Photography HELP!

[Texman]

I just took some pictures of my latest build, and after resizing them,
they turned out rather grainy.

Those of you who are taking the really nice clear pictures (rlwhitt, golden bear, etc), what type of settings are you using for your pictures? I have
tried both manual and automatic settings, with/without flash etc.

Please help y'all!

Ray

[Kaz]

First of all, if the photo is not so good in the first place, the resize will make it worse, so good original shot is preferable. Second, I'm not too sure what the limit to photo size is on this site, (I have yet to build something I consider worthy!)but try to make it as near to the largest size possible. But for the best results, why not link to a photo hosting site like flikr, photobucket or snapfish, they're all free, and they will host to the photo's maximum size like this
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38532082@N00/
go to all sizes along the top

[GreMir]

Ray,
All my photos are taken with Canon EOS and every on of them is around 3.5Mb
I take with/without flash on full automatic plus same shots with macro settings then just pick the ones which came out best.
I crop them in standard HP image editor that came with my PC then resize them to 800x600 pix.
If you go with imageshack or photobucket you will be able to insert the thumbnail into the thread which will open up into a full size image.

[Frank Kelle]

Ray, I take my pictures of the Bismarck or mostly my railroad-modesl for example without flash, because I noticed, that the flash changes the colours too mauch into white. For showing in threads etc. there is a second, "bad" reason: the flash will show you the corners which you had not coloured or... much worser... the parts, where you were working not so exactly. The normal human eye will not see it (that's the reason why I make several pictures, only to control myself). Second, try to focus on a part in the middle, my digital-cam autofocuses and sometime I have the problem, that "she" takes a part in the near, and the result is an unsharpen picture. Try to use the macro, try to use the smallest screen (sorry, I had used Google for this word - I mean the optical part of the camera to collect the light) to be sure, that the picture is sharp. Switch off ALL other lights, try to go with your model outside. The light in your room will change for optical reasons the colours. For the time of taking the picture... use a stand.. you will never be able to hold the camera calm so long. I have a long article from the modelrailroad-magazine MIBA here, in there in 8 chapters you are "educated" how to make a good, real modell-picture. Unfortunately it is in german, but perhaps it will help you.
Frank

[Ashrunner]

Texman...see my reply in the 1/144 thread. It still applies here 8v)

[rlwhitt]

Ray, one of the most important things is to have ample light. If you don't have good light, the camera will (if you let it go auto) slow shutter speed, increase aperture, and or boost ISO speed (perhaps it will do all 3 in full auto modes). The first correction will make it harder to avoid the burry hand shakes. The 2nd will make depth of field issues (focus point is sharp but things to the front or back of it are blurry). The 3rd correction will cause grainyness.

Some folks like to try to get outside and use natural light, which is good. I do all mine indoors, but I never use a flash. I'm lucky to have a well lit work area, plus I have one of those articulated arm magnifyers with a built in light bulb. This all makes it fairly easy to get enough light without resorting to flash. I use ISO 200 setting indoors, which does not result in too much grain on my camera (Canon S3).

If you shoot indoors under artificial light, make sure you force the white balance to incandescent or florescent as appropriate, auto WB hardly ever compensates correctly.

If all else fails you can try a tripod with self timer, but that's a real pain to keep setting up!

[Leif Ohlsson]

If all else fails you can try a tripod with self timer, but that's a real pain to keep setting up!

Well, Rick, I would say using a tripod, plus the self timer option easily available in all cameras, makes a lot of sense - after carefully attending to all those more important points you make about lighting and white balance.

It really isn't such a pain to set up, and there are some definite advantages: it enables you to control the general layout of your planned photo; and it enables you to get your own hands into the picture, which is quite nice for size comparison, and for a little "action" in the story you want to tell.



Another tip: If you want to catch a small detail held up in front of a background, focusing is easier if you put your whole hand, or at least a finger, at exactly the distance you plan to show your infinitesimally small detail, and in the center of the planned photo. Then press the self-exposure trigger, and you have ten seconds or something to arrange the part you wish to show.

Leif

PS. The picture above was taken through a mirror (just to explain the apparent "grease spots").

[CharlieC]

Aside from the excellent advice on model photography I'd like to comment on the software used to resize the images. Many of the image resizers use only 4 of the adjacent pixels in the x & y directions to compute colours - this often leads to artifacts and graininess. Some of the software applications use the 8 adjacent pixels and give choices about the resize algorithm to use - Irfanview does this. It's often worth trying a number of different algorithms and target sizes to get best result when you resize.

Regards,

Charlie

[rowiac]

Ray,

Reiterating what some of the other folks have already said, make sure you have lots of light so the camera can automatically use a smaller f-stop and lower ISO setting. The f-stop will help with depth of field (the area in focus) and the ISO will help with the graininess. This might be an obvious comment, but make sure you are using your camera's macro setting for closeups. It's usually the button with a picture of a flower.

Roger