A couple more experiments...

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Photographing scale models
1

Here’s two more. The sunset one is interesting, although the lighting is pretty conjectural…I have no idea where the light is actually coming from in the photo. It might be interesting to backlight that one and reshoot it.

Stuff I have learned so far:

  1. Matching color temperature is as important as matching lighting…maybe even more so

  2. 1/48th scale rivets are generally just too big and will bust the scale if they are visible

  3. Sometimes a crappy photo is more believable than a good one

  4. Textures can bust the scale. The camera will find everything you did not feel like sanding.

  5. Chrome is a PITA. It reflects whatever is around it, and that is typically not what is in the background photo. I imagine shooting outdoors would work better for highly reflective stuff.

Anyway, enjoy. Comments welcome.

2

As someone who frequently shoots sunlit shots with a photo backdrop, I concur with all your points. I avoid the first problem by shooting both my model with backdrop, and the backdrop itself, with sunlight. Since I do live in Minnesota, that rules out winter photography :frowning:

3

Yes, I wish it were warmer here, too lol. One nice thing about shooting in front of a TV screen (which is what I am doing here) is that I can monkey with the color temperature of the set, and that helps. But I agree with you that shooting outdoors would simplify lighting, although it makes selecting and changing backgrounds more challenging (and expensive, if I have them printed). Hollywood seems to have preferred the outdoors for shooting hanging miniatures, which is essentially what we are doing.

Looking forward to spring…