Latest pic please help me improve....

D

demonherald

New member
Here is my latest pic sethin....It\'s a little better pic than previous having played with the lighting and got a darker background. I\'m still having a few problems.
The main ones being a slight haziness and the second some pixellation within the image..
I am using a tripod and have camera set at highest MP 5.0.
any help wuld be great either with camera settings or with photoshop to help improve image..
thanks in advance


sethin2.jpg
 
Avelorn

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
It seems like you have to increase your aperature setting in manual mode to give a greater depth of field (increase the number but making the actual opening smaller F5.6= fraction) It looks like parts of the base and feet are in focus, while most of the minis isn\'t. Be sure that you take several pictures as well as pointing it at the righ place (the head most often) on most cameras you can visually see on the LCD screen with markers where the camera focuses.

Secondly. How does it look straight out of the camera? Is some of the detail lost when you compress it? Do you use photoshop (or similar) and \"save for web\"
 
green stuff

green stuff

Active member
I\'m sorry to be completely out of topic, but do you mind telling me where you got the neat cogs you used for your base?

A bit more on topic; I\'d like to emphasize what Sven said about pointing at the right place. As far as I can see, the base looks in focus where as the figure is blurry.

Good luck and nice painting.
 
D

demonherald

New member
I got the cogs on ebay ..just searched for watch spares ..If your struggling to get them smash a wind up alarm clock up or p.m me I have about 600 as I am starting an army of these dudes .. ......
MECHANICUS WIP THREAD

I\'ll have a try with the arperture setting as I think it could be the sword pointing forward that is throwing it out a little..

Straight out of the camera the pic looks ok until I rotate it then the pixelling occurs..

In terms of settings which region am I best trying.for
Arperture speed?
iso?

Also should I set on sharp soft or normal?

Is there a way on a camera to change MP but keep a smaller image size ??

Lot\'s of questions help all appreciated greatly
Guess there\'s a lot of experimentation to go.
 
Avelorn

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
Do you rotate it in a proper software? All types of editing can reduce picturequality done in Windows as it is re-saved and re-compressed.

Aperature: For a mini that size and 3d.. maybe around F5.6-F8.0.. for a larger monster F16 or even higher might be needed (to get everything, or most of it sharp. Just remember that when you make the opening smaller (higher number - confusing I KNOW) you need a longer exposure time in the same lighting conditions. My camera only goes to F5.4 for some stupid reason, which is okay on most minis, but not so good on larger creatures.

ISO is best set as low as possible. ISO is the lightsensitivity of the sensor. A higher ISO value vill need less light (faster exposure) but will become grainier. So it\'s mostly for getting things sharp in low light conditions.

Generally.. Normal sharpness is a good value from the camera. You can later sharpen it in photoshop.

MP is equal to the amount of pixels the image consists of (approx). The good thing is that if you take the picture at a high MP setting and then reduce the size in a good image software, it will become sharper comparing to if you took it in the actual size. Remember to sharpen the image after you\'ve resized it.

You can reduce a print of a picture and still keeping the amount of pixels by choosing a higher dots/inches ratio (in PSP the original one is 72dpi as most screen are 72dpi). But that\'s another thing all together.
 
D

demonherald

New member
Cheers Avelorn really great help there.....
I have just recived news today I will be moving to a house that I have been chasing that has a seperate portakabin for me to set up as a permanent studio..
This will help me a great deal as I can get a nice roomy light set up and leave it set up once right.....
I will be having a good search through my instruction manual to figure out all those settings and will get a bigger memory card as at the moment 5 pics and it\'s full so will be able to click away and get testing.. Have also started righting down the settings for each shot so when I finally get the right ones...
Thanks for the tip on different sized models too thats great....will pm you when I add another pic to this thread to see if there is improvement...
cheers
 
airhead

airhead

Coffin Dodger / Keymaster
Set to f-16 if you can, f-8 if that is the smallest opening you can get.

I go at it from the other direction. I set the exposure time to 1/4 second or 1/2 second. This will force the aperature tight and help saturate the \'film\'.

You may just be too close for the camera to focus on the rest of the mini. Pull the camera back a couple of inches and zoom back in. (Always optical zoom, never use the digital zoom.)
 
Avelorn

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
Originally posted by airhead
Set to f-16 if you can, f-8 if that is the smallest opening you can get.
Click to expand...

hmm.. I don\'t want to complicate things (who am I kidding!! lol) So you can view this as extra information... it will mostly be visible in closer shots as you can sharpen a resized image pretty much.

But often there is a notable difference in sharpness between different aperature steps. That is due to lens diffraction. Even more true with cheaper lenses.

It\'s pretty straightforward in theory really. Light travels in a straight line, but when put through a small opening the rays starts to disperse and interfering with another, partly disrupting the image. With a smaller opening the effect grows larger. Theoretically a lens will be sharpest at the widest setting.. but most often it is a few stops down.

So I\'d try some different aperature settings and check the difference.

I can supply a link that shows exactly what I mean with photoexamples and explains it a bit more

here you go
 
airhead

airhead

Coffin Dodger / Keymaster
Originally posted by Avelorn
Originally posted by airhead
Set to f-16 if you can, f-8 if that is the smallest opening you can get.
Click to expand...

hmm.. I don\'t want to complicate things (who am I kidding!! lol) So you can view this as extra information... it will mostly be visible in closer shots as you can sharpen a resized image pretty much.

But often there is a notable difference in sharpness between different aperature steps. That is due to lens diffraction. Even more true with cheaper lenses.

It\'s pretty straightforward in theory really. Light travels in a straight line, but when put through a small opening the rays starts to disperse and interfering with another, partly disrupting the image. With a smaller opening the effect grows larger. Theoretically a lens will be sharpest at the widest setting.. but most often it is a few stops down.

So I\'d try some different aperature settings and check the difference.

I can supply a link that shows exactly what I mean with photoexamples and explains it a bit more

here you go
Click to expand...
Avelorn, that is completly backwards from everything I\'ve ever learned in any photography class. And I hate to be the doubting Thomas, but that guys examples are wonky at best. I\'ve never seen a camera with f-45. At f-5.6 he should only have one or the other leaf in focus and the background would be a major green blur. At the other extreeme (f-45) his depth of field should be enough to have both the leaves and the background in sharp focus.
 
Avelorn

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
@Airhead:

If you think that these are macroshots of a leave then I can understand that you are confused.. but those are 100% crops of a 35 Megapixel camera. He took the pictures from a distance hence the depth of field is much more then a couple of millimeters. And because of lens diffraction the image gets blury when decreasing the aperature size.

Just so that you might get the.. context: The camera he uses retails for about 8-9000$ The Portable Digital back he uses retails for about 30-40000$. The lens he uses retails for maybe 2500-3000$ (at least). Do you think anyone owning that camera and writing articles for one of the largest naturephotography sites on the Internet will do \"wonky\" examples? What do you think his photgraphing friends will do? They\'ll probably tar and feather him.. and take surprisingly sharp images of themselves doing it! lol

But seriously I don\'t think you\'ll find a photography forum not discussing lens-diffraction. However... how much does it matter? Depends on your camera and how much you crop the image etc.. But that\'s for each and everyone to find out.. there are a million of other factors as well.. that\'s why there\'s so much discussion about \"how to get the sharpest image\". And that was also what I was implying with my initial post. Test! Try it out! :)
 
airhead

airhead

Coffin Dodger / Keymaster
Originally posted by Avelorn
If you think that these are macroshots of a leave then I can understand that you are confused.. but those are 100% crops of a 35 Megapixel camera. He took the pictures from a distance hence the depth of field is much more then a couple of millimeters. And because of lens diffraction the image gets blury when decreasing the aperature size.
Click to expand...
OK, now it is starting to make sense. You are right, I thought he was trying to say a larger aperature will take a shaper image - this is normally not true.
 
airhead

airhead

Coffin Dodger / Keymaster
Originally posted by matty1001
What is the \'F\' number, my camera has it, but what happens when you change the settings on it?
Click to expand...
The f-stops are how open the iris is behind the lens. The smaller the number, the more open the iris is and the less depth-of-field you have. Conversely, the higher the number, the more closed the iris is and the greater the depth of field.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back To Top
Top