What do you guys think of these photographs...

[cham2020]

I place a manilacard and curve it to take photos of my car models. I think in the future i will do this way. please give me feedbacks about it

[73superduty]

It's a great start. Add some lights to the right and left and maybe one over the top if you can. The best thing you can do is practice. Like I said you've got a great start.

Chris

[Gridgirl]

It looks good to me. The manila card removes visual cues about the scale. One thing that you might consider is using a similar product with some color (posterboard maybe?) to give some contrast - particularly on the lighter colored models. I think it would help draw the viewer's eye to the model in the image.

[winstona]

Looks better, but you still need more light I think. Try to do this while there is a lot of sunight during the day. What kind of camera is this? Are you taking the pictures in Macro mode?

[cham2020]

thanks guys ^^
can anyone tell me about 'visual cues' ?

winstona
i am using canon powershot a400 3.2 megapixel.
i set to manual with iso400,fluorocent mode,lowsharperning,superfine adn 640 x 480.
i took it at the living room with lights off
i set to close view photographing (macro?)

[Gridgirl]

By visual cues I meant hints about scale. Some are very obvious, people know about how big a hand is, so if you have your hand in the pic people know how big your model is. Some are less obvious, if you take a picture of your model on a table, the wood grain can give some impression of how big your model is (plus in my household it will show how much modeling crap there is on the table ). Some are even less obvious. Nobody is 4 meters tall, so if you take a picture from way up above the car, something about the picture doesn't look quite right. Taking the picture on a background that doesn't have anything of recognizable scale, from a reasonable angle, removes those hints.

[winstona]

Originally Posted by cham2020

thanks guys ^^
can anyone tell me about 'visual cues' ?

winstona
i am using canon powershot a400 3.2 megapixel.
i set to manual with iso400,fluorocent mode,lowsharperning,superfine adn 640 x 480.
i took it at the living room with lights off
i set to close view photographing (macro?)

As long as it is Macro mode or close view photography, it should be fine. You don't really need that much resolution to post pictures on the web anyways. The most important thing is the picture must be in focus and the details are crisp. These will need lights.

Winston

[Hiroboy]

This was taken the same way with Card curved up behind.
It was taken on an old 3Mega Pixel Nikon Coolpix 990
Taken outside, Manual Mode, Macro on and focus set on rear wheel

You are nearly there, just need to get the focus correct

More tips can be found here : http://www.spc.org.uk/tips/photos.html

[MPWR]

OK, now that we're tlaking about shooting outside-

How do you get the lighting so even?

Originally Posted by Hiroboy

Are you using a sunlight diffuser? Is this a special feature of the elusive British sun? When I shoot outside, I tend to get superbright highlights, and dark shadows.

[drunken monkey]

you seem to have too much light directly on your model (as if you didn't know that already....)
my advice would be to find a way of indirectly lighting the model using a white surface reflector (as they do in a studio) or to use a diffuser as you suggested.
the biggest reason for taking photos outside is that the light is much "whiter" than what you get indoors, even with a decent tungstun light set-up.
the downside is that it is often too bright; hence either totally whitewashed images or in yor case, too big a difference between the white/black points.
(if you can read the histogram given by most digital camera's you can to a point find a good set-up/position for taking photos).

or, you can try the old film-makers trick and try to take photos at dawn/dusk when the light, while still bright, is more diffused than when the sun is directly overhead.

[mike@af]

The pics are decent. Change the ISO speed, put it on Auto if you can. Thats why your pics appear so grainy. Also, the lightining needs some work. Dont forget to set the aperature value, white balance, and the EV if you can on your camera.

[Vric]

ISo 400 is way to high for this class of camera. way too much noise.

on this type of camera, you should never go over 100.

[RallyRaider]

Lots of good advice so far. Get a tripod if you can, it keeps the shot steady when you use longer aperture settings to get a deeper depth of field. I also find for keeping the whole model in focus, it helps if you move the camera back and zoom in.

MPWR - try shooting in shadow, not direct sunlight. That's what I always do.

[Vric]

Originally Posted by RallyRaider

I also find for keeping the whole model in focus, it helps if you move the camera back and zoom in.

But doing so will make your minimum F to go too high and you will be more subject to camera shake, and blurry picture.

The higher the F (aperture) the lower the light will enter. Lower the light enter, the longer the camera will have to open to have a correct exposition. But higher aperture will give you better deep of field, which will help in some case, again, if you have a lot of light.

[cham2020]

wow,
thanks for all the respond guys. you guys really know alot about photographing techniques. i reallly appreciate all your feedbacks. i will take more photos later and post here.

thanks once again. i learn many new things today about photography from you guys