Camera questions

So, was wondering what sort of digital camera you guys use and recommend for taking photos of your figures and are there any techniques I need to know about? I saw something about lighting the other day but what about Tripod use and how about taking photos out in "the wild" (eg. outdoors)?

Admittedly, my current came is old and a pice of junk so I want a new/better one but I have no idea where to start.

Thanks in advance.

I have a Nikon D3100 digital camera that I’ve had for years, with several different types of lenses, filters, and tripods. I took photography classes a long, LONG, LONG time ago, and I’ve honestly forgotten most of what I learned. I tend to use my iPhone for a lot of stuff, because I’m lazy as $#@t. But I do have a couple different tripods that I use for most of my pics when I’m using the Nikon, simply because I do not trust my failing eyesight or shaky, arthritic hands to be able to hold the camera steady. Most of the photos I used to take in the past were outdoor shots, and any “studio” shots I took were never all that good — mainly because, as I stated, I was too lazy to really get into all that F-stop stuff to really be any good, and math — which I actually never cared for — was never my strong suit. I did good enough to “get by” in the classes (usually with As), but I didn’t stick with the manual photos long enough to be as good as Photogsblog, Gubernatorfan, Tankgirlfuzzy, Ephiane, BAMcomix, or others on here. And until recently I didn’t have any quality lighting setup to make any of my pictures worthwhile to even look at.

Aww, Stryker, too kind as usual.
I did pick up what was then a nice Nikon camera (don't even ask me the model), but ultimately found it much easier to use my phone camera (Samsung Galaxy, and not the newest one). I occasionally use a little tripod with bendable legs, but more often try to hold the phone steady supporting my elbows on a surface in front of me, or resting its bottom side on boxes or books. I crop and monogram photos in Corel Draw and occasionally (but certainly not always) digitally correct the image (auto-correct or specific brightness/contrast/saturation settings).

I mainly shoot in a Canon Rebel T6.  I like it because I can wirelessly tether it to my iphone, and control everything from the Canon phone app.  A tripod is definitely a must, and I have 2, one I use for table level shots, and another smaller one I use when I'm shooting at ground level.  Outdoor shooting with natural light is great, but for indoor shooting, I have a cheap lighting setup with these:



And I mounted all my lights on a few cheap phone tripods like these:



If you were interested, here are the lights I grabbed:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NAUZNL1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And tripods:

https://www.amazon.com/Rienar-Flexible-Portable-Adjustable-Cellphone/dp/B00XTHBE6A/ref=pd_sbs_107_5/134-8479425-0668437?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00XTHBE6A&pd_rd_r=c9a86ddf-c972-4fb7-bc23-7485df3b574b&pd_rd_w=GPk5Z&pd_rd_wg=yjI5D&pf_rd_p=12b8d3e2-e203-4b23-a8bc-68a7d2806477&pf_rd_r=RHJEW42T9SE90N36B9B0&psc=1&refRID=RHJEW42T9SE90N36B9B0

All for less than a single one of those Lumecubes. Seriously, it's such a cheap way to go, and those bendy tripods are so versatile. I've had my fill light wrapped around a table leg and kept adjusting between shots. Made things so easy

Thanks for all the infos.

I'm a pretty bad photographer. I can only take a decent photo if it is outside to take advantage of natural light.

Most newer phones these days have really decent cameras in them. You can also get some apps (some for free) to help give you better control over your camera controls, like White Balance, shutter speed, ISO and the like.

If I'm just mucking about inside I'll use my phone and some flashlights for lighting. I have some cheap LED lights I got from the dollar store I can use also.



You can get thin fabric frisbee discs in different colours to hold in front of your lights for different tones or colours.


When doing a more 'serious' shoot outside I'll use my Nikon D3100

Hey Zero, nice thread. I searching for Years for a good camera, but i never buyed one. So thanks All for the instructions here. All i can say is, don´t matter what Equip You have. Don´t make 10 Pictures.... make 100 and delete 95 to the trash can

I´m sorry for the problems with Your eyes, stryker. Take care because we want to see more of the wonderful work You show here in the forum.

I think a lot depends on how serious you want to get on the photography side , if your just going to photograph your figures maybe your phone will do . There are definitely people using there phones to good purpose here , and would be impossible to tell . I personally think your better off with a decent compact camera at least . Most with a wide to moderate telephoto zoom should cope . I would look at the close focus ( Macro ) ability too . I use a Panasonic Bridge camera , the Bridge Cameras from Sony look superb , but are expensive . Look at the reviews before you buy . I find this site very useful , and seems to give good honest reviews .

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews

I hope it helps , and I would be interested to hear what you choose to do .

Indeed great thread, like Stryker my camera is a older Nikon D3200 DSLR with several different types of lenses (but my top favorite lens is a Nikon DX Micro Nikkor 40mm lens for close up shots) tripods, a wireless remote camera trigger and a book called Nikon D3200 for dummies (that I've yet to read) LOL and sometimes just an older Kodak point and shoot (I don't have a smart phone)

Thank you all for the info.

Chip wrote:I think a lot depends on how serious you want to get on the photography side , if your just going to photograph your figures maybe your phone will do . There are definitely people using there phones to good purpose here , and would be impossible to tell . I personally think your better off with a decent compact camera at least . Most with a wide to moderate telephoto zoom should cope . I would look at the close focus ( Macro ) ability too . I use a Panasonic Bridge camera , the Bridge Cameras from Sony look superb , but are expensive . Look at the reviews before you buy . I find this site very useful , and seems to give good honest reviews .

Yes, a decent compact camera helps. A phone doesn't let you control your pictures as well. Even a pretty basic compact camera helps you control settings much better, like how much you zoom in, but also makes it easier to focus on what you want to focus, has automatic settings for close-up photography or far away, you can adjust exposure (to over or underexposure).

I've got a Canon Ixus 180, which is a pretty basic camera, but gives me in general good enoough control over what I'm doing. I'd like a bit more control, but wouldn't like to take a bigger camera with me when I'm going on holiday (I already need to pack more stuff than I'd like, because I'm mostly going on holiday for cycling, which means I need to take my bicycle and cycling gear with me).

The camera is good enough to take pictures from about 15-20 cm away from the figures, as you can see in my threads about Lexi, Allison and my other figures.

I use a point-n-shoot camera for almost all my toy and figure photos anymore. I used to use a Canon DSLR, which was a nice camera, but over time, I found that the smaller camera was easier to use in a variety of situations.

My camera is a nearly ten year old Panasonic DMC-TS5: https://www.dpreview.com/articles/0365476393/panasonic-lumix-dmc-ts5-review

It is a "weather resistant" and "shock resistant" camera, so I do not have to worry about dropping it or getting it wet. It fits in a pocket so I can easily carry it anywhere. The macro function is decent, and I can adjust most of the controls with one hand while holding lights or figures in the other. After years of working with this relatively simple little camera I can achieve almost any effect I need without resorting to a larger camera or changing lenses.

I have an even older Panasonic Lumix camera, probably 15 years old, and it's decent but I really want to buy one of those fancy mirrorless cameras or at least a good compact dslr but more important, a good macro lens which costs a fortune by itself. My camera is decent but you really need to know how to use it since you can't manually select the depth of field or speed, so you have to try to force it to change settings by focusing on different areas. What's more important is proper lighting (a good lightbox or custom setup is a must) and a decent photo editing app. I use Photodirector because it's not crazy expensive but sometimes I wish I just made the investment into proper Photoshop because the limitations and quirks of my software can really drive me crazy.

tankgirlfuzzy wrote:I have an even older Panasonic Lumix camera, probably 15 years old, and it's decent but I really want to buy one of those fancy mirrorless cameras or at least a good compact dslr but more important, a good macro lens which costs a fortune by itself. My camera is decent but you really need to know how to use it since you can't manually select the depth of field or speed, so you have to try to force it to change settings by focusing on different areas. What's more important is proper lighting (a good lightbox or custom setup is a must) and a decent photo editing app. I use Photodirector because it's not crazy expensive but sometimes I wish I just made the investment into proper Photoshop because the limitations and quirks of my software can really drive me crazy.

If you look around some of the bridge cameras have manual focus , I think the Sony`s do as mentioned above but are expensive most focus close too but check reviews before you buy , I also use a Panasonic bridge camera , which is getting on a bit , but the AI mode on it is very impressive and gives good results . You could also try an older copy of photoshop Elements for your editing , am sure you can pick one up on eBay , and as long as you only photograph in Jpeg`s it will do pretty much everything the full photoshop programme does .

Very interesting and cool thread!

Like a lot of people I used to shoot with a Nikon D3100 for a few years, I stepped up to nikon's pro line last year, now I shoot with a D750 (you can easily track pro/semi pro from the number of numbers in their name, both nikon and canon do that)

Going pro or semi pro is really a matter of budget, of course the pro cameras offer "full frame" which means a better and much larger captor, but functions and options wise, the semi pro cameras offer just as many, and they work exactly the same way. (I don't know if you're interested in making videos with your camera, but be careful that a lot of last gen cameras include expensive HDR HD and 4K 8K video options, sometimes it's better to step down and take the same camera but from a couple years before... it all depends on what you'll do with it)

Lenses wise I mostly use only two, a 50mm and a 70-220mm zoom.

I also use a tripod most of the time, but that's a personal choice you'll make once the camera in hand. Some people prefer to be "mobile" and turn around the subject and take different angles, some people will prefer a stabilized camera to allow lenghty poses (the need of a tripod totally depends on the shutter speed you like to play with... I would say under 1/40th second you can get beautiful results with the camera in your hand, but for a 1-2seconds shot, you definitely need to be still and stable)

Thus far, I’ve only taken my photos with my iPhone 12 Pro’s built in camera. Typically, I would use a Canon D70 D-SLR and do a bit of post processing editing in either Photoshop or Lightroom, but so far I’ve only used the phone camera with it’s built in “portrait mode” for editing...

At some point, once I’ve got my figures where I want them, I’ll likely do a complete photo shoot with the D-SLR.

Chip wrote:

tankgirlfuzzy wrote:I have an even older Panasonic Lumix camera, probably 15 years old, and it's decent but I really want to buy one of those fancy mirrorless cameras or at least a good compact dslr but more important, a good macro lens which costs a fortune by itself. My camera is decent but you really need to know how to use it since you can't manually select the depth of field or speed, so you have to try to force it to change settings by focusing on different areas. What's more important is proper lighting (a good lightbox or custom setup is a must) and a decent photo editing app. I use Photodirector because it's not crazy expensive but sometimes I wish I just made the investment into proper Photoshop because the limitations and quirks of my software can really drive me crazy.

 If you look around some of the bridge cameras have manual focus , I think the Sony`s do as mentioned above but are expensive most focus close too but check reviews before you buy , I also use a Panasonic bridge camera , which is getting on a bit , but the AI mode on it is very impressive and gives good results . You could also try an older copy of photoshop Elements for your editing , am sure you can pick one up on eBay , and as long as you only photograph in Jpeg`s it will do pretty much everything the full photoshop programme does .

Thanks for the suggestions Chip, I'll look into those options. I'll probably stick with Photodirector until I'm ready to take on learning Photoshop. I've heard griping from consumers of all the programs, so there's never a perfect solution.

Nice thread. Like I mentioned in another topic I think that getting a good lighting equip is a bigger improvement as an expensive camera. I like most of your suggestions here, especially from Spooky - you should invest in small lights and those gorilla pods or smart phone tripods first.

Since I'm a part time photographer in real life (doing stuff like weddings, stage photography etc) people often ask me "what camera should I buy, I only have a phone cam" and the problem is often, they only have the funds for the cam and not the better lenses. Or they expect full automatic mode on a "Professional cam" will make their pics better at magical speed.

Some here have mentioned bridge camera, which I have never used myself, but might be the best option for many anyway. What I've found is, that most people don't want to take lenses with them on a trip or change them on their DSLR/DSLM so they might as well get a good Bridge. (I prefer changing lenses all the time and don't mind the bulkiness and weight.)

Blackpool also made a good point - it doesn't matter if you get a beginner DSLM, semiPro or Pro - they all have the same basic features and the best pictures are more depending on lenses, lighting, creativity and editing software. As long as you know the settings and have a tripod nearly any cam will do.

One thing I would always recommend now is a mirrorless "DSLM" cam and not a DSLR anymore. I have several mirrorless bodies and think they are the future. I sold all my older DSLRs.

OMG.... i take a look ten times in this Thread to buy a nice camera. But everytime i just look at the fantastic new figures the Friends here did.