Difference Between Photographing Indoor & Outdoor Pics

Was browsing some pics when I saw this page, its shot by japanese guy, not by me, but I'm using almost the same set up, and ever since I'm shooting my car model outdoor, I never shot indoors, here's the reason why :p

THE SET UP:
http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~mokeden/kousaku/porsche934/934-55.JPG
note the sun is not bright


THE INDOOR SHOT:
http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~mokeden/kousaku/porsche934/934-56.JPG


THE OUTDOOR SHOT:
http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~mokeden/kousaku/porsche934/934-57.JPG

rest of the outdoor shots:
http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~mokeden/sakuhin/porsche934/p934.htm


What do you guys think? :)

In my opinion, I think if your setup is an endless background outdoors, it might be better to have a diffuser above the model to reduce the highlights on the bonnet & roof areas but keep the area under the car well lit. (You can see the interior detail is also lost compared to the indoor shot.) In this case, it's just the same as having the model indoors but with strong daylight lights. You might get the odd tree reflection to show how shiny your model is.

The reason I'd want to shoot outdoors is that:
1. Natural daylight means natural colours in your photos (white really is white) and it's often not too directional (nice even lighting)
2. With the right background, a scale model can look like a 1:1 real scale car/bike
3. You can also change the backgrounds to different locations (dirt-rally, concrete-carpark or having famous lankmarks in the background :))

A bit of advice I got from my brother, who makes film and TV commercials:
Shoot still cars (pack shots) in the 30 minutes before sunset, or 30 minutes after sunrise (what time sunrise/sunset is up to you to find out).
That tends to soften the light and shows the car's curves to best effect.

What do you guys think? :)
I think that is a lovely clean build and that I prefer the indoor shot :)

I had not heard of this advice to shoot still cars in the 30 minutes after sunrise or the 30 minutes before sunset for the best lighting effect. Thanks for sharing this.

outdoor is wonderful to take advantage of natural light. just be more careful on overcast/cloudy days or really bright, direct sunlight. diffusers and reflectors will make your life easier to get the shot you want.

for indoors, it will depend on your lighting source. if you've got a camera that can fine tune white balance adjustments by all means fiddle with it (i.e. florescent, incandescent, mixed lighting, etc.). again, diffusers and reflectors will make your life easier. indoors you may also relay more heavily on multiple lighting sources (i.e. one light hitting from the front, one from parallel right side, one from above the model, etc.).

The outdoor shot looks more like a picture straight out of the Tamiya catelog :naughty:

just a +1 from me.
that guy's outdoor set up needs a diffuser.

Of the two pics in the original post, I prefer the indoor shot because the light is more balanced (highlights vs. lowlights). Outdoor natural light's big advantage is that it is BRIGHT and FREE.

I've always needed a lot of intense light when working on tiny model parts so I have three cantilevered lights (fluorescent, halogen, and incandescent) at my bench that I can swing to within inches of my subject. My fingers get hot I have the lights so close!

When I take photo's I just clear a space on the bench for a piece of white poster board that the model is placed on. Next I swing the lights down to within inches of the subject and take the shot. The different directions and spectra help create a diffusing effect.

Here are a couple of quick indoor shots with three lamps and flash:
http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp280/cratecruncher/Miscellaneous/swbfrt148.jpg
http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp280/cratecruncher/Miscellaneous/swbfrt127.jpg

And here is how the sausage was made:
http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp280/cratecruncher/Miscellaneous/swbfrt130.jpg

The shots aren't fantastic but I like them and it only took 5 minutes to set up. Also, it's cold and raining outside.

And the neat thing is - you can accelerate the paint cure time with this rig!

Joking aside, those are lovely shots. How do you get that depth of field? Are you using a macro setting? (I'm no photographer, so I'd be interested to know how to get good focus like that).

Graham

Oh yea, I forgot to mention that I sure don't leave the model sitting under those lights for too long. No melted plastic so far but I don't want to push it. That halogen light can get especially hot.

Graham, I have a bad habit of losing sunglasses and cameras so I've learned it's best not to spend much on either in my case. The shots above were taken with an old Kodak EasyShare CX6330 my friend traded me for a bottle of wine and he even let me help him drink it. By experimenting I discovered the best way to get close shots was to sit back about three feet from the subject in "close up" (aka macro) mode. Then while resting the camera on a piece of styrofoam board resting in my lap I use the zoom feature to fill the frame. Before, when I got in close the subject had a very narrow field of focus and the shot was more often than not blurry or completely out of focus.

The reason I'm sharing this info is not to wow anyone. I know my photography skills aren't great and I'm never going to buy a lot of expensive equipment. Instead, I hope everyone reading this will appreciate that you can get reasonably good results with virtually no investment. I think the photography experts seem to always make everything unnecessarily complicated and expensive. Just my take.

And the neat thing is - you can accelerate the paint cure time with this rig!

Joking aside, those are lovely shots. How do you get that depth of field? Are you using a macro setting? (I'm no photographer, so I'd be interested to know how to get good focus like that).

Graham

if you've got a camera that can fiddle w/ the f-stops by all means that will help get the depth-of-field you want. start from a mid-point and start going up. if you don't try the macro settings. you may also want to experiment with the distance from the camera to the subject with the other settings. tripod should be for the most part mandatory when working w/ small items.

to reduce melted models :naughty:, use florescent lights if you've got them. make sure to adjust the white balance if you've got a camera that can adjust them to reduce that bluish-greenish hue.

I think the photography experts seem to always make everything unnecessarily complicated and expensive. Just my take.

I think that may go for my modelling too. And I also want to get good results with virtually no investment.

to reduce melted models :naughty:, use florescent lights if you've got them. make sure to adjust the white balance if you've got a camera that can adjust them to reduce that bluish-greenish hue.


And please remember, that the secret to decent white balance is to use only one type (= the same color) of lights. Don't ever mix fluorescent and incandescent lights, because that leads to so severe errors in white balance that no adjustment can correct it!
That is the main reason the outdoor pictures often look better, there is only one source of light (the Sun), and the default white balance setting in cameras is adjusted for it.

Tervo/Star, the reason I use four different types of light is to more closely mimic the wide spectrum of natural white light. The fluorescent adds blue, the incandescent adds orange, and so on. They are all focused at the top of the model so they blend to form something close to natural white light.

My camera doesn't have "white balance adjustment" so I developed the multiple light approach as a work-around using what I had at hand. I find it humorous that "white balance adjustment" is itself a work-around developed by camera manufacturers to adjust for indoor situations where one-source artificial light distorts the true colors of the subject. So, in effect, your posts recommend I eliminate my wide-spectrum white light configuration so "white balance adjustment" will work properly with the distorting effect of inferior one-source light. With all respect, this gadget-centric mindset is exactly the problem with this subject that I was talking about.

Again, I encourage people who don't have a lot of elaborate equipment to try taking indoor pictures. If you are into photography with thousands invested in equipment great! Your pics will rock for sure; well, they should anyway. But if you're like the rest of us just trying to take a nice pic of a model with the girlfriend's point-n-click, try using what you have.

Tervo/Star, the reason I use four different types of light is to more closely mimic the wide spectrum of natural white light. The fluorescent adds blue, the incandescent adds orange, and so on. They are all focused at the top of the model so they blend to form something close to natural white light.

My camera doesn't have "white balance adjustment" so I developed the multiple light approach as a work-around using what I had at hand. I find it humorous that "white balance adjustment" is itself a work-around developed by camera manufacturers to adjust for indoor situations where one-source artificial light distorts the true colors of the subject. So, in effect, your posts recommend I eliminate my wide-spectrum white light configuration so "white balance adjustment" will work properly with the distorting effect of inferior one-source light. With all respect, this gadget-centric mindset is exactly the problem with this subject that I was talking about.

Again, I encourage people who don't have a lot of elaborate equipment to try taking indoor pictures. If you are into photography with thousands invested in equipment great! Your pics will rock for sure; well, they should anyway. But if you're like the rest of us just trying to take a nice pic of a model with the girlfriend's point-n-click, try using what you have.

you don't need expensive equipment to take great pictures. ask any photography instructor or professional photog and they'll tell you its not its not how much you spent on the camera or gear, its how WELL you use the one you've got. i've seen guys w/ $5k+ cameras that don't do half as well as someone w/ a $200 camera. its all about manipulating your camera, the surroundings, and most importantly indoors... LIGHT!

your camera doesn't need a white balance adjustment. if its a regular digital camera with certain settings for portrait and what not you can easily manipulate it to give you the results you want. main suggestion? try them! most cameras now days have at least a little adjustment built in. the owner's manual can be your friend.

as far as setup goes, a few garage work lamps (light source), wax paper or white nylon fabric (as a diffuser), white or black cardstock or even a same colored fabric sheets (for the background) will do wonders! if you need a reflector to bounce light where there are shadows a car shade you use for covering your front windshield also does the trick.

yes, photogs can make things sound complicated but as someone else said, so can modelers. :biggrin:

...its all about manipulating your camera, the surroundings, and most importantly indoors... LIGHT!

....as far as setup goes, a few garage work lamps (light source), wax paper or white nylon fabric (as a diffuser), white or black cardstock or even a same colored fabric sheets (for the background) will do wonders! if you need a reflector to bounce light where there are shadows a car shade you use for covering your front windshield also does the trick.

Now your speakin' my language Star. I just happen to have all that stuff and will try it out as you suggest just for the fun of seeing what will happen. Thanks for the ideas.

A little explanation to a better photos.
3 point lighting
The key light is placed about 45 degrees to the subject, either left or right, usually above and aimed down between 30 and 45-degrees. It is the dominant light. Position this light as you would if it were the only light you had. From this, you'll have defining shadows on the face which would be lost if the light were on a similar axis to the camera, but you'll notice that, in a room with no other lighting, it will create deep, dark shadows. Toning down those shadows is the job of the next light.

The fill is usually two or three stops dimmer than the key light, and its placement is at a near 45-degree angle on the opposite side of the camera, often on a level with the subject's face. The fill light is a reaction to the key light, and its ultimate placement depends on the function of the fill - what shadows does it create? Where do you need to reduce them?
The fill light can be the same size as the key light in wattage and bulb size, but you might then place it further away than the key. Watch as the fill drives back the shadows; though the lighting is not nearly as harsh, these two together still present a very two-dimensional view. The job of the third and final light is to create a sense of distance between the subject and the background, giving an illusion of a third dimension on the screen.

The back light, sometimes called a rim or shoulder light, is aimed at the subject's back, and, like the key light, it is usually 45-degrees off the axis and shines down upon the subject. This creates a bright rim around part of the subject, creating an outline which then appears to separate the shoulders from the background. The back light should be at least as bright as the key, often brighter.

http://www.diyphotography.net/files/images/3-point-lighting.gif

Leanr to ligh t better (http://www.lowel.com/edu/)
understanding light (http://vimeo.com/468333)

This should help. :wink:

I'm starting to view this topic in a whole new....way. Yea. I could have gone for the easy pun.

Here are a couple of full scale shots of an Aston DB4 GTZ where the photographer got creative with the lighting. They really accentuate the "muscles" in Zagato's coachwork.
http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp280/cratecruncher/Miscellaneous/Zagato_Aston_Martin_DB4_GT_1961_20.jpg
http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp280/cratecruncher/Miscellaneous/Zagato_Aston_Martin_DB4_GT_1961_09.jpg

I'm starting to view this topic in a whole new....way. Yea. I could have gone for the easy pun.

Here are a couple of full scale shots of an Aston DB4 GTZ where the photographer got creative with the lighting. They really accentuate the "muscles" in Zagato's coachwork.

EXACTLY! you can manipulate the light to accentuate the various curves and features of a model! if you want to add color into your light add some colored cellophane or those colored plastic covers you use for reports/presentations in front of your light. remember not to leave it there for long if its incandescent!! :nono::banghead:

as mentioned, a bounce or an fill/indirect light source can come in handy. for another method of using the bounce technique you can use white card stock at an angle from the model and "bounce" light off of it if you don't want the light as harsh as simply shining it directly on the model (which may cause the picture to have all highlights "washed out" or overexposed). another trick to use if you've got a glass table is to put some white nylone fabric or similar material on the table, put the model on top, and shine a light source from underneath the table and see what kind of effect you get.

remember that dark colors (especially black) will be quite a challenge. there's a reason why many professional magazines don't use black cars on the cover unless absolutely necessary. on the other end of the spectrum white cars w/ details tend to get washed out or overexposed as well. gray tends to be neutral.