The Doll Forum

Thanks midiman, you just wrote what I had been thinking of writing all day.

Very good guidance plainly put for us amateurs ,beginners and happy snappers and even experienced photographers, theres allways something new to learn.

Edit and thanks to femdoll to

High contrast B&W photography is only dead when all of us purists let it die. Stacy Has a lot of great comments and she is a first rate photographer. My suggestion is to get a soft bok and experiment with different lighting situations and backrounds. To reduce shadowe on the backround light from a more superior position and use backrounds other than white which in many situations do not set apart from the backround enough. I would try backrounds that are a little paler than the dolls eyes so as to set off the eyes. Natural light can be very harsh. Photo in the morning if you can. Evening sunlight is very reddish and harsh creating deep shadows. You will need something to tone the light down when you are photographing in sunlight. especially after 11 am.

I have a small digital camera that is 6 Mega Pixels that I bought for 100 bucks at radio shack. It is a Samsung 630 It has various modes as well as a manual mode for adjusting exposure and apature. It also takes B&W, Sepia, and cusom color it has an auto white balance mode and a nice zoom. It also has a close-up feature that allows for some amazing close up pics. It allows one to not have to use the flash if one doesnt want to. I also have a film camera that unfortunitly i don't use much anymore. i just thought I would throw that out there hope it helps.

I would have to agree with Perry on using a tripod. Before you start shopping around, prepare yourself for some serious sticker shock. Good ones are frightfully expensive. My advice is to buy a used one. Compared to buying new, you will get two or three times the quality for the same money. Camera shows are great places to shop for used tripods.

If you can't spend the $$$ for a nice one, buy the sturdiest one you can afford. Any tripod is better than no tripod. The stability of low-end tripods can often be improved by suspending a weight, such as a small dumbell, from their center.



If you're shooting digi, good image processing software is a big plus. Irfanview freeware has all the features most people need and consumes very little memory and storage space. It's also very intuitive, so you can be up and running with it almost immediately.



Be aware of the distortion that occurs from shooting too close to your subject. A classic example of this is a beaver shot framed by a pair of feet several times larger than the furry little rodent. When you have the option, I would recommend shooting from as far away as practical and zooming in. This will also give you greater depth of field.

I've never taken a picture of a doll, but there are clearly some very good photographers on the site.

I would enjoy the opportunity to try it. I do some amateur photography and work with models. Well, aspiring models. At least people that have been told they should be a model.

Would anyone (in Chicago's western suburbs) be interested in some pictures? With models, we do TFCD - Trade for a CD of pictures taken at a shoot. If someone is interested, I would do the same for you. I have some modest studio equipment.

Let me know if you would be interested and we could schedule something.

Tabitha I LOVE this thread! Maybe KA will learn to take some good pictures!

Nicky For once, Tabby, I agree with you KA, print this thread out, and take notes

eagle1 wrote:If you cannot turn off the flash, then stand along way away and zoom in, then the flash will not make to much difference to the photo.

And a even better tip is to take the lens cap off

Regards
Kimi & Eagle1

Holding a small piece of kleeniz in front of the flash (sometimes half thickness) can act as a diffuser so that you can get a flash shot without having to stand back and zoom. This prevents out of focus points due to the depth of field caused by the zoom.

thanks for all the tips folks I actualy got a shot that I'm pleased with today.
I'm totaly new to this new fangled digital stuff having spent the last 30 years doing medium format b&w land scapes & arcitecture type stuff, the glamour(ish) stuff has allways bafled me a bit, but I always fancied having a go,

depth of field is of utmost importance in landscapes & a few of you have mentioned it here, so I thought I'd stick my tupence in,

the best way to deal with it I've found is through aperture control, by using the smallest one you can get away with (if you have aperture priority setting) even if it means using a timed exposure, (but what the hey dolly ain't going any where eh?) & setting your focus at just under inf you should be able to get every thing from about 3 feet to inf crystal clear, some of my vintage camaras can only be focused in this way as there's no through the lens view finder (admitedly not to helpfull if you have an auto focus camara) but even with auto focus you should get pretty good depth

And then again as this bloke said;

Forget the camera, forget the lens, forget all of that. With any four-dollar camera, you can capture the best picture. ”
— Alberto Korda's advice to aspiring photographers.

Also David Bailey did the same thing with a Kodak snappy, It helps to know what you want in the photo.

But then both these guys are artists who just happen to use a camera as their medium, long winded I know but what I am trying to say is its a good idea to look and study other artists to learn more about composition and posing .

G'day everyone,...


Oh the days when I used to use 35mm film,....
Now its digital,...I have learned in the time I have had the digital camera how to take the same pictures,...
Its been a while since I have done any set shots so this has been a good read for me.
Will need to brush up on my digital skills for later on this year,......
Great advise in here.


Playtime.

Ray mentioned taking lots of time. This photo took me all day:

Picture
The reason is the light coming through the window illuminates her head and shoulders, but it leaves the rest of her in shadow. So I set up my 200 Watt lamp. By then the sun had gone in and her legs were too bright--and the 'white balance' was wrong. Eventually I got it about right.

Stacy mentioned not including extraneous things like ash trays (luckily I don't have any) in the photo. The same applies to big plastic buckets:

Picture

Fill the frame, but not by getting close. Instead, get as far away as space permits and use the optical zoom. (Do not use the extra digital zoom.) That way, you avoid the problem of the part of your doll closest to the camera looking larger than the rest of her. You can see that effect in the photo of Laura, above, because of the restricted space I had to work in. (Luckily, it does not look too bad, I reckon.)

My tip: Include something green in every shot. I believe it helps with the color balance. Not as critical with digital as it was when I used to use a film camera, but I still reckon it helps. That is what I use the big plant for and I also have a smaller bunch of flowers with green leaves (as in the Laura photo above). But a green hat is just as good:

Picture
I stood on a chair for that photo (and for many others). It helps get a good distance away so I can use the zoom. For safety reasons, do not use a wheeled chair to stand on. And, as the experts all say, use a tripod. (Although possibly the greatest doll photographer of all does not use a tripod...)

If you do not already have PhotoShop or an equivalent program, I reccommend the free Irfanview program. (Google for 'IrfanView home'.)

If, like me, you find a lot of photos too dark and/or too small, try my normal routine. Load the offending photo into IrfanView and do the following:

1. Click the Image > Enhance colors... menu bar command.

The Enhance Colors dialog box is displayed.

2. Move the Gamma correction slider to the right.

The preview pic on the right becomes lighter.

3. When you are satisfied with the lightness, you might want to move the Saturation slider to the left a bit because gamma correction (whatever it means) tends to make the colors too bright.

4. Click OK.

The Enhance Colors dialog box closes and you are returned to the main form with the photo lighter.

5. Click the Image > Resize/Resample... menu bar command.

The Resize/Resample image dialog box is displayed.

6. Select the Set new size as percentage of original option button and enter 150 in the Width % box.

The Height % box is also updated to 150, as long as you have the Preserve aspect ratio check box selected (which it is by default).

7. Click OK.

The Resize/Resample dialog box closes and you are returned to the main form with the photo enlarged to more than twice its original area.

Don't forget to save the bigger and lighter photo.

Everhard wrote:
Stacy mentioned not including extraneous things like ash trays (luckily I don't have any) in the photo. The same applies to big plastic buckets:

Picture

Or paperbags

The ugly green walls are white now and the paperbag is long gone.
The bag irritates me every time I see this pic. The only reason why I haven't erased it is because people seem to enjoy watching it.

OK

Let me preface this by saying I'm far from the "experten" members like Stacy and Incred, and they might find this downright laughable...but I'm gonna post it anyhow...

For those of us on a tighter budget these days, I have a very affordable lighting solution...

Go to Wal Fart or wherever, and buy yourself a couple of el-cheapo metal relector shoplights, (the kind that look like metal bowls). Then experiment with different types of bulbs.

For a diffuser, (here's where the cool cats are gonna laugh!) just wrap a white t-shirt over it!

Also experiment with the software that came with your camera. Most decent cams these days come with pretty powerful stuff..and you'd be suprised at what you can fix and adjust.

Also....HAVE FUN ! If your not a pro, don't fret if you can't make photos look like you are. You'll find in time you'll improve.

Don't worry Leo, I don't have any "professional" lights. I use compact florescent bulbs usually 150w equivalent in either bright white or daylight. I bought some lamps like yours that have clamps built in. This way I can clamp them just about anywhere and put light paper over the shade and not worry about it burning up. I also can wave the light back and forth to light more area and make it like a soft box. I have also used a flash light or even the moon