How To
Photograph Your Engine

Created: April 25, 2008
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When I receive an email complementing the standard of photography on this web site, I automatically assume the subject of this high parise must be the work of Bert Streigler, or Ken Croft. I manage to get by—if only just—on ignorance and overkill, but the aforesaid gentlemen actually know what they are doing and it truly shows. The information below was provided by Ken Croft and will be a help to modellers who want to share pictures of their engines with others. Over to Ken...


Lighting and background are the two most important aspects to consider when making good photographs of model engines. Bert Streigler is really the expert. His curved lighting board lit by a couple of floodlights produce a soft, shadow-free background which draws the eye to the subject. Roger Schroeder is good at it too; my first attempts were made using a lightbox like the one he provided details of in an early issue of ECJ.

I used the light box designed by Roger for quite a while, but it was a big thing and took up valuable space. Then I tried Bert's method with a couple of lamps, but this had to be set up every time and was a pain because I do not have a lot of spare space at home. I've evolved a setup that produces well-lit, shadow-free shots that is always waiting to be used with no hassle. I call it a "softbox".

My method is easy to use, but you need to make a simple bit of kit called a Softbox. This is just held in front of the on-camera flash and its purpose is to spread the light. I have attached a picture of the one I made; its sides are cut from white foam board bought at an office suppliers, stuck together with black duck tape [duct tape?]. The front is some semi-opaque Correx that I had left from another job. It could just as easily be some light, white tissue paper or frosted plastic of some kind. I just hold mine in front of the built-in flash on the camera with a velcro strap around the lense body. The result is flash illumination with very soft shadows. It takes about half an hour to make, then you have it for good, or until sat on. Notice that it has no parallel sides. The idea of the odd shape is for light to bounce all around the white inside of the box and to come out of the large front, fully diffused and at all angles. By contrast a bare flash gun gives a point source and harsh shadows.

On a few general points, the smaller the aperture you can use on the camera the better. For engine shots I set the camera to f16 for good depth of field [all parts of picture sharp]. This means using either a slow shutter speed, and then the camera needs to be on a tripod to keep it steady, or a high ISO speed to allow a shutter speed that can work without camera shake hand held. As I have an excellent camera [Canon 30D] that gives good un-noisy images at high ISO's, my preference is to use ISO 1600 and hand hold the camera. It depends what camera you have. Small point-and-shoot compacts do not work well at high ISO settings as the pictures are very noisy [grainy in film terms].

This comparison shot shows the same subject with the light box and with the bare flash. Which is which should be clear from the hard shadows on one image and soft shadows on the other shot used the softbox. This combined image was shot at 1/200 sec, f16, ISO1600 on a Canon 30D and +2 stops flash power.

Oh, finally, always use a plain white paper as a background. If you use coloured paper you will always have coloured highlights that you can never get rid of. And if you can, set the exposure to about +1.5 stops if your camera allows that. If the camera is just allowed to use its auto settings, the cameras meter will see the white background and it will interpret this as an overall very bright picture, and will attempt to darken it. The subject, ie the motor, will then be too dark. I always shoot on manual settings when using flash, so this does not apply to me.

...and in case anyone wonders how I took a picture showing the camera itself, that shot was taken with my superb and very cheap tiny little Canon Ixus 50, a little point and shoot that goes everywhere with me. Tripod mounted and timed release. Who needs an expensive lump of an SLR?!!!

Ken Croft, England 2008.

 

 

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