FTW Collaborative post: Photography on the Cheap
Ron at From the Warp has asked the FTW blogger group to do a collaborative post on Photography, so here's mine.
My setup is extremely primitive, so I won't be posting tips on how to get professional-quality pictures, but on how to take decent photos quickly and cheaply.
This is my photography setup. It's basically an A3 sheet of white paper blu-tacked to my windowsill. Photography doesn't get any more basic than this.
This is my lightbox. It provides a blank background to shoot pictures against. The only lighting comes from the window behind it. During the day, I just take pictures using this setup, but at night, natural light is hard to come by. I could go out and buy a daylight bulb, but hey, I'm a cheapskate, so I'm going to use the flash on my camera to light the miniature.
Flash?! I hear you yell? But that washes out all the pictures!
However, I have a solution: blutack tissue paper over the flash. This diffuses the harsh light from the flash, but lets enough through that the miniature is still well lit. This is the same effect that you get from a lightbox, but it costs less, and is easier to store. Compare these two pictures:
This photo was taken using the flash, without tissue paper.
This picture was taken after sticking a piece of blu-tack over the flash. Notice the difference?
So now we've covered my pseudo-lightbox techniques, what about my camera?
I take all my photos using a Nokia N73 camera phone, no fancy digital SLRs here!
I set the camera setting to close up, and if I'm shooting in daylight, increase the exposure compensation by 0.5-1 depending on how bright it is. If I'm shooting using flash, then I leave the exposure alone.
And that's it. No voodoo witchcraft, no expensive equipment, just a sheet of paper, my phone, some blu-tack and some tissue paper. That's cheap photography.
My setup is extremely primitive, so I won't be posting tips on how to get professional-quality pictures, but on how to take decent photos quickly and cheaply.
This is my lightbox. It provides a blank background to shoot pictures against. The only lighting comes from the window behind it. During the day, I just take pictures using this setup, but at night, natural light is hard to come by. I could go out and buy a daylight bulb, but hey, I'm a cheapskate, so I'm going to use the flash on my camera to light the miniature.
Flash?! I hear you yell? But that washes out all the pictures!
However, I have a solution: blutack tissue paper over the flash. This diffuses the harsh light from the flash, but lets enough through that the miniature is still well lit. This is the same effect that you get from a lightbox, but it costs less, and is easier to store. Compare these two pictures:
This photo was taken using the flash, without tissue paper.
So now we've covered my pseudo-lightbox techniques, what about my camera?
I take all my photos using a Nokia N73 camera phone, no fancy digital SLRs here!
I set the camera setting to close up, and if I'm shooting in daylight, increase the exposure compensation by 0.5-1 depending on how bright it is. If I'm shooting using flash, then I leave the exposure alone.
And that's it. No voodoo witchcraft, no expensive equipment, just a sheet of paper, my phone, some blu-tack and some tissue paper. That's cheap photography.
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