War for Cybertron: Siege Appreciation Thread

Discussion in 'Transformers Toy Discussion' started by barry, Jul 17, 2018.

  1. rikkomba

    rikkomba Hunger

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  2. Purple Heart

    Purple Heart Some other time..

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    I’mma need to tell me where you got those, sailor.
     
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  3. volatus

    volatus Cat Herder

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    Netflix Spoiler Pack Megatron w\ Matrix Bandolier

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    Criticisms requested and encouraged. For reference, I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S7 and a ToSpo 23w compact fluorescent bulb on a 6 foot stand. The surface is a black melamine laminate over particle board Ikea dresser top, and the background is a 15x20 sheet of black foam board. The room is painted all white so the light does diffuse and come in from multiple directions pretty well. A lot of my shots lately have come out really blurry and I couldn't figure out why.

    In an effort to upgrade my indoor nighttime photography, I experimented heavily with this series.
    - Inverted the opaque white shade from my compact fluorescent stand light.
    - Switched the camera to 4:3 12mb mode
    - Enabled voice activation (so I'm standing here saying "cheese" over and over)
    - Tried many different angles and with the light source moved around
    - Tried blocking the light source with my body to reduce direct light


    Findings:
    - The more direct light, the more blurry the edges become
    - Even with voice activation, breathing is still very important
    - I neeeeeeeed a tripod
    - Self-shadowing is a huge factor in getting good shots indoors at night
    - Blocking the light source gave much more evenly-lighted shots
    - Dynamic angles can really spice up the subject matter


    Accessories:
    - Right wrist: His own cannon, FX from Cyberverse Deluxe Megatron
    - Right shoulder: From Buzzworthy Megatron + Chopper Cut 2-pack, FX from Siege Commander Jetfire
    - Left hand: From Siege Reflektor, FX from Cyberverse Deluxe Shockwave
    - Left wrist: His own sword
    - Left shoulder: From Earthrise Leader Doubledealer, FX from Siege Battle Master Aimless
    - Trapezius ports: From Siege Leader Astrotrain, FX from Siege Battle Master Firedrive
    - Left and right legs: From Thrilling 30 Whirl
     
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  4. volatus

    volatus Cat Herder

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    So many excellent bots in the Siege era!
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  5. DocSeth81

    DocSeth81 Well-Known Member

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  6. YellowCorvette

    YellowCorvette Average Core Gundam enjoyer

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    IMG_20210823_210257.jpg IMG_20210823_205137.jpg
     
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  7. Preach Starscream

    Preach Starscream Well-Known Member

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  8. Revoticus

    Revoticus Splitting headache

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    Swordship
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  9. ghostyurei

    ghostyurei Oops! My bad…

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    Looking good! The additional lighting helps, but I can see how the diffused light might give you some issues. The matte background helps absorb some of the light, the table surface might not be ideal but it works. If anything, maybe you are approaching the limits of the camera? If your light sensor is still struggling with indoor stuff, maybe outdoor lighting is the key? Sometimes the camera has a hard time auto focusing on non-human subjects too and are further tripped up by weird things like stripes, or greebles, so you are constantly having to force it to find the focal depth with manual tapping around the screen.
    Does your camera have long exposure capability? I know that can sometimes helps for low light photography but then you REALLY need a tripod.
    Or maybe you can do like I do and edit a bunch of stuff in front of it so it just looks busy.
    26F3432F-1C40-421E-AA9F-6FA963E63EA8.jpeg
     
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  10. volatus

    volatus Cat Herder

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    Yeah. I should mess with the Gimp some more. I do notice that sometimes when aiming at the subject, the "HDR On" indicator will flicker dozens of times per second. Clearly, the camera is taking a crap or having a hard time with something or other about what i'm doing. There may be some configuration I can still do to change how the camera reacts to the light. But I actually wonder if less overall light might make it easier. IMHO, the best one of those six pictures is the one where I was blocking the lamp (pic #2).
     
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  11. ghostyurei

    ghostyurei Oops! My bad…

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    Experiment with HDR off maybe? HDR does weird stuff like exposure blending. Good for outdoor with a lot of hot or cold spots for lighting but bad for indoor photos.
     
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  12. imfallenangel

    imfallenangel Well-Known Member

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    Photo wise, using a cell phone limits your capacity, but basically, light, light and more light is always key as it's better to adjust the speed for the aperture (the small the better for clarity and focus). To prevent harsh reflection, you need to diffuse the light unless you're going for a particular shot/effect.

    Don't rely on adjustment later on, photoshopping or the like.. garbage in = garbage out unless you can pull a rabbit out of a hat.

    So the blurry is mostly due to low light.

    To give you some examples using my (now quite "old" DSLR, a Sony A550):

    Flat image, just my camera at basic settings and only using my usual top flood light
    DSC04627.JPG F5.6 1/50


    DSC04629.JPG Two side lights and top lamp, still at F5.6, 1/400

    DSC04630.JPG Then flipped the aperture, F22, 1/30

    DSC04631.JPG A bit more speed to add a bit more shadow effect, F22, 1/50

    DSC04632.JPG The quick and dirty setup (aside the top mounted flood light)

    DSC04633.JPG Re -opening the aperture at F7.1, and speed at 1/160 and using only one of the side lights.

    DSC04635.JPG The difference a bit of diffusing the same light does.

    DSC04636.JPG Expensive diffuser? nah, a paper tissue, which I've used so many times.

    And dang it, I have to fix that paint on his face.


    Now using my cell phone, a LG G8x that has a very decent camera I find.

    Same setup,

    20210823_235935_HDR.jpg 20210823_235946.jpg All lights (no top mounted of course) F1.8 1/120

    20210824_000011_HDR.jpg 20210824_000018.jpg only the side lights F1.8 1/480

    20210824_000123_HDR.jpg 20210824_000109_HDR.jpg single light, diffused, F1.8 1/40

    I do have to state that camera (or cell phones)'s quality will have a huge impact (part of why I got this phone was because I did check review of it's quality), but don't forget that distance, use of zooms, etc. all will have an impact.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2021
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  13. Napalm

    Napalm Drinking About Robots TFW2005 Supporter

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    Spaceport.

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    Last edited: Aug 24, 2021
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  14. volatus

    volatus Cat Herder

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    Thank you so much. This gives me a lot to work with. Seeing the setup and results saves me a lot of time on experimentation without knowing what I'm doing or why I get the results I do. Your light setup is much more simple and achievable than I expected. Here, let me show you my setup:

    Setup.jpg

    For night time shots, that's literally all it is. A lamp and a dresser. I move the lamp closer or further away or change the angle and add or remove the diffuser, sometimes I even lean the lamp forward 45 degrees to get it close to or above the subject. But overall, it seems like not having enough light is the real problem.

    I also just turned off HDR as ghost suggested, and haven't really experimented with it. I had a long day, I've had a long week, and I haven't been sleeping much at all. Don't know how I'm functioning--aside from poorly. I started a pointless fight in another thread a few days ago and yeah. I am really excited to try new shit and inexplicably have energy for it but I NEED to try and put myself to bed. So I'll be looking forward to messing with it tomorrow.

    But, during the day, cracking the blinds gets me enough light to take a little bit better pictures than anything I can pull off using the fluorescent at night. It's just during the day I have a lot of shit to do and it's monsoon season right now so the sunlight is unpredictable and not always waiting for me when I sit down to take pics at my desk. (The pictures with the cream colored melamine surface are my computer desk next to my window)

    I need side lamps like you've got going on there. I think I can still get more out of this camera, with a bit better understanding of what to try. So thank you and @ghostyurei a lot for these tips.
     
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  15. imfallenangel

    imfallenangel Well-Known Member

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    Fluorescent lights, unless they are dedicated for photography tend to be poor, as they "flicker" a lot (frequency that the human eye can't see but camera sensors do), so depending on the speed and aperture, you could take 10 pictures and end up with very different results.

    I tried and looked at many lamps and those I use are cheap and work great... found at Home depot for 20$ (built-in lithium rechargeable by the way) (bought one, tested it, got fine results, bought 2 more, but note that they have 3 settings and the low ones can flicker a bit, so I tend to use on high and adjust via distance and angle.

    The HDR is more for backlighting situation and otherwise works more as a colour filter in most cell/cameras.

    I've been doing photography for close to 40 years now, teaching it in high school (in the days of negatives and darkroom), done weddings, events, etc. at a fairly high level (internationaly) and I learned at a young age that it doesn't have to be expensive (many compensate their lack of talent with expensive gear that fixes their mistakes), you just need practice to learn your camera's capacity, and your environment.

    How I miss the old negatives, as unless you didn't know what you were doing or a mechanical problem with the camera, you could get amazing shots as all that mattered was a good composition, a decent lens, a good film, and a camera that work correctly. Today, yes, it's so much easier to view your screwup instantly, but you are at the mercy of the sensor's quality more than anything else. I am a bit of a "snob" as I always roll my eyes at anyone that takes 1,000+ picture to get less than 10 good pictures and calling themselves a photographer, as opposed to someone that able to take 10 pictures and getting 8 or 9 good ones right away. It's all about practice so to be learning about the environment which is the key, and enjoying it, and aiming to pull out an image from your subject that speaks out, that says something. I'm just not a fan of dull and uninspired pictures.
     
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  16. rikkomba

    rikkomba Hunger

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    Larkin's Lair on Etsy. Sold out, but the design was made available for free online.
     
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  17. barry

    barry Well worn member

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  18. Revoticus

    Revoticus Splitting headache

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    Having an extra fusion cannon will definitely help those that have SG Megatron, if they want to invoke the original SG Megatron look.
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    Must resist from getting SG Megatron..!

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    Definitely would look cool in SG colors
     
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  19. DocSeth81

    DocSeth81 Well-Known Member

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  20. Jhund

    Jhund Screws>Pins

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