Calling Mike "The Migrant" (and anyone else): Help with taking photos

[Stevekir]

I am asking for advice on how I could increase the quality of my photos.

Here is a photo of my 1/72 Lancaster:

View attachment 77744


and here is a photo of another 1/72 model of the Lanc taken by Mike “The Migrant” and posted as the third image on 5 May 2011 under “Completed Aeroplanes”.

View attachment 77745


The difference in quality is very obvious. Mike’s is much sharper and crisper, and the blacks are darker and clearer. Why?

Mike said “28-105mm lens on my Canon Digital Rebel, 1.6 sec exposure at f.22. I used two lights with reflectors and diffusers, set either side of the backdrop (which is just a sheet of grey paper curving upwards and pinned to the wall).”

The XTi (same camera?) sells today on Amazon for £160 (used). Wikipedia mentions the Canon EOS 300D (Digital Rebel) introduced in August 2003 at $999 with the kit lens.

My setup is similar: My camera is a Nikon D3100 SLR introduced in 2010, kit lens, bought 6 months ago at £280. 14 million pixels. It is probably at the bottom of the single lens reflex range but I can’t compare its quality with Mike’s camera. Exposure was 2.5 sec at f22, and, as for Mike, with two lights in umbrella reflectors left and right of the paper backdrop. It is shot in RAW with manual exposure and manual focussing (single spot) using the built-in rangefinder. RAW manipulation on Photoshop CS6 was at the Auto setting, which helped the tonal values. The Unsharp Mask settings were moderate.

What I would like please is help in understanding why there is such a difference in quality. For example, is it lens quality, or poor photographic technique? What do I need to do to get Mike’s quality?

Thanks.

 

[Alan 45]

Steve there is no difference I can see , the only thing I can say is yours is closer than mikes

Both are equally as good as the other , I wish I could take such good photos

 

[The Migrant]

Steve, I honestly can't see anything wrong at all with your photo. There are numerous reasons why the exposures might look slightly different; ambient light, colour of the background, reflectiveness of the paint finish, brightness of the light sources etc. If anything I actually like the tones on the underside of your Lanc, more detail can be seen than on my pics. Visually the main difference between the two pics is that mine is taken from a lower viewpoint and at a slightly wider angle, but that's just personal preference and the eye of the individual photographer – neither is better nor worse.

 

[bluriusz]

If you post a picture with all exif information, I can tell you what to change to make it sharper and clear.

Basically, you set the camera to manual, change ISO to 200 or even lower if possible. F22 or more. Now just adjust the time to have a exposure at 0. Usually it will be something between 5-15 seconds, depending on the amount of light. When I shoot my Virago, half of the pictures was taken in 30 sec exposure time

yeah, so preety much you do it right. I think you didn't change ISO and that's why the picture is so "grainy".

Edit: second picture settings: f/22, time - 0.8s, ISO-100

 

[monica]

hi Steve, as Alan/Mike have said would off said the same, your pic is good and looks fine, as if your camera dose not had the scene of humor my did ,

not know alot about it all , Bart has put it together well, low light longer shutter speed and more light faster shutter speed

 

[Stevekir]

If you post a picture with all exif information, I can tell you what to change to make it sharper and clear.Basically, you set the camera to manual, change ISO to 200 or even lower if possible. F22 or more. Now just adjust the time to have a exposure at 0. Usually it will be something between 5-15 seconds, depending on the amount of light. When I shoot my Virago, half of the pictures was taken in 30 sec exposure time

yeah, so preety much you do it right. I think you didn't change ISO and that's why the picture is so "grainy".

Edit: second picture settings: f/22, time - 0.8s, ISO-100

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Here is a good quality jpeg of the scene as shot. (The Photoshop file is 42 MB which might be too big for the forum):

Here is the relevant data in Adobe Bridge:

View attachment 77748


Thanks for the help.

EDIT: The Bridge Data has appeared as a smaller file then the one I uploaded. I hope you can read it. If not, I will try splitting it up into separate images.

EDIT 2: Here is the EXIF data again, but you will have to open it to get the full size (hopefully):

View attachment 77747


View attachment 77749

 

[Stevekir]

Steve, I honestly can't see anything wrong at all with your photo. There are numerous reasons why the exposures might look slightly different; ambient light, colour of the background, reflectiveness of the paint finish, brightness of the light sources etc. If anything I actually like the tones on the underside of your Lanc, more detail can be seen than on my pics. Visually the main difference between the two pics is that mine is taken from a lower viewpoint and at a slightly wider angle, but that's just personal preference and the eye of the individual photographer – neither is better nor worse.

That's interesting. I should mention that the lights used were energy-saving types, the coiled shape, 25 W (= I think to 125 W incandescent). It is marked "5500K" which I assume is the "temperature" in degrees Kelvin of the colour of the light. That is quite warm but I adjusted the White Balance a little in Photoshop RAW.

I wonder whether it is possible for the warm colour of the light to affect detail. Probably not.

As you say, the light reflected from the base is useful to light up the underside detail. But I have found that with a very low level shot, as seen by a man close up standing on the ground (and a man can easily walk under the wing of a Lanc) the light colour of the base over-lights the bottom surfaces, looking as though there was a light coming up. Your photo doesn't suffer from that and I wonder why. Perhaps your base was not so light.

A rum do, this photography!

 

[bluriusz]

Steve, you just showed file properties and camera exif. I need a picture exif. 42MB, I assume is a RAW file. What about JPG? The easiest way to get exif is to right click on a file, get properties from the bottom, and then third tab, details I believe. Then scroll down and get the ISO from there. I think on your picture it will be around 1000.

 

[Ian M]

Well for my two cents worth;

I think that first of all it is a good photo.

To me it looks a bit soft but that could just be me.

The lightness could be down to you finish is slightly shinier than Mikes, thus reflecting and refraction more light.

Was the back ground white? I think Mike used a grey one, that to will affect the overall effect of the light.

Depth of field could be a bit deeper to help add to the focal depth of the image.

Ian M

 

[Stevekir]

Steve, you just showed file properties and camera exif. I need a picture exif. 42MB, I assume is a RAW file. What about JPG? The easiest way to get exif is to right click on a file, get properties from the bottom, and then third tab, details I believe. Then scroll down and get the ISO from there. I think on your picture it will be around 1000.

Thanks. By "I need a picture exif" I think you mean the exif of the 10.5 MB RAW file DSC_0052.NEF straight off the camera's chip. Doing Right-Click on that file did not offer any Properties (I am on a Mac), so I opened that file in Adobe Bridge and here is its Camera Data (Exif). (No mention of "picture exif). This (like the data I sent earlier) lists ISO as 200, which is what I set the camera to use.

I hope this is the data you want, although it is identical to the exif data I sent before for the jpg file produced after altering the settings in Photoshop's Camera RAW, and also identical to the 40.5 MB Photoshop file produced after altering the settings in Photoshop's Camera RAW (which then produced that jpg file). Those three files are the only ones | have of this shoot.

You say "What about JPG?" I sent you earlier the Exif and other data of the jpg file produced after altering the settings in Photoshop's Camera RAW.

Thanks for the help.

 

[eddiesolo]

I know naff all about photography, Mike's image is crisper while has more light glare, softening the edges due to more light being thrown back to the lens from the flash/strobes. This is evident in the astrodome, Mike's is crips while yours is bleached around the edges. Could be a settings issue Steve or too close to the image. I still like your picture as it captures the imposing image of Lanc.

Si

 

[Andy Mac]

Your picture is great Steve, your not far away from Mike's quality wise, your Nikon is easily able to produce outstanding photos.

If I may be so bold as to offer you a couple of tips...

1/ Forget the RAW images for now, shoot JPEGs, they'll remove some of the complications.

2/ Try and shoot with the aperture a bit lower than f22, most lenses produce their sharpest results 2 or 3 stops down from wide open, eg. if your lenses max aperture is f5.6, then 2 stops down would be f11, so f11 or f16 (or somewhere inbetween) would probably give the sharpest result for your lens (I'm talking full stops, ie. f2, f2.8, f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f16, f22 I hope this makes sense).

3/ Bracket your shots... when you've worked out your exposure take the shot, then shoot another at +1 stop, and another at +2 stops, then go back to the original exposure setting and shoot one at -1 stop and another at -2 stops. You should now have 5 shots, 2 dark, 1 correctly exposed and 2 light. Using the example of your Lanc picture, if that was the first exposure from the cameras meter, the you should have 2 more shots getting progressively lighter, and 2 shots getting progressively darker, you may very well find that one of the darker shots will be more acceptable to what you're trying to achieve. Camera light meters aren't perfect, no matter what the manufacturers tell you, they do get it wrong.

4/ Unsharp Mask... use the "Unsharp Mask" tool in Photoshop to sharpen your shots. Do any resizing and editing you want to do to your shot, then the last step should be "Unsharp Mask". For and 800 pixel wide image (suitable for the forum) use the Unsharp Mask settings "Amount 100%, Radius 0.4, and Threshold 3, as a starting point. To add more effect, just change the Radius to 0.5 or 0.6 and see which looks best, and regularly tick and un-tick the "Preview" tick box to see the effect.

I hope this helps.

 

[Stevekir]

Thanks Andy. I will have a go.