Diesel DM

Today we continue our look at miniature photography with more camera settings for getting the best WARMACHINE images possible.  As in Part 2, I’ll be using a Canon S2 IS as a reference camera.

If you’re just starting, check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Exposure

Setting the Exposure Compensation is an easy way of making sure your image is bright enough.  Since we’re not using a flash, depending on the brightness of your lamps and the overall room, it’s easy to end up with an under exposed (dark) image.  A longer exposure will cause more light to be collected by the camera giving you a brighter overall image.

On the S2 IS we go back to the FUNC. menu and the top item is the +/- (Exp.) menu, which allows us to adjust the exposure from -2 to +2.  The larger the number the more exposed and therefore brighter, the image will be.  This is best set through experimentation.  Most cameras will live preview the changes on the screen, so adjust it until it looks bright enough and take some test images, then adjust it higher and lower and check the images on your computer to see which setting you like best.  Often cameras will show the increased exposure during live preview only while the exposure menu is present or when the shutter is pressed halfway.

The other way of dealing with exposure is by setting the camera to Tv (Time value) mode and setting the shutter speed yourself.  Tv mode generally doesn’t allow you to also set Aperture (discussed below), so to get full control you need to switch over to M (manual) mode in which you can set both time and aperture. This is a little more complicated in that there are a lot of choices (the S2 IS offers from 1/3200 of a second up to 15 seconds).  Again the screen will assist you with a live preview.  This is most helpful in situations where the Exposure Compensation can’t compensate enough for your lighting situation, but I’ve never encountered that.

Lancer - under exposed

Lancer - brighter exposure

Aperture

The aperture value on a camera refers to the size of the hole that light passes through before striking the sensor.  Setting the aperture is what will help us control our depth of field.  This refers to what parts of the image are in focus.  Aperture values on a camera are marked as f-stops (f/2.7, f/8, etc).  A low f-stop number indicates a large aperture value.  A large aperture value will result in a shallow depth of field.  Lets rewrite that for clarity:

Small f-stop number = Large aperture value

Large aperture value = Small depth of field

Small f-stop number = Shallow depth of field

A shallow depth of field means the point you focus on and all things that same distance from the lens will be sharp, but everything in closer to the lens and farther from the lens will be out of focus.  For example, taking a picture of Stryker’s plastic model with a shallow depth of field and focusing on his face will mean the tip of his sword and the back of cape would be out of focus.  These kinds of large aperture values are typically used for taking portraits of people, keeping their face sharp and blurring the background, helping draw attention to the face.  There are some artistic uses of large aperture values as we’ll see, but assuming you want the entire model or multiple models in focus, you’ll want a small aperture, which is to say a larger f-stop number on your camera.   A smaller aperture value does just what you think: it increases the depth of field, meaning everything in the image will be in focus. How large your aperture needs to be depends on the camera.  Some lenses will have a “sweet spot” just below their maximum aperture value that results in the sharpest possible pictures, where as a larger aperture value might result in more depth of field, your main subject might not be as sharp.  Also keep in mind that with smaller apertures you may need to increase the exposure to compensate for the lack of light passing through the smaller opening.

On the S2 IS my aperture settings go from f/2.7 to f/8.0.  Shooting at f/6.3 or even f/5.0 seems to give the best balance between depth of field and sharpness of focus.  I can set this value in Av (Aperture value) mode by using the left/right directional buttons on the 4-way directional-pad.  Below are two examples of the shallowest depth of field for my camera(f2.7) taken with the same model in the same pose, but two different focus locations.  Click the images to view them larger to really see the effects.

Charger - f2.7 Gun is in focus, rest of model is blurry

Charger - f2.7 - Face in focus, gun and hammer are blurry

Get artistic with f-stops! Here's a f2.7 focused Stryker with his 'jacks blurred in the background. This forces Stryker as the center of attention.

This week we finished talking about camera settings by discussing exposure and aperture.  We’ll wrap up our series on photography next week with a quick cheat-sheet for getting the most out of your miniature pictures, see you then!

Photographing WARMACHINE Miniatures

(Part 1) | (Part 2) | (Part 3) | (Part 4)