Okay, I don't count my other lighting project a success. It had a lot of benefits, but it just wasn't as bright as I was hoping it would be. So I found other lights to use:
Portable LED Photography Photo Studio Light Kit from Amazon:
Of course, the problem with these was that they were just too direct. They needed diffusion. So I made a couple of handy diffusers for them!
Here is my attempt at a portable LED light to use for miniature painting and photography. When anybody asks me what's the most important part about Miniature Painting or Miniature Photography, my first answer is "light! And when you think you have enough light, get more light!" It really helps you see what you're doing, and it really helps bring out the truth of your fantastic paint job.
I've not been totally happy with my photography recently so last night I changed the exposure compensation on my camera back to +0.7 and tried using the custom White balance mode rather than the automatic setting. On the D40 this involves jumping to a setting in the menu and simply taking a calibration shot of a white (or grey) piece of paper under the lighting you intend to use.
I think the results speak for themselves!
We've got the competitive market on our side for choosing cameras nowadays, so here's some things to look for when buying a camera for miniature photography:
I've been having colour balance and picture problems since forever so following some helpful advice I've tried to see what impact different colour backgrounds have on the final result of my pics.
[b][size=12]Photo Tab Information[/size][/b]
Configurable options on the [b]Photo[/b] tab when editing pictures in the gallery.
This is where you can specify the resized picture options, in case you need several different sizes for your picture. I have it set by default to resize the displayed picture to fit within a 640x1000 px box, but it retains your original, full-sized picture. The size options are displayed as a dropdown menu at the top right of the picture, and the full-size is linked there.
Ok, so you've slaved over your latest paintjob and got a pic from your digital camera, what next?
I still struggle with photography, but I know it doesn't take a very expensive camera, in fact, a 2 megapixel should be just fine. I use a Nikon Coolpix 3.2 megapixel; it was pretty pricey when it was new, but it would be pretty cheap today.
A couple of things that'll get you good pictures: