than 300 USD and also offered a totally free-of-charge version of DaVinci Resolve with very few differences from the pro-version.

Everyone can download the free version of Davinci Resolve from Blackmagic Design doing video post-production with one of the most powerful tool available worldwide.
Just to know, movies like Dune (2022 Oscar for the best photography / Director of Photography Greig Fraser),  Black Widow or Godzilla vs Kong were color-graded in DaVinci.
And, as I said, there are very few differences between the pro and the free version.





And there is more.
With latest version of DaVinci you can fully edit video, doing compositing work (Fusion is included), audio (Fairlight is included), color-grading (its main mission) and export the final result for every existing platform.

DaVinci Resolve is wonderful.
I have the pro version and I used it for testing:



Like all pro softwares , even DaVinci is not so easy to learn..
But there are lots of tutorials on the web:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURZdvzBgI3ro0L8MFXWEo_TubW1W9nnk

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURZdvzBgI3oiWyzgYwDNpLB93if7JAP7

https://www.youtube.com/c/BlackmagicDesignOfficial/playlists


If you're planning to do video, you have to try with DaVinci:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/


And if you need to know more, just ask ..

Kind Regards

[need4swede]

I wasn't around when this thread started, but you have definitely gotten better over the years. A lot of your earlier work is riddled with overblown highlights, lost shadows and questionable composition - which I only mention to highlight how great your contemporary work looks. As someone who worked in professional media production for multiple trillion dollar companies before changing careers, photography is still a prevalent hobby for me and I'm glad to see threads like this one present within our forums. I wouldn't call myself an expert on photographing figures (my work covered a wide range of topics, so I'm not sure I'm an expert on anything!), but it's great to see your progress over the years and seeing you make the right choices of how to better hone the craft.

Keep up the great work, my friend!

[RobinGoodfellow]

I wasn't around when this thread started, but you have definitely gotten better over the years. A lot of your earlier work is riddled with overblown highlights, lost shadows and questionable composition - which I only mention to highlight how great your contemporary work looks. As someone who worked in professional media production for multiple trillion dollar companies before changing careers, photography is still a prevalent hobby for me and I'm glad to see threads like this one present within our forums. I wouldn't call myself an expert on photographing figures (my work covered a wide range of topics, so I'm not sure I'm an expert on anything!), but it's great to see your progress over the years and seeing you make the right choices of how to better hone the craft.

Keep up the great work, my friend!

Thank you very much for your kind words.
You're right: at the beginning I didn't spend so much time in illustrating what was just an hobby for me.
Now  I'm taking it more seriously.
Unluckily I don't have so much time for it yet.
Kind Regards

[acro-man]

I mean, there's so much information exploding in my brain. And after that, I can see the world way clearer - thanks to you!

I have experimented with my phone a lot but the lack of photographic knowledge still left me clueless.
The thing is - on my phone, the sensor and the lense never match each other, so the pictures always look wrong. That weirdness almost drove me crazy.
Now, as you put it, the sensor's diagonal has to be close to the focal length of the lense, I see a real camera as a must.

Thanks pal, you did a lot to enlighten the forum, again.