I've been putting the new photo setup you've seen earlier to the test... and I was very disappointed. The pictures were a bit fuzzy and the color was also off: a strange orange hue seemed to cover the miniature, and I was unable to remove this post editing.

The fuzziness was probably caused by the fact that the miniature itself was to far from the camera. I had to do this because I couldn't position the lights any further to the camera. And the strange color might have been caused by the reflection of the wood of the desk next to the setup, or from the background, which was printed with a laser printer instead of an inkjet one.

So tonight I decided to try to fix these problems. First of all I positioned the upper light a bit closer to the camera. I then removed the two front lights and decided to keep only one of those, fixing it on the side of the setup also, then positioning it right above the camera. To compensate for the "missing" light, and also to ensure there was light coming from below, I dug up an old trick which you have seen earlier on this blog: using tin foil.

So I partially covered the inside of an aquarium (which I used as a small display cabinet years ago) with some tin foil, and also covered the wood of the desk next to the setup with the same stuff. I printed a new backdrop with my inkjet printer, put my favorite test subject in the spotlight and took the picture.

What a difference! The picture below is small, I know, but I hope you can see how the figure nearly jumps out of the picture. I'm really happy with this setup right now, and I can use the light for something else now :)

The room which is going to be my future painting studio is still a mess, and I still have to buy the main painting desk, but I already put the new photo setup in place. I used a low cabinet on which I attached three lights. I wasn't able to position the lights the way I wanted completely, but in the end I got them all pointing the same way somewhat. I'm using three white 40 watt fluorescent bulbs for this, which grant a white, diffused light.

Apart from the better lighting condition I now have a dedicated spot to photograph my miniatures. This way I will get more consistency throughout the pictures and I don't have to clear my desk and build the setup every time. If you are wondering where my cloud backdrops or previous photo setup are gone, I trashed them when boxing everything before moving because I already had this setup in mind.

The plan is to write an extensive article about miniature photography, when I finish experimenting with my new setup...

Available for download, in a selection of colors, images which you can use as a backdrop for your miniature photographs. I'm planning to put up a similar set of classic gradients very soon.






Be sure to put the bright spot behind the figure for a very nice effect.

For a long while I have plans for a dedicated photo studio for taking pictures of painted miniatures. The most common solution for taking macro photographs is a lightbox. You can buy these out-of-the-box (this is a little fabric tent) or make one of your own with a cardboard box and some translucent paper. But the drawback (for me at least) is that it takes up some room and you need at least two decent lights to get good results.

But last week I got an idea for a compact photo studio after seeing this picture on the Mantic Games website: it actually features walls with aluminum foil to reflect and disperse the light.

So I used a cardboard box, cut out one side and the top and the bottom, and used some tape to cover it with aluminum foil. I also put some foil on the floor of the small studio. It's easy to fold up and store flat somewhere.

Since I have only one light, I positioned it right in front of the mini. On the picture you can also see my tripod, which doesn't have a camera on it obviously:


I'm also testing out a new backdrop I have created instead of the usual gray gradient... I think the sepia one looks best, what do you think? Oh yeah: I will be offering these backgrounds to download soon. I created them myself in Photoshop.


Here's a comparison with my previous photo setup. I think it's really a big difference.


When I have enough room and the cash to buy some decent daylight lamps I will most probably build myself a big lightbox studio, but right now I think this is a great alternative. And I'm really happy about my new backdrops as wel.