I spend a great deal of time behind my cameras and lately been spending time in front of them doing product videos for clients. Since I have a fellow club member visiting to shoot images of a couple of his scale model builds I decided to move the camera and shoot this quick one about my photo setup. Chippy makes its initial video appearance as well! LOL
Lens mounted Ring Light
In a previous post I mention how I use a ring mounted light on my camera for doing close up work…macro or near macro conditions. Well if you don’t have a ring light you can substitute a couple of other sources for light instead.
Flexible Neck Flashlight
A while back Sprue Brothers gave away a nifty little flexible neck flashlight that also had a laser pointer in it. I’ve used this light for taking pictures of insects as well as models. A very handy and appreciated multitasking tool on the workbench and now camera gear bag!
Baseball Cap Visor Lights
I have yet another an easily to acquire light source for you…something you can get at most stores that carry sporting goods…a baseball cap visor lamp.
Yes one or two of these can provide you with an excellent light source for taking close up shots. One thing I will suggest: add some tissue paper as a diffuser in front of them to soften and more evenly distribute the light. They do allow you to illuminate the dark recesses such as cockpit and vehicle interiors (see pic).
Cab Closeup of a 1:48 2 1l2 ton Truck
These cap lamps can be either slipped over the lens hood or held in place with a rubber band or length of Velco wrap.
You could also make yourself a set of mini light sets by purchasing some of those very inexpensive mini tripods for small pocket sized cameras. With a little McGyver engineering skills you could find a way to fasten them to the tripod and set them up in positions to illuminate your subject.
Two Baseball Cap Visor LED Lamps(Mfr: Cyclops)
So now you have a “Trick of the Trade” that I use in my photography bag of tricks. Hope you find this technique useful in your scale modeling photography efforts!
Armor typically lends itself to having telescopic antennas so while I’ve been building a few v e h i c u l a r subjects I’ve been using some of the samples I received from Albion Alloys while attending the iHobby Expo.
The precision fit of their tubular stock is awesome! Nice and tight which removes any slop or slack between the pieces. I have made several antenna assemblies already and will continue to experiment with others as well.
The use of two or more diameters of tubing allows you to replicate the insulation and/or base loads attached to an antenna. Much like this mold base on a 1:48 Humvee I am working on.
You have the ability to sand the ends of the tubing to give it curvature to break the squareness if necessary. Wrapping a section of tubing with wire allows you to create a spring mount.
Right now I am toying with the idea of making a metal replica of this styrene directional antenna I am planning to use on one of these projects…I’ll share how that works out later.
Another application one can use this precision tubing for is to replace or create poles, rods and tubes with fittings by combining plastic parts with metal parts. The Bergepanzer I am working on had the option for the crane masts in the folded and stowed configuration. I needed more of these mast sections so using my micro razor saw I sliced the part apart to retrieve the necessary ends which I combined with Albion Alloy aluminum tubing.
I’m also using the tubing for the pins I need to test fit the assemblies together before inserting styrene or metal rod to hold them permanently in place. It wouldn’t be hard to glue on some hex heads to turn these tubes into bolts either!
I cut the brass tubing and rod with my hobby knife. A little pressure and a rolling action cut with minimum burring. Use a polishing stick to clean up any burs. For heavy walled or larger tubing a tubing cutter is recommended. You can also use a cut off wheel on a rotary tool as well, but make allowances for wasted material when measuring and cutting. I find using this method requires me to trim and true the ends once cut.
Scale Modeling Photography Tip:
Lighting for the photography of all of these little details was achieved by using a ring mount light attached to my camera lens. This eliminates issues from using a flash when photographing in a macro or near macro setting.
I shot these images with my Panasonic DMC-FZ50 in normal settings (not macro). Post edited with Adobe Elements 7 to crop and resize them.
The cutting mat was from Excel Hobby Blades and the measurement markings in the first picture was shown with the millimeter scale and the second one shown with the inch scale. Both which are imprinted on the surface of the mat.
Thanks to Albion Alloys for the review samples.
