Tanks (and a car :) ) in the lightbox

[Gary Brantley]

No, I don't have a light box.
My camera needs a new SD card and have put off getting another one for a couple years now.

The lightboxes are pretty reasonable, and so are the SD cards. Go ahead and splurge, you deserve it!

[BlackSheep214]

LOL! The well's dry for now. I know the SD cards aren't expensive but will get to it at some point.

I've been saving my empty water bottles for recycling redemption and saving whatever I end up with for my Syrcon spending money in October. I usually end up getting anywhere from $30 - $40 in bottle redemption.

[Gary Brantley]

LOL! The well's dry for now.

I sympathize brother; our income is being stretched as everything goes up but our retirement checks.

[BlackSheep214]

Sympathize? Nah… the missus has been prioritizing $$$$ spent on home improvement projects we needed to take care of. Last Thursday we had our driveway repaired and resealed. We also had 2 new windows replaced back in June, bushes trimmed in July (I no longer can do it due to bad knees using the ladder), some rooms painted, etc…

I’ve already told her that’s it for the year - no more home improvement spending. LOL!

[Gary Brantley]

It doesn't take long to spend a lot of money these days. We're facing several projects around here that will cost more than I want to spend. I have several painting projects that need attention and I'm wondering if my knee will hold up for those. I wouldn't have hesitated at all just a few years back, but now I have to reevaluate how much I can bite off. We have two central a/c units, and both are old; one of these days, either or both will need replacing...each to the tune of 6-8 thousand bucks. And, that's jes' a matter of time!

[cbaltrin]

I bought a lightbox back in April for the ability to take better indoor photos of my models.

The light box definitely makes a diff Gary and your photos look great. You can see all the subtle shadows and textures on those tanks. One suggestion you may want to try in the future is to position your camera at and angle where you get the cleanest background before you put your subject in the lightbox, then move/turn your model for different angles, the background remaining unchanged.

[Gary Brantley]

Hey Chris, thanks a lot! Yeah, that's a good suggestion. Those were literally the first dozen or so photos made with the box, and the background is sort of "messy". I was mostly trying to dial in the right settings on the camera while in manual mode. I'm really more of a "point n' shoot" in auto-mode type of photographer and I was way outside my comfort zone with that DSLR. At that point, I wasn't too concerned with the LB corners and edges. Later, I did try to keep those from intruding into the photos.

I don't know if you saw this link buried in another comment but here's a look at some perhaps, better pics from that lightbox:

https://www.spamodeler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6737

And just for grins, the first thing I placed in there was a derelict model car from my high school daze. I had retrieved that hulk for some reason, and it was sitting on top of my model display when the lightbox was first assembled. I thought it would be about the size as a 1/35 tank and would help in placing the camera and tripod. Most of that ancient model's parts might even be found with enough effort; more than I can say for most of the car models from that period!

[Stikpusher]

One thing that I’ve leaned to do is to place the subject further back in the light box. Also if you set your camera further back this allows you to crop out the sidewalls and such from your photo during editing and leave a clean background so that all you see is your subject.
Experiment a little and you’ll find your sweet spots.

[Gary Brantley]

That's true. All of these early pics were strictly experimental and off the cuff. At first, I was disappointed in the results, but after talking with my photographer buddy Richard and learning a few tips from him, I quickly began to see the difference. Placing the camera further back also helps with the depth of field, allowing more of the photo to be in sharper focus. That tip was also shared with me by Richard Krall. With a high-resolution setting, one can then crop out the unneeded background and zoom in on the subject without a great loss. Our eyes have the ability to maintain focus at near and far distance and this technique allows that with the camera too. Here's a pretty good example of that in outdoor photography, with both the subject and background in clear focus:



And this demonstrates the same methods used in the narrower confines of the lightbox, where focus is mostly maintained from front to back:



It's sometimes hard to remember this as it seems sort of counter-intuitive. But having the camera closer is not always what one needs. I have to really work at this stuff; it's amazing to watch Richard at work when it all seems automatic to him!

[Stikpusher]

Now you’re cookin’ Gary!