Help! My pics are rubbish

[aescarion]

Hi there.

I\'ve posted my first couple of pictures on CMON and the pics aren\'t very good. They seem a bit out of focus - I\'m using the macro and SHQ image quality settings but they just don\'t seem to come out sharp. Is there some trick I can use to get the camera to focus properly?

Her\'es my Nightbringer, and as you can see he looks a bit too blurry for an ancient alien death god:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics5/img3f1e4423bbfe2.jpg

 

[Garshnak]

Hmmm....I don\'t know anything about cams but, do you have Photshop?

And maybe you should check out the articles section of CMON, there\'s lotta info there.

 

[finn17]

Looks like camera shake to me..possibly

Are you handholding your camera? Camerashake could be the problem.

A small inexpensive tripod and set the camera on timer. This might do the trick..

Or...

try using flash see if this eliminates the problem, if you get a sharp pic, but crap colours, then camera shake is to blame in your first ones...

Or..

Increase overall light levels so that the camera will self-select a faster shutter speed. Try setting it on manual if you can.


Or....

Pretend you are a sniper and try to relax when taking the shot and....gently squeeze that trigger, sorry shutter, on the out breath.:bouncy:

 

[Beelzebrush]

Hi

Are you using the zoom whilst in macro mode? If so, don\'t, as it lowers pic quality. Use your lens at the widest setting and let the macro focus automatically.

Also, has this image been enlarged from the original? Again, this will lower the pic quality.

Oh... and wot Finn said

 

[aescarion]

Thanks for the replies, chaps.

I\'m using a tripod and self-timer. Maybe it\'s image size that\'s the problem. The CMON format seems to expand images to fill the space provided - should I try cropping images with more background, so they don\'t get blown up quite so much?

I\'ll try messing around with the light levels a bit - I\'m trying to unravel the manual to work out how to do stuff like that.

For the record, the other two look like this -

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics5/img3f1e434e29822.jpg

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics5/img3f1e427b7ef5a.jpg

I\'m particularly annoyed that St Mark didn\'t come out better because he\'s probably the best thing I\'ve ever painted.

[aescarion is wracked by uncontrollable sobs of despair]

 

[finn17]

Have you tried using reflectors?

I think you might need to throw some more soft light on the front of the model. Try using some simple bits of white card arranged so:

x
\\ /
o

Where x is your model \\/ is white card and o is your camera lens. This is about the simplest arrangement you can have, but lighting arrangements can get much more complicated than this. Blu tack is useful for holding small reflectors in place.

 

[Garshnak]

Let me ask this again...do you have photoshop? Or photosuit?

 

[Infidel Castro]

It\'s a bloody shame!

They look like some nice minis as well!

Try downsizing the images a bit, as they\'re so large anyways. Put them to half the size and see if that brings more clarity - they look like beauties

 

[aescarion]

Thanks for the help everyone. The advice about the reflectors was particularly useful.

I\'ve posted a couple more than I think came out much better:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics5/img3f3fafd40ea80.jpg

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics5/img3f3faf170001c.jpg

Reverend, I\'ll try bringing down the image size - whate size (pixel x pixel, if that\'s how they\'re noted) would you recommend?

Annoyingly, they seem to be getting much lower marks than the others. Sigh.

 

[finn17]

I can\'t see much wrong with those photos...

Apart from actally making the models look better, throwing a bit of extra light on them with reflectors also decreases the time the camera shutter is open and reduces the risk of camera shake. Another bonus!
If you wanted to take this idea one stage further, you could experiment using a \'light tent\'. This is basically thin muslin or similar material arranged into a tent shape. You place your model in the middle, arrange your light sources around the outside and then poke your camera lens through a slit in the fabric. The whole thing acts as a giant diffuser/reflector and you get high quality directionless lighting. I\'ve probably made that sound more complicated than it is.

 

[Ovus The Peon]

aescarion,

CMON shrinks a pic to fit in a 600-pixel wide format. If your picture is less than 600 pixels wide, it shouldn\'t get shrunk. IMHO, 400-450 wide is probably best for single minis.

A few other things to be aware of...I don\'t know if any of these things will help you, but I\'m just throwing some things on the wall; maybe one will stick.

Make sure your camera is set on its highest resolution (or \'fine\', or \'superfine\', or whatever your camera options specify).

Make sure your focus options aren\'t set on \'infinity\', or \'far\', or \'horizon\'...basically, make sure the camera is set to focus on something that\'s 10cm to 40cm away from the camera. My camera has a little tulip symbol for this.

Make sure you only ever alter your image size down, down, down. Down then back up is right out. I\'ve done that before, and my pics turned out just like yours.

Make sure the camera isn\'t too far away. I keep the camera about 15cm away from the mini. That way I can take a pic of the mini in all it\'s goopy glory.

 

[aescarion]

How does she look now?

http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=29947

I fiddled about with the image size - she\'s 600 pixels across now and I cropped so there\'s a larger area around her. I think her hair\'s the best bit.

I seem to be topping out at 6.6 for all my posts so far - is that good? Bad? Average?

Thank you again for the help, everyone, it\'s been invaluable.

 

[wightzombie]

much better. the whole problem was taking the biggest shot allowed on a lesser camera. for instance the 1st pic in your thread, the necron leader, take that picture, shrink it to 500 pixels tall, go to filters in photoshop and sharpen once to regain some clarity. tada. so you can keep takin em big and shrinking them down or possibly the new way you figured out.

6 is really average on the site, above tabletop but not into the good stuff yet. id give your lioness there a 7 with the better pics. i really like what you did with the loin cloth and color scheme with purple hair. not a bad face either. maybe shade the sword a bit near the hilt moving out. oh wait, that may be the light cuz the bottom pic has some sword shading..... sigh, damn fotos.

 

[finn17]

Much better...

The smaller picture with \'room\' is much better than the tight-cropped one you posted. Definitely 1-2 points of voting better I would imagine.

I used to do \'make-over\' photography and believe me, sometimes you just don\'t want to get in too close:innocent:

 

[DennisMech]

the pictures (barring the last one you posted) don\'t look like they were blurry when you took the pic, but that they were stretched bigger than their original size at some point. However you seem to have corrected this on the last one.

 

[aescarion]

Well, reposting the Red Lioness has bumped her up from 6.4 to 7.1. I\'ll try reposting some other stuff to see if their scores improve as well.

Plus learn to paint better. That would probably help, too.