Late War Luftwaffe Airfield 2.0

Matrixone,

Looking good - you are getting there. Keep up the good work.

Richard

Thanks Richard!

These pictures are like anything else, the more you do something the better you get at doing it. By next year I should have the picture ageing thing figured out and be able to produce realistic pictures.
I have a couple sets of figures that need painting but when they are done they will help my airfield look busy. Also planned are more ground support equipment and vehicles as well as new buildings, these will allow me to try and do ''photo/dioramas''.
I have a few older airplane kits that I might build as crashed or battle damaged aircraft. It is hard to find the time to do all these things I have been thinking about building.

Here is another pic from the last photo shoot,


Matrixone

I thought the first photo was real!

Great job, Matrixone.

Regards, Dan

Thank you Dan!

By next year I might be able to produce pictures that could fool the untrained eye...at least that is the goal I have set for myself.
I would like to make some of the Luft'46 models I plan to make look as real as possible, the best way to do that is to place them in a realistic setting for the photographs and lightly antique the photos.

Matrixone

Excellent pix and models!

Thanks J-Hulk!

In a week or two I will post a few pics of the new hanger I have (slowly) been working on.

Matrixone

Love these photos! These are great! I thought the first one was real as well!

I want to know where you got the Hangar! I need one of those!

Thanks for the kind words Duke!

That hanger in my pic is scratch built and made out balsa wood, my new hanger I am working on will be much larger and is being made out of plastic, I might get it done by next weekend and will try and get some pictures of it posted.
Then work will start on my Panzer Ostwind and Wirbelwind so my airfield can have some AA protection from those pesky Mustangs and T-bolts.

Matrixone

Matrixone,your idea of put some scratch in the photo is great,they look real.
fantastic

Pedro

Well the airfield is getting busier each time. Good job.

Wow very nice. I think I ......want to ....build a ......plane now................noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Thanks Pedro, Dwight, and thundergod!

Learning how to age these pictures is fun but the more I learn about it the more I realize I don't know too much about this sort of thing.

One really good thing about using these older models in my pictures is getting some use out of them, otherwise they are just dust collecters on my shelf.

Another airfield pic from Friday,


I spent part of today taking some new pics and if any turn good I will post them next weekend.

Matrixone

Nice pic. Can you post some more pic of your hanger and tower?

Thad

Thad,

Next photo session I will have some more pics that have the control tower in them.
The hanger that has appeared in many of my photos will be replaced soon by a larger more detailed hanger that I am building right now.
I took some new pictures Sunday afternoon and will look at them later this week, if any of them look interesting I will post some this coming weekend.

Matrixone

matrixone you have really progressed in you photo abilities. wonderful job.

joe

Thank you joe!

Waiting for the better weather to arrive has helped the look of my pictures a lot, my other pics were taken on very overcast days or too close to sundown to give enough light for good pictures.

Matrixone

Wow!!! These pics are fantastic!!! Congratulations!! What are you using to take the pictures with? I am just getting into the idea of displaying my models with a diorama, and I need any info you can give me re: taking pictures of my work.
Thanks,
Sammy

I'd like to see plans and/or photos and diagrams of your two hangars. I wouldn't mind building both of them for my own Airfield!

Very beautiful pictures. The models are great too
You're definitely comming along. Can't wait to see it with some more armour and figures.

Thank you Big Sammy, Duke, and zokissima for the comments about my pictures.

The camera I am using is a Fujifilm FinePix 2800Zoom digital that I bought at a Wal-Mart for about $300.
The photo editing program I am using to age my photos is Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, I have only used it a few times so far and have a lot to learn about what it can do, I have only had this program for three weeks now but just don't have as much time as I would like to spend on using it.
For photographing models the best advice I can give is to always have the camera at scale eye level, for 1/35 and 1/48 scale that is not a problem, but for 1/72 scale I can only have the camera so low...that is a problem yet to be solved. That is why my pictures of 1/48 scale models look better than the 1/72 scale models, the pictures of the 1/72 scale models are taken slightly higher than scale eye level and ruin the illusion of a photo being taken by a normal size person phtotographing a full scale object.
I never had any plans of the hangers drawn up, what I have done is simply look at as many German wartime photos of hangers as possible and tried to copy the most basic and simple versions of those.
The best photos of hangers I have been able to find so far are in ''Wings Of The Black Cross'' 1 and 2, and ''Luftwaffe In Focus'' the first two volumes. These are soft cover booklets and are not very expensive for the amount of photos you get.
The last soft cover book that I got is the Kagero title ''Fw 190 IV'' and it has many interesting photos of the late war Fw 190 D-9. What is interesting about the photos is not just the aircraft but also the WWII era photography and the wide variations of the quality of those photographs. It is the less than perfect pictures that I try to mimic when I attempt to age my photos.
When I get more figures and ground equipment these photos I have been taking should look more realistic and allow me to not just take pictures but to make ''photo/dioramas'', it is an idea I have always wanted try and do but may be too difficult for me to do at this time, I might have to gain more modeling skills to catch up with some of the ideas I have.
Next weekend I might be able to post a few pics that were taken last Sunday afternoon, I will look at them tomorrow night when I have some free time.

Matrixone

Love the photos!

The first one especially, it looks stunning.

Karl

Thanks Karl!

I might have some new pics posted this next weekend.

Matrixone

Hi again.....
Wno other question I had in regards to your photos.....did you take them outside, or inside, and what kind of light?
Thanks again...
Sammy

Sammy,
All photos are taken outside, my photobase is almost too large to use indoors for taking pictures, plus I find using natural light works the best.

Matrixone