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Other Stuff => Model and Miniature Photography => Topic started by: Huscarl on March 28, 2020, 05:31:53 AM

Title: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Huscarl on March 28, 2020, 05:31:53 AM
Does anyone here know where I could find backdrops for photographing my miniatures? If not, how would I go about making one? I can't seem to find any tips on the internet. Thanks.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Etranger on March 28, 2020, 05:45:05 AM
Try model railway backscenes, old calendars, if you've got access to a decent printer then scenic photos from the internet.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: has.been on March 28, 2020, 08:05:04 AM
For Sci-Fi I have a coffee table book of posters, I find that useful.
The internet has lots of photographic back drops for sale.
Sky also works, if you can get outside & get down low. The angle will help
remove distracting things.
For a demo game (many years ago) we wanted to show off our pride & joy,
an enormous Aztec temple at one end of the table. I got a sheet of hardboard,
the largest we could fit into a car (had to get it to the show).  Three cans of
spray paint, two blues & a white, and 10 minutes in the garden (on a nice day)
resulted in a believable 'Sky'. Be careful, I nearly ruined it by trying to add too
much paint. It will run & splatter. If it does, do what I did...
1) Sit down & cry.  2) let it FULLY dry.  3) Spray over the 'ruined' bits. 
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Ragnar on March 28, 2020, 08:24:34 AM
I thinkm I just searched for scenic photos on ebay.  Ended up with something that looked like the Scottish highlands.  (At least to someone who has never been there.)
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Ultravanillasmurf on March 28, 2020, 08:33:34 AM
Try model railway backscenes, old calendars, if you've got access to a decent printer then scenic photos from the internet.
I have to agree about model railway sources, there are a number of companies who offer high quality backscenes of various sizes and periods.

An alternative is if you have a suitable photograph, there are companies that can print it for you (it used to be that you could get it done at a print shop, but they are becoming rarer and even if there is one locally it is unlikely to be "essential" at this time).

Home printing is fine if your backscene is A4, A3 printers are a lot more expensive. You also need suitable paper. Again, model railway fora or knowing a railway modeller who can find a suitable magazine article is useful.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: fred on March 28, 2020, 11:49:21 AM
I’ve used an image directly on the computer screen as a backdrop for photographing miniatures.

This is very flexible as you can easily search for a different background to give a different feel.

I’m sure I have a picture of the setup somewhere, so will have a rummage for that.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Billchuck on March 28, 2020, 03:05:18 PM
I taped together a couple pieces of grey paper from the scrapbook aisle at Michael’s and put it in the back of my light box. You can see it in this picture of the light box:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/39/6053-200619022701.jpeg)

And in use here:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/44/6053-110320005203.jpeg)
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Ragnar on March 28, 2020, 10:47:40 PM
I’ve used an image directly on the computer screen as a backdrop for photographing miniatures.

I did this for some sci-fi figures once.  Something I'd like to experiment with a bit more.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Huscarl on March 29, 2020, 12:14:57 AM
Wow, thanks for all the replies!
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Hu Rhu on March 29, 2020, 02:07:33 PM
I taped together a couple pieces of grey paper from the scrapbook aisle at Michael’s and put it in the back of my light box. You can see it in this picture of the light box:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/39/6053-200619022701.jpeg)


Can you describe the set up of your light box please.   Size, lighting etc
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Billchuck on March 29, 2020, 02:58:22 PM
Can you describe the set up of your light box please.   Size, lighting etc

It’s about a 12” cube made of foamcore. The lights are those adhesive LED strip lights. I made some 45 degree mounts from foamcore, cut the lights to length and stuck them on; some soldering was required to connect everything together.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: YPU on March 29, 2020, 02:59:35 PM
I’ve used an image directly on the computer screen as a backdrop for photographing miniatures.

This is very flexible as you can easily search for a different background to give a different feel.

I’m sure I have a picture of the setup somewhere, so will have a rummage for that.

This has a couple of ups and downs, its self lit which can be handy, it won't play tricks with focal depth etc which might be good or not depending. Most modern screens tend to be pretty glare free so that works either way.


I personally have a great looking desert backdrop that was a gift from a friend.

(https://i.imgur.com/yGcA0sM.jpg)

It is thich paint over canvas, with some texture worked into the lower half. Having it curve up into the backdrop works great.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Ragnar on April 02, 2020, 11:32:06 AM
I thinkm I just searched for scenic photos on ebay.  Ended up with something that looked like the Scottish highlands.  (At least to someone who has never been there.)

Here is my best example of using the the backdrop

(https://i.imgur.com/JXdERCj.jpg)
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Hammers on April 02, 2020, 11:40:49 AM
Very nice!
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Hu Rhu on April 02, 2020, 02:40:26 PM
That's a great backdrop.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Mick_in_Switzerland on April 02, 2020, 04:43:20 PM
Dear Ragnar,

That looks superb. Please can you take a picture from the side so that we can see how you set it up.

Best Regards

Mick
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Cubs on April 02, 2020, 04:46:31 PM
Hot damn Ragnar, that's superb.

I use the old curved piece of paper trick. It's black rough paper I lightly sprayed with white undercoat in a patchy, misty effect. It's a nice neutral and versatile background for pretty much anything.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Wirelizard on April 02, 2020, 06:31:39 PM
If you just want simple gradient backgrounds, many years ago now I created a PDF file with eight different backgrounds in it.

It's downloadable here: http://www.warbard.ca/2011/01/11/gradient-backgrounds-for-photography/

Set up for Letter-size paper like we weird North Americans use, but they're simple vector gradients so should scale cleanly to any size of paper you're able to print on.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Doug ex-em4 on April 02, 2020, 07:24:04 PM
Nice work, Ragnar - very impressive.

Doug
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Ragnar on April 02, 2020, 08:54:33 PM
Thanks for the kind words lads.  I truly did not mean to hijack the thread.  lol 

@Mick_in_Switzerland: sorry, this was a while ago and no, I did not take any pictures from the side. 

Basically, I used blu-tac to hold the print on the wall with the wargames table up against it.  The bottom edge of the picture is actually below the table for this shot.  I then blended in the edge of the table with bushes.  Note that my riverbed was painted with dirty browns and greens, so I think this helps it to look convincing.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Fitz on April 03, 2020, 12:34:17 AM
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VKuIoWN8f7Y/XoZzV5XHY5I/AAAAAAAAOEs/V3PlMr3iJgkoga2CKqVHWEeW0A10LW-ZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/2020-04-03-PhotoBooth.jpg)

This is the setup I use for photographing my models.

The shell of the stage is a cheap translucent plastic storage bin, lined inside with white cardboard.

I use three cool-white LED lamps, two from above and a lower-powered one providing some frontal fill lighting. The LED lamps are excellent for my purposes, as they're very bright but emit very little heat, so I can have the bulbs sitting right on the plastic bin without melting it or setting anything on fire — they do get a little bit warm, but not very, and the lights are never on long enough to cause an issue. They're not true daylight lamps, but they're fairly close in tone, close enough for digital editing in any case.

I have a pair of mirror tiles leaning against either side of the stage to bounce around a bit more of the light coming from overhead. The cards in front and at the back of the stage are for colour and tone calibration when I'm editing the images on my computer; they get cropped out of the final images.

I prefer to use a neutral grey backdrop most of the time, but I also use a white or black one. Occasionally I'll use a more decorative stage setup, but not often.

I always use the tripod. My camera these days is a Nikon D3500 DSLR with an 18 to 140 mm zoom lense. I don't yet have a flash for it, apart from the built-in one; my old Nikon TTL Speedlight turns out to be precisely the wrong model to be compatible with any modern camera. Hey-ho.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Mick_in_Switzerland on April 03, 2020, 08:56:36 AM
@Fitz

I think the colour cards are a good idea.

Where did you get the colour and grey scale cards from?

Did you make them yourself?

Regards


Mick

Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Hammers on April 03, 2020, 09:03:50 AM
The cards in front and at the back of the stage are for colour and tone calibration when I'm editing the images on my computer; they get cropped out of the final images.


Fitz, van you tell us a little bit more about this?
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Fitz on April 04, 2020, 12:31:39 AM
I think the colour cards are a good idea.
Where did you get the colour and grey scale cards from?
Did you make them yourself?

I did make them myself. The three-tone white-grey-black card is just paint, with the middle grey matched from a photographic scanner calibration target image I've had for many years. The colour swatch card is printed from my CMYK laser printer; it's not good enough for scientific accuracy, but it's good enough for my purposes.

Having them both in the image field serves two purpose: firstly, it gives the camera's automatic white-balance something to average against, so the stored photo starts out with less likelihood of a colour cast created by a predominance of one hue or another in the scene, and secondly they provide target points of more or less pure hue that you can match to in digital post-processing in whatever software you might be using.

When all of the colour correction has been done, then the swatch cards are cropped out of the final image. Fortunately, most cameras (and phones) these days shoot at a high enough resolution that you can easily discard three quarters of a photograph, and still have an image large enough that it needs to be resized even further down for on-screen display.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Mick_in_Switzerland on April 04, 2020, 07:45:53 AM
Thank-you Fitz
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: YPU on April 15, 2020, 09:32:55 AM
The colour swats are a common method for calibrating cameras, you can get crazy expensive wallet-sized ones which have specific software that can take any image with the color checker in it and adjust it to make it "true color"  Luckily if you just google colour checker you can find plenty of DIY ways to do it as well.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: redrevuk on April 16, 2020, 10:27:17 PM
If you're OK with painted scenics, Jon Hodgson Maps on Patreon has a subscription available (I think $3 a month). Very nice artwork, and one month's subs will get you the whole back catalogue.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: James Morris on April 19, 2020, 06:57:09 AM
If you're OK with painted scenics, Jon Hodgson Maps on Patreon has a subscription available (I think $3 a month). Very nice artwork, and one month's subs will get you the whole back catalogue.

Seconded.  Here’s a few of his backgrounds in use. They are more aimed st fantasy, but have some historical uses as well.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Codsticker on May 25, 2020, 08:09:58 PM
Inspired by some of the backdrops in this thread and others, I decided to improve the one I had by adding blue sky and expanding the clouds.
(https://i.imgur.com/A4wJ6fw.jpg)
Just craft and house paint on raw gyproc I had laying around.
(https://i.imgur.com/Fu8PQWH.jpg)
I wanted it fairly big as I make a lot of terrain.
(https://i.imgur.com/Qcowq8w.jpg)
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Mick_in_Switzerland on May 26, 2020, 06:39:48 AM
@Codsticker,

Your backdrop looks very good and practical. I will try to make something similar.
Title: Re: Backdrops for photography
Post by: Ragnar on May 26, 2020, 08:22:43 AM
Wowow Codsticker.  I need to try this.  Looks great.