First post Dragon 15 cm howitzer, hope they're not too big

Thanks alot for the information.  It's going to take a while to digest it.  One more question.  When I view my pics on this page I only see a portion of the picture unless I click on it.  Why is that?  Some of the guy's' stuff on here I can see the whole image without having to click on it.  Forgive me if i'm asking too basic of a question.

Jeff

Ok you know, I'm gonnahave to do it here, because I still cannot figureout how to send a private message through here, only reply to them.  Sooooooooooooooooo...............

Ok first up, white balance is what evens out the colors and makes them look like the real thing with no tinting.  Most people ignore it and put it on auto letting the camera do all the work.  Which is fine for most general photography.  However with our hobby, it pays to have the colors the same as what we see.  They will always show up a little bit differently on everyones monitor because not everyone uses a monitor calibration device.  In fact very few do.  I would like one, but I'm not spending a couple hundred bucks just to get my monitor adjusted to perfect colors.  I don't need it.  Not yet.  Somewhere in the menu of your camera is white balance.  It needs to be reset each and every time you go to take pictures of a model.  Due to different lighting, subject matter, etc.  One of the best things you can do to be sure you have perfect white balance each time, is set a small (about 4 inch square is perfect), piece of plain white paper against the model, and aim the camera at it, and then go to your white balance, and tell it custom or manual, and then aim the meter right at that white piece of paper, with the lighting exactly how you are going to have it when taking the pictures.  Once that is set, pull the paper out and snap away.  You will get great color.  The photo's will stand out, when compared to other photo's, but not necessarily on their own.  When everything looks just right, we don't notice it.  Which is what you are aiming for(pun not intended).  Sometimes a camera will have different general settings.  Incandescent, flourescent, etc.  You can cycle through these with a piece of white paper or anything white really to find the right balance when you don't have a small white card.  When metering for white balance you need a certain size of card or papeer to meter off of.  When you don't have that, just put anything white in the picture and cycle through the presets until you find one that works. 

The only problem with this method is when you use a flash.  You can have everything perfect, and then use your flash and what happens?  Everything gets out of whack.  The flash heavily tints it.  If you are lucky(you might be since you have a Fuji camera, I'm not a fan of Fuji Film, but their digital camera's are excellent, I myself have a midrange point and shoot Nikon which is also excellent, it just happened to be on sale and have all the features I wanted at the sale price I wanted to pay), then your camera will have a preset for white balance called flash.  If you have this setting, and are going to use a flash, then use this setting whenever you are using the flash.  It pays out in dividends.

Regarding the depth of field, that is way different for each camera.  If you are lucky enough to have an apeture setting(I don't), then just play with that until the whole picture is in focus.  Otherwise you will have to look through the manual for setting the depth of field.  I will go ahead alter and get the manual for your camera online and see if I can find where to set your depth of field for you.

The last recommendation I have is, if your camera has a macro setting, use it.  With this you may not need to adjust depth of field.  The Macro setting has a standardized icon.  It looks like a little flower.  If that little flower is displayed on your screen, or you turn it on, thent hat is your macro function, and is meant for closeup work at about 5 to 18 inches.  Each camera is different in it's macro focus length, mine will go to 3.7 inches.  The Camera I REALLY wanted but couldn't justify the cost, could get as close as 2.5 inches.  Also you can adjust the resolution of your camera.  By default most digital camera's do not have their quality set on the highest setting.  This is more noticeable on some camera's then others.  Fuji, Sony, and Nikon, as well as a couple of others aren't too noticeable.  It will pay when photographing models, to turn it up to it's maximum setting.  Leave colors set at standard not vivid or any other setting, just normal or natural is perfect.  Hopefully this is enough information to help you out.  If you have any troubles just let me know.  You can e-mail me direct at fantacmet @ gmail . com (I did it that way to keep the spam bots from getting it), or we can keep it up here in public.

Michael

If the pics are too big the website will resize them to maximum size.  The pics look excellent.  The only 2 things I would suggest, have nothing to do with the model itself which by the way is spectacular.  I would crop the image closer to the model so we get more of the model and less of the background, so we can see all the juicy detail.  Fiddle with your camera settings, the depth of field is off kilter for up close work.  The back end of the model is out of focus.  Not trying to nitpick here, just trying to be helpful.  Up on another board I've already posted a tutorial on white balance.  I think I will end up reposting it here on the finescale forum.  A series of digital camera and photo editing tutorials.  Maybe I can sell them to FSM? What do you guys think?  Heh, don't answer here unless it's a side thought to this build, I don't want to hijack the thread of a VERY VERY VERY nicely built model. 

*EDIT*

I just had to come back and edit this, and add to it.  That really is a spectacular build.  Aside from seeing off the photobooth setup there, there is really only a couple of telltale signs that this thing is a model, and even then you have to look REALLY close and concentrate REALLY hard to figure it out.  This thing just really is that nice.  It looks like the real thing in a museum.  It looks like it has been cleaned up, but the rust and such was left alone.  The rusting is very mild, and VERY real looking the way it was done.  Seeming to peek out from behind the paint, and seeming to spread under the paint like rust cancer on an auto body.  Extremely convincing.  Plus the texture in the paint or under the paint on the whole thing looks to be perfectly in scale, which adds to it's realism.  The way the paint is applied.  For your first post man, yer off to one heck of a start.  Keep turning stuff out like this, and you are gonna be hanging with the biggest of the big dogs on here. 

Please make them bigger!
Your first post is setting a standard ;)
A great build and some realy cool weathering.
Thank you for sharing jeffmcg.

Very Best Regards and
Johan

Great looking gun! I love the camo.

Welcome to the forums and thanks for sharing your work!

Mansteins revenge wrote:

jeffmcg wrote: You can build it in either mode, but not both.  I've just always liked the looks of the dolly on the front. Thanks! Jeff That's good to know----but there must be some confusion as there is another current post where the builder says you can't???

MR, you're confusing the Trumpeter kit with the DML kit. The Trumpeter kit is the one that's limited to only travel mode.

Gorgeous job, man!

There's no such thing as "too big" when it comes to Armor and Big Guns!

jeffmcg wrote:

You can build it in either mode, but not both.  I've just always liked the looks of the dolly on the front. Thanks! Jeff

You can build it in either mode, but not both.  I've just always liked the looks of the dolly on the front.

Thanks!

Jeff

Hey welcome to the forum fella, And great model for your 1st post. Keep em coming fella.

...Guy

Hi Jeff, 1st of all, welcome to the forums!

Looks really great so far man!!!!

Got it in the stash along with pics I took in CFB Borden a few years ago. Man, keep us updated on it. Stand alone or dio?        Pics are really nice too. Just perfect.

BTW, it was a 15 cm howitzer.

Hi Jeff,

The pics look great as well as the model, I like the paint job!!   You going to hitch it too a vehicle or something or just a stand alone??

nice first post, welcome and keep 'em coming.

they don't seem to big to me, \

nice work in progress {ok, if it is not in a diorama I always think they are a WIP}