Photography

shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020

FO R WA RGA M E R S

A COLLECTION OF ARTICLES BY HENRY HYDE, PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN

MINIATURE WARGAMES WITH BATTLEGAMES
ALL PROCEEDS WILL BE DONATED TO THE BATTLEGAMES COMBAT STRESS APPEAL
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/battlegames
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020

A note from the author

T
hank you very much for purchasing this compilation
of articles on digital photography which, as editor, I
originally wrote for Miniature Wargames with Battlegames.
That magazine, the love child of my own Battlegames,
first launched in 2006, and the long-running Miniature Wargames,
was owned at the time by Atlantic Publishers. I was asked to
merge and take charge of the two publications in 2013.
The first article, “Digital Photography for Wargamers”, was published in issue
361 – the very first of the new, combined magazine – in May 2013. The series of
three “Wargames Photography” pieces appeared in issues 377, 378 and 379 (October,
November and December 2014) after numerous appeals from readers for more in-
depth information on the subject.
Now, with another six years distance from those articles, I can see that there is a lot
more to say and, of course, a great deal of updating required since the world has moved
on since then. Social media and the Web now dominate our lives, both hobby and
‘real’ to a much greater extent than when I penned these pieces.
Moreover, the vast majority of us now rely on the quite amazing cameras in our
smartphones to an extent that has surprised even me. No longer do I need to lug
around a heavy DSLR to shows – my iPhone enables me to shoot both photos and
video of a quality we could not have imagined just a short time ago – and I can even
record podcasts and broadcast live from events.
Both broadband and mobile phone data capacity has increased in volume and speed
exponentially, and the arrival of 5G in the near future promises even more potential for
the wargamer out and about at the club or at wargames shows. What this means is that
I am already thinking about the next edition of this guide, looking at the fast-changing
future as much as the potential of the present.
However, what I am proud of is that these guides contain a great deal of
information that is timeless: the principles of taking a good photograph of any kind,
including those of our miniature soldiery arrayed on beautiful terrain, remain exactly
the same as they were when my father, as a professional photographer back in the
1960s, pointed his lens at a captivating view or an interesting face. I hope, therefore,
that you will find this collection of value for some time to come, regardless of the
equipment you use and where and when you use it.

NB All proceeds from this booklet will be donated

to the Battlegames Combat Stress Appeal.
Henry Hyde
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020
Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile
Digital photography
for wargamers
The Editor offers some useful tips for hobbyists
planning to take perfect pictures of their games
and collections, whether they are destined to be
seen in print, on the Web, or just in their private
iPhoto or Flickr collections
Y
ou should see some of the photos people send me. No,
really. I’m not going to name any names in this article,
but I bet they know who I’m talking about! On
the other hand, perhaps they don’t, and are blithely
oblivious to the sounds of wailing, gnashing of teeth and tearing
of hair emanating from The Loftwaffe1 when the latest article
arrives accompanied by – how can I put this? – enthusiastic
photography.
Now, the fact is that whilst I was encouraged to take an
interest in photography even as a young boy by my late father,
who entrusted me with a Box Brownie and then an early
‘Instamatic’ (though Lord only knows what was ‘instant’ about
them), there is, in fact, nothing mysterious about acquiring at
least a modicum of skill with a camera. Developing a ‘good
eye’ is simply a matter of practice, the application of some basic
science and the gradual addition of a touch of flair as you grow
in confidence.
The subject matter is, in fact, irrelevant, and the skills I shall
demonstrate in this article are just as useful for taking snaps on
holiday or on your smartphone as they are when photographing
1 As my attic studio was christened by a reader, back in the days when Battlegames
was just a website – one of the first in the hobby, in fact.
My ‘Loftwaffe’ set-up. Taken using an iPhone 4S, with no adjustments at all.
36 WWW.ATLANTICPUBLISHERS.COM
MW 361.indd 36
Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
miniatures on a wargames table or in a diorama. Moreover,
anyone can develop these skills. One of the great things about
photography is that it is wonderfully democratic. You don’t
need to have spent years studying at the Royal Academy to
perfect this art – the pinnacle of excellence is accessible to all,
armed with nothing more than a smartphone or a digital camera
costing under £50. Indeed, the most I’ve spent on a camera
was when I bought my trusty Fuji FinePix S7000 (see below)
for about £400; nowadays, this same camera can be bought on
eBay for under £100, which I call an absolute steal. If you want
to know how well-loved this camera is, I remember turning up
at Partizan a few years ago to find Richard Tyndall (Tricks), Guy
Bowers (WSS Editor of course), Michael Perry and myself, all
wandering round with the same camera!
Camera choice
It’s possible, of course, to spend thousands on a full SLR (Single
Lens Reflex) camera, and there are certainly some beautiful
machines on offer. Let’s look at some pros and cons.
SLR
Pros: usually high quality build and durability. The lens is a
separate component, so can be switched for different situations,
such as macro and extreme telephoto. If you’re a keen hobby
photographer whose interests lie beyond the wargames table,
this might be a good investment, choosing different lenses and
accessories to match the camera body.
Cons: expense (be prepared to fork out £400+ for a decent
one, plus any additional lenses) and, depending on the lenses
chosen, weight and bulk for carrying around.
Advice: choose the best lenses and accessories you can afford.
My trusty Fuji FinePix S7000 on the left; and the FinePix AV200 on the right.
06/04/2013 03:45
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020

Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
One of the most common problems encountered
with photos submitted to the magazine: camera

✘
shake, causing blurry, out of focus images. If you
really must hold the camera, then be sure to use
the viewfinder if possible so that you can tuck
your arm under the device to support it, just like a
soldier is taught to hold his rifle – and learn from
a marksman’s breathing, too, squeezing the shutter
as you breathe out gently. Trying to hold a camera
at arm’s length is a recipe for trouble.

Bridge camera
Sometimes referred to as 'prosumer'
cameras, such as my S7000, these fill
the niche between the single-lens reflex
cameras (SLRs) and the point-and-shoot
camera.
Pros: again, usually of high quality build
and durability. The lens is integrated
into the body, but you can buy screw-in
extensions for different situations, such as
wide angle and telephoto. There is a wide
range of such cameras available and they
represent excellent value for money. They
are also less bulky than many full SLRs. of the onboard software offers limited possibilities, but some are
Cons: absolutely none I can think of, other than lacking the surprisingly good.
top-end flexibility of an SLR with interchangeable lenses. Advice: once again, choose a camera made by one of the
Advice: choose a camera made by one of the ‘traditional’ ‘traditional’ manufacturers known for the quality of their lenses
manufacturers known for the quality of their lenses e.g Fuji, e.g Fuji, Nikon, Canon etc. and read as many online reviews as
Nikon, Canon etc. Anything above 6MP (MegaPixel) capability you can before parting with your cash.
is good enough for print work. Have plenty of batteries to hand.
Smart phones
Point-and-shoot cameras The ultimate accessory and nowadays they have cameras that
These have flooded the market in recent years and offer image rival or exceed the performance of the ‘point-and-shoots’. My
resolution that often matches or even exceeds bigger cameras. iPhone 4S has an amazingly sharp 8MP camera.
Pros: cheap! My Fuji FinePix AV200 cost me about £50 on Pros: especially cheap because it includes your phone and
Amazon and has 12MP resolution. There are hundreds to everything that has to offer besides the camera. In addition,
choose from and they can be very handy as a backup or pocket they are internet-connected with 3G or wi-fi so that you can
camera. instantly send photos to friends, upload to Facebook, Flickr,
Cons: extremely variable quality, and the problem is often the Twitter or your blog. Highly portable and instant results.
lens, rather than the internal sensor. In general terms, you get Cons: the lens tends to be pretty wide-angle only, so if you’re
what you pay for. Any flash also tends to be mounted on the looking for clever depth of field, forget it. Like many point-and-
front so the danger of ‘blitzing’ the foreground is likely. Much shoot cameras, the onboard flash tends to blitz out anything too
close and can cause red-eye. They can be
tricky to hold steady, don’t come with

✔
tripod sockets and the lens is often in an
awkward spot, making photos of stray
fingers all too common.
Advice: excellent standby in an
emergency, and the best – such as the
iPhone and Android Galaxy, can produce
really superb quality images. But you may
want to load up with some Apps to help
out, such as the amazing 645 Pro for SLR
and film effects, and Camera Boost for low
light. You can also produce instant ‘drawn’
effects with Apps like My Sketch.

Much better. Mounted on a tripod, you can use the

camera’s timed release, or a cable release screwed
into the shutter button, to prevent shake. Now
the image is crisply in focus. All the images taken
for this article are presented ‘as is’, straight from
the camera, with no Photoshop enhancement. The
figures are1/72 Esci and Italeri plastics I painted
for The Wargaming Compendium, due May 2013. The
command bases are Ged Cronin painted Newlines.

MINIAT U R E W A R GA M E S 37

MW 361.indd 37 06/04/2013 03:46

shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020

Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
Even better. Some additional lighting has been added from multiple sources,
including anglepoise lamps and a large piece of white card to reflect daylight

✔
back into the scene. This is especially important when you are forced to shoot
towards the light, which leaves the side of the miniatures facing you too dark.
The additional lighting helps the detail to ‘pop’...

Five RULES FOR PERFECT PICTURES
Whilst I am always wary of laying down ‘rules’ for anything,
there are certainly some basic principles to bear in mind every
time you point a camera at any subject. Allocating one to each
finger and a thumb, they are:
• Lighting
• Focus
• Depth of field
• Composition
• Output
lighting
If I had to choose just one piece of advice to give the aspiring
photographer, it would be “improve your lighting”. Lighting,
lighting, lighting. Did I mention lighting? Why do you think
professional photographers spend so much time and money
seeking out the perfect lighting conditions? It’s because, in
essence, photography IS the recording of light – photo-graphy.
Get the light right, and almost everything else falls into place.
Movie directors have their actors sit around for hours waiting
for the right lighting conditions; theatre lighting technicians can
make a tiny stage seem like a broad prairie or a tiny dungeon, all
with the right lighting choices.
Wargamers, on the other hand, bedazzled by the sight of
painted lead and plastic, have a habit of pointing their camera
in the general direction of the wargames table regardless of
the available light, bemoaning their luck when, inevitably, the
images produced are of a less than award-winning standard. And
believe me, I’ve had more photographs plagued by bad lighting
than almost everything else pass across my desk.
Poor light is a common hazard when you live in, say, the UK,
which has, to say the least, variable lighting conditions for much
of the year, ranging from gloomy to dismal, with an occasional
overcast thrown in. If we’re to believe the Scandi-dramas, much
of Sweden and Denmark would appear to suffer the same thing.
It’s also a particular speciality of some wargames shows: Partizan
and Cavalier come to mind in the UK, housed in buildings
that cast a particular pall for some reason. Not the fault of the
show organisers, of course, and I’m sure you have your own,
particularly challenging venues in mind, but there are times
when it would take a Sara Lund or Wallander to figure out how
best to approach the problem. Here are some simple suggestions
to make your life easier:
1. Don’t stand in your own light
Come again? No, seriously, I’ve done it myself: with precious
little light filtering through the windows onto the game, get
yourself out of the way of those struggling sunbeams. This is
especially the case because many wargamers are of, er, ‘ample’
proportions. I don’t want to use the word “eclipse”, but you
get my drift. If there are others standing around the game, then
politely ask them to move aside for a moment – explain what
you’re doing, and they’ll usually accede to your request.
2. Bring your own light to the scene
Tricky, admittedly, if you’re at a show, unless you carry a large
torch (and I have indeed seen some display games set up with
those powerful lighting rigs used on building sites), but in
fact there are a couple of simple things you can do, without
resorting to using your flash. The first is – seriously – to wear
pale clothing. I’m not suggesting that you should turn up to
Triples in your cricket whites, but in fact your own clothing
does affect the scene in front of you. To show how it can work
against you, for some months I thought I had a problem with
my camera because almost all the photos I took at shows had a
strange, pinkish cast to them – until I realised that I had been
wearing my bright scarlet Battlegames T-shirt! Now that I’ve
given Miniature Wargames a white cover, things should improve
significantly. Besides a white shirt, another useful accessory is
a pad of plain white paper. You can ask the game participants’
permission (something you should always seek, of course) to

✘
...but don’t go overboard by using flash without due care. The problems with
flash are many – and some are built right into the camera itself if the flash is
mounted on the front of the device, facing straight forward. The result when you
photograph people – unless there is a special feature included in the camera’s
software – is the dreaded ‘red eye’,
where light bounces straight back

✘✘
into the lens, highlighting the blood
vessels on the back of your subject’s
eyes. For wargamers, the equivalent
is ‘blitz’ or ‘whiteout’, which
becomes increasingly prominent the
closer you get to your subject, as
you can see here. To make matters
worse, as you can see at the foot of
the inset picture, the flash mounted
on top of the S7000 has created a
shadow of its own lens! You can also
see how dark the background has
become compared to the ‘blitzed’
foreground, a double whammy.

38 WWW.ATLANTICPUBLISHERS.COM

MW 361.indd 38 06/04/2013 03:46

shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020
Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile
As is often the case, rather than persist with a scene that just isn’t working,
pick up the camera and move to get a better angle. Now, we have a more
pleasing view of the French (aren’t you sick of the sight of backs in wargame
photographs?), the British defensive line is much more pleasingly in the frame,
and the composition is far better, with a dynamic sense of movement..
stand a folded piece on the table, close to the miniatures you are
photographing, so that it reflects light onto the figures. If you
can find a volunteer to hold a large piece for you – or even a
larger piece of white card or tin foil – then so much the better,
and they have something to talk about with their chums after
you leave. “‘Ere, did you see that weird bloke...?” In many
cases the improvement may be marginal, but that could make
the difference between finding a load of wasted pixels and
something that is, at least, salvageable when you get home.
3. Add light
When you’re at home or down the club, you have much more
control over the lighting, but you need to think before you
act. Now that they are being phased out, the old-fashioned
incandescent light bulbs commonly found at home and which
used to cast a very yellow light are less of a problem; instead, we
have these new-fangled squirly eco-bulbs that take a while to
reach full luminosity and when they do, give off a weak, pinkish
light instead. Joy. What you need, my friends, are ‘daylight’
bulbs. The incandescent ones are still around if you hunt hard
enough, and they are certainly worth their weight in lead.
The light they emit is a cleaner, blueish tinge, which seems to
interfere with natural hues much less than standard bulbs. If you
can’t find these (often listed as ‘hobby’ lights), then some types
of flourescent lamps specifically designed for hobbies and artists
can be a real boon.
Focus
Seriously, what’s the point of a photo that’s not in focus? These
days, with digital cameras, there’s no excuse – you can see the
results of your work right there and then on the little screen.
You can zoom in on them, you know? Besides, if you’re at
home, I assume that you have your PC, Mac or other device
right there beside you, so plug in your camera with the USB
lead, download the images and check them out. If there are any
duff ones, delete, delete, delete and take them again. But what
can cause lack of focus?
A simple demonstration of depth of field. In both cases, I aimed the camera at
precisely the same spot in the centre of the image. The image on the left was
taken using a large aperture – f.2.9; the image on the right was taken using a
narrow aperture, f.8. Notice how only a small portion of the line is in focus on
the left, whereas almost the entire scene is in sharp focus on the right.
MW 361.indd 39
Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
✔✔
1. Poor lighting
I refer the gentlemen to the advice given above.
2. Camera shake
See the advice given in the caption at the top of page 37 and
invest in a tripod, monopod, bean-bag or bendy ‘gorilla’ thing.
For a few quid, your problem is solved forever.
3. Confused camera
When you press the shutter halfway, the camera will usually
beep to let you know that it has ‘locked on’ to a particular target
in the centre of the frame. If you then move the camera, or
don’t wait for the beep in the first place, then you get what you
deserve and the little imps inside the box go on strike.
Depth of field
Refer to the captions accompanying many of the photos here.
Learn your f-stops and make depth of field your friend. Sadly,
cheap cameras and mobile phones are unlikely to give you this
option, but even many budget cameras have ‘macro’, ‘normal’
and ‘telephoto’ settings which can reward experimentation.
For most wargame photos, you’ll want a wide aperture with
plenty of depth of field so that as much as possible is in focus.
Confusingly, the wider the aperture, the lower the f-number!
Dear old Wikipedia has a full explanation of this puzzling bit of
mathematics at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number.
One of the results of changing the aperture is the exposure time required. The
photo on the left had an exposure of 1/20 of a second, whilst the one below
required much longer, 1/3 of a second. As a result, more light has entered the
camera and you can see a distinct colour shift between the two images, which
can cause problems if you’re trying to match colours between shots.
MINIAT U R E W A R GA M E S 39
06/04/2013 03:47
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020

Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
More fun with depth of
field. Once you’ve got
Composition
the hang of things, you Okay, this is where I start to get arty-farty. Achieving a balanced
can make deliberate composition – or, for that matter, a deliberately unbalanced one
choices to enhance
your photographs – is largely a matter of trial and error. Practice, practice, practice.
and tell stories However, a trio of simple tips:
without needing any
Photoshoppery. Here,
we have a nice, crisp 1. Look for an angle
photo of Sir Arthur Literally. Most photos taken straight-on to the subject are
Wellesley with his boring. Move to the side a little and look for diagonals, which
aide-de-camp from
the Light Dragoons in help give the impression of movement and action.
attendance, somewhere
near Salamanca in 2. Think in thirds
1812. Nice pic, nicely
composed, lit and shot Divide your framed image into horizontal thirds. If the subject
using an aperture of f.8. is in the middle, it creates a solid, unmoving impression (which
Job done? might be fine if that’s what you are after). Shifting the subject
to one side gives a Ä to Å ratio, which is technically unbalanced
But now, see how much
more dramatic the shot but curiously pleasing. Divide the vertical space in the same way
becomes by reducing and you're really getting into something interesting.
the aperture to f.2.8.
The duke and his aide
now seem to ‘pop’ 3. Near and far
from the background, Pictures often work well with something large in the near
which has become foreground framing something smaller, further away, implying
blurry and less distinct
– and thereby ceasing depth – just like looking through a window.
to compete for our
attention. With the OUTPUT
drummer on the right
less in focus too, he Most cameras and smartphones will save your images as JPG
ceases to draw the eye. (also known as, and pronounced, JPEG) files. Some high-end
Our attention is right cameras can also save in RAW format, but unless you really
where it should be, on
the great commander know what you’re doing, stick to JPGs.
himself. JPG files are what is known as a ‘lossy’ format, which is to
say that they achieve their compression by dumping data. So,
technically speaking, your image is already of a reduced quality
Here’s another
example of the kind of the moment you save the file.
thing you’ll encounter For use on the internet – such as on your blog, or Facebook
in most wargame or Flickr – JPG files are just fine. Save them at 72dpi (dots per
situations. Here, our
lone light infantryman inch) in RGB (Red, Green, Blue) format to the size you want.
seems remote from his BUT always keep your original image safe and only work on
colleagues in the line a copy by using the “Save As...” command, NOT the “Save”
behind, even though the
distance is in fact just a command!2 Web images are measured in pixel dimensions.
couple of centimetres. For use in print – such as in this magazine, the requirements
this can be useful if are quite different. Files need to be 300dpi at the final size they
you want to focus the
viewer’s attention on will be printed. In addition, they will be converted to CMYK
a particular miniature (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and black – the K stands for ‘Keyline’),
because of its (ahem) but to prevent any unintended alteration, leave that to me (or
superlative paint job or
interesting uniform or the designers of any other magazine).
equipment details. Clearly, therefore, files only intended for the internet can
be much lower resolution than those for printing. Take the
light infantryman on the left, for example: for this magazine,
The same shot, but
switching back to f.8. the dimensions are 58.333mm x 63.5mm at 300dpi, making it
Now, the relationship 1.97Mb; if I only needed it for the Web, I could reduce this to
between the ‘light bob’ a high quality, ‘progressive’ JPG of just 13.3Kb! However, if I
and his colleagues
behind is much clearer was silly and didn’t keep the original, there would be no turning
and we sense that they back – the reduced version would look ghastly in print.
are closely supporting In print, we use PSD and TIF(F) formats which are lossless
him, rather than leaving
him to his own devices. and retain their quality. We can also accept PDF files.
Note that the level of
detail affects not only CONCLUSION
the figures, but the
groundwork too – and The joy of digital is that you can experiment as much as you
even the buildings in like for no cost, so experiment! It really is a numbers game: the
the background. In more you take, the better you'll get.
effect, a wide aperture
‘compresses’ space,
making distant objects 2 You may remember GIF files too, but they’re hardly ever used nowadays. A more
appear closer. common alternative is the PNG file, but unless you’re a web designer, stick to JPG.

40 WWW.ATLANTICPUBLISHERS.COM

MW 361.indd 40 06/04/2013 03:47

shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020
Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile
Wargames photography
Master your digital camera or phone: part 1
The Editor returns to a subject previously
raised in issue 361, because he’s received so
many requests for advice in the interim! Here
then is the start of a mini-series providing more
top tips for getting the best results from your
hobby snapping.
B
ack in issue 361, I wrote quite a lengthy piece about
digital photography for wargamers. It covered pretty
much all aspects of taking pictures for use either on your
own blog, Facebook or Flickr feed, as well as the extra
requirements for printed publications. I also gave some advice
about choosing a suitable camera or, indeed, smartphone to give
you the best possible chance of getting great pictures. But most
importantly, I laid down some principles, the “Five Rules for
Perfect Pictures”:
• Lighting
• Focus
• Depth of Field
• Composition
• Output
Well, I’ve had more positive feedback about that article than
almost anything else I’ve ever done! But I’ve also had a huge
number of queries, asking me to expand on that advice and
provide more in-depth information. So, this will be a short
series, sometimes covering more than one of those principles in
a single issue, but occasionally, as now, devoting more space to
a single one of the ‘rules’, such as now, as we begin with by far
the most important of all.
LIGHTING
Poor lighting makes taking decent photos virtually impossible.
This is a particular challenge for wargamers, because the vast
majority of our images are taken indoors. As a result, unless
the miniatures or game are set up inside a light and airy artist’s
studio, with white walls and professional, colour-neutral
photographic lighting, you are already going to be facing
problems before you’ve even pressed the shutter.
The first problem is that the room is likely to be too
dark. There are a number of ways in which a digital camera
compensates for lack of light:
• It increases the exposure time. The corollary to this is an
increased risk of camera shake. With a ‘proper’ camera, you
can overcome this by using a tripod. With a mobile phone,
or if you’re holding the camera in your hand, it’s much more
tricky. It really helps if you are, at the very least, holding
Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
Feature: Wargames photography
Ah, the shame! A photo taken by the Editor in the stygian gloom of Kelham
Hall during The Other Partizan, September 2007. Can even this be saved?
your camera in both hands, rather than just one, and close to
your body, rather than teetering at arm’s length.
• It switches to a different ISO rating. In the old days,
when cameras actually had film in them (remember that?),
you used to purchase film according to it’s ISO or ASA
rating, which indicated the film’s sensitivity to light. A lower
speed index – say ISO 100 – requires more exposure to light
to produce the same image density as a more sensitive film –
say ISO 800. But the reduction of exposure corresponding
to use of higher sensitivities generally leads to reduced image
quality (via coarser film grain or higher image noise). In
short, the darker the room, and the higher the sensitivity
auto-selected by the camera, the grainier the image will
be. Higher film speed ratings have always been useful for
recording fast-moving scenes – typically, sporting events and
some wildlife photography – but we wargamers tend to get
the best out of the lower ratings of ISO 100 or perhaps 200.
Very occasionally, I might deliberately choose to push this
to 400. My iPhone camera, whilst pretty amazing in many
repects, does not allow me to manually select the ISO rating,
though this can be done by downloading additional apps
such as 645 Pro. My Fuji S7000 and now my new S4500 on
the other hand, do permit me to select the ISO rating, as
will any good bridge or full SLR camera.
• It uses flash. We talked about the use of a flash previously.
It has one enormous drawback: it tends to ‘blitz’ the scene,
completely washing out the foreground and plunging the
background into tomb-like darkness. Many cameras have
MINIATURE WA R GA M E S 33
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020
Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile
made improvements for portrait photography, introducing
‘anti red-eye’ systems, which fire the flash twice in quick
succession: the first burst makes the sitter’s pupils contract,
and then the photo is actually taken on the second flash a
fraction of a second later. Great for eliminating an image
of all those blood vessels inside the eye; utterly useless for
wargamers!
So, how do we go about putting the odds back in our favour?
• Use a tripod. I’ve already mentioned this, but
it’s worth re-stating. You don’t need to buy
a large, expensive, one. You can pick up
a decent tripod for around a tenner on
Amazon or eBay or other specialist
sites. It helps to have two: a ‘normal’
tripod for setting up around the
edge of a wargames table;
Feature: Wargames photography –
and a small, ‘mini’
tripod for placing
your camera in
amongst
the
action (but always
ask for permission first!). A popular type is the ‘gorilla’,
which has arms you can bend into all sorts of contortions
to conform with uneven terrain, or the ‘bean bag’ shown
here. And yes, there are now umpteen tripods, or tripod
mountings, available for iPhones and other mobile devices. I
just saw one on Amazon for under a fiver.
• Use something to reflect available light back into
the scene. This can be as simple as a piece of white paper,
your own clothing (remember the white shirt tip?), one
of those reflective screens used to prevent your car interior
from overheating when parked in the sunshine (again, just
saw one on Amazon for £8.50), or even the aluminium
foil found in your kitchen drawer. I might also say a mirror,
of course, though transporting it might prove challenging
unless you have a convenient handbag.
• Use additional lighting in the room. There are,of course,
some very nice lighting rigs for professional studios, but they
tend to come at professional prices and by and large, they
aren’t terribly portable. The same goes for those lighting rigs
often used on building sites, which require either a mains
connection, or a car battery. In addition, they give off a huge
amount of heat. At home, the more sensible option is to
make use of your interior lighting and extra lamps, such as
the Anglepoise type, to flood the area with extra light. You
don’t want to get the lamps too close to the subject, because
they can, like flash, ‘blitz’ the area. In addition, you need
to be aware of the colour of the light. “Surely,” you say,
“light is white?” Well, no, actually! Some light bulbs give off
light that has a very distinct colour cast, usually yellowish or
pinkish. Ideally, you need daylight bulbs, which have a bluer,
cooler tone which gives a more natural result. Daylight
bulbs can be obtained in almost any hardware store or hobby
outlet (and I’ve just seen them on Amazon again). They are
also known as “Craft” light bulbs.
34 WWW.ATLANTICPUBLISHERS.COM
Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
• Use additional lighting mounted on the camera.
Thanks are due to John Treadaway for this lighting tip. I
visited him a few weeks ago and sitting on his table was
his camera, not dissimilar to my own, but festooned with
the most amazing contraption. Having now followed his
directions on eBay and Amazon, I too am now the proud
owner of a wonderful lighting rig. The brackets come as
a pair, simply two L-shaped sections with a slot down the
centre of each arm, surrounded by a rubbery material on
one side. Each section comes with two screw mountings that
pass through the slots, projecting sufficiently on the other
side of the metal to allow you to screw into your camera’s
universal mount (they are the same diameter as the screw
used in a tripod) or your lights. This assembly is given the
catchy name of “Double L-shaped Metal Bracket Holder
Mount for DSLR Camera Flash Unit LED light” on eBay,
and can be found in the Ellie Shang eBay shop. The link is
http://goo.gl/8dHlsM. The price? A heady £7.99.
As for the lights, these also have a catchy name:
“BestDealUK Video CN-LUX480 LED Light Lamp for
Canon Nikon Camera DV Camcorder” and came from
BestDealUK on Amazon (though I am sure there are other
sources too). As the name implies, they are intended to give
constant, regulated lighting for vieo cameras, but they’re
perfect for our needs too. They consist of a black plastic
housing, inside which arte arranged no less than 48 little
LED lights each. Brightness can be adjusted by using filters
(supplied, three per lamp, a diffuser together with Magenta
and Orange filters) and a dimming knob located on the rear.
They are powered by three ordinary AA torch batteries each.
What makes the lights really nifty is that they have a
clever moulded arrangement on the sides making it possible
to slot them together. As a result, you only need to use
the universal joint mounting from one of them, mounted
to your brackets, to hold them in place. You can see the
arrangement I’ve settled on in the photo here, but of course
there are many other permutations possible. The Amazon
link to a range of suppliers is http://goo.gl/Dgmiyx. I paid just
under £12 each for mine.
• TOP TIP: to save you a lot of swearing, in order to get the
screw fittings to pass through the slots in the bars, you need
to insert them at the ends of the slots only. I turned the air
blue trying to force them through the centre of the slots
before John revealed this to me!
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020

Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising

hand side indicates the light. By clicking and holding down

Our image of the Prussians at Plancenoit adjusted using simply the Brightness/
Contrast control in Photoshop. This upgraded filter is now highly effective.
on the little triangles underneath the graph (see screenshot),
you can shift them to the left or right, and assuming you
have “Preview” checked, you will see immediately how
the changes will affect the image. By making changes with
“Channel: RGB” selected on the dropdown menu, you
are only changing the overall brightness and tonality of the
image; but you can be more subtle than this. Is the lighting
too yellow? Select the blue channel only, grab the right-hand
marker and drag it slightly to the left. You’ll immediately
see the highlights becoming less yellow. Is your lighting too
pink? Select the Green channel and do the same. You just
need to remember that in photography, everything is based
on Red, Green and Blue and their opposites are Cyan,
Magenta and Yellow respectively.
• An alternative to Levels is Curves, which works in much the
same way, but is trickier to master.

Feature: Wargames photography

• Once you’re happy with the adjustments you’ve made,
• Photoshop. If all else fails, then there are certain tricks click OK and “Save” your image. You did make a copy as
you can play ‘after the event’. Let me make it clear that I suggested, didn’t you, using the “Save As..” command
there’s no substitute for taking good quality photos in the earlier...?
first place, and it’s really easy to make a mess of things • The ‘eyedroppers’ on that dialogue window allow you to
when fiddling on your computer, but over the years there define what you want to be the highlight tone, the mid tone
are a number of things I’ve found myself doing regularly and the darkest tone respectively.
to improve the lighting quality of images sent to me. Note • Just play around and experiment and eventually you’ll
that I’m using the term “Photoshop” generically here: I’m have a sequence of actions worked out that are really easy
working in Adobe Photoshop CC 2014, which is a high-end to remember for a series of images taken under similar
professional tool which costs many hundreds of pounds to conditions.
purchase (or you can pay a monthly subscription, as I do). • TOP TIP: don’t forget to make sure that your actual screen
You may be using something much more budget conscious, brightness is not set too low! You could end up over-
but these days it is likely to have tools allowing you to do the brightening an image that is actually perfectly okay, so check
same thing. your system preferences first.
• TOP TIP: before you start adjusting your image, do a So that’s just about it for lighting. Trust me, get the lighting
“Save As...” to create a copy of the original to work on, right and everything else becomes so much easier, and you’ll
leaving the photo you actually took safe and sound in case of start getting far better results from your photography.
mistakes.
• Brightness/Contrast: by moving the sliders, you can Here, the image is adjusted using Levels instead. See how I’ve been able to
increase the overall, erm, brightness and contrast of the eliminate the slightly pinkish cast and reduce the shadows to show more detail.
image! Don’t overdo
it. In particular, take
care not to ‘bleach out’
highlight ares of the
image, which can lose
detail rather quickly.
The professional
alternative is...
• Levels: using Levels
gives you much more
control over not
only increasing the
brightness or darkness
of your image in the
highlight, mid-tone
and dark ranges, but
can also help you to
remove colour cast
in an image. You
are presented with a
graph-like control with
sliders underneath. The
left hand end of the
graph represents the
dark areas; the right

MINIATURE WA R GA M E S 35
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020

Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising

Wargames photography
Master your digital camera or phone: part 2
The Editor continues his mini-series of even lighting, preferably from multiple sources, or

Feature: Wargames photography

helpful hints for the hobby photographer
wanting to get better pictures of their wargames
and collections. This time, we’re looking at the
thorny problems of focus and depth of field.
you should set up your lighting to deliberately accentuate
the details you want to capture and home in on that, like a
spotlight on a theatre stage, to create a deliberate effect.
Camera shake
• Buy a tripod. I gave some examples last issue. There, that

T
he subjects of focus and depth of field are inextricably
linked, so I’m going to deal with them both this
month. Obviously, we want our images to be ‘in
focus’, but what do we mean by that? In general terms,
that means that we want the detail to be crisp and sharp. For
wargamers, it’s even easier to define: we want to be able to
see the faces on the miniatures, the buttons on their coats, the
heraldry on their shields, the number rolled on the dice, the
individual blades of grass modelled on their bases and so on.
Depth of field is, if you like, ‘focus+’. The starting point
is to ask yourself, “How much of this image do I want to be in
focus?” Generally speaking, for most wargames photography,
the answer is, “As much as possible, from the foreground to
the background”. But there may be occasions when you want
the viewer’s attention to be drawn to a particular section of the
battlefield, or a particular unit, or even an individual figure.
That’s where the ability to control depth of field comes in.
FOCUS
So, let’s look at the issues that can affect you achieving a crisply
focused image.
was simple, wasn’t it?
• Seriously, though, there may be occasions where you don’t
have your tripod with you, or it isn’t convenient, or you’re
trying to achieve that ‘reportage’ look. To minimise the
risk of camera shake under such circumstances, you need to
think of taking a photograph in the same way as a
marksman thinks of firing his rifle, as follows.
• Control your breathing. Take your time. What you
want to do is reduce your breathing and pulse rate to the
point where you are completely calm, so there’s less chance
of your own body ruining the shot. The aim is to press
the shutter firmly but gently at the end of a long,
exhaled breath, just before you inhale again.
• Control your aim. This is also why I always prefer a camera
with a viewfinder, rather than just an LCD screen on the
back. With mobile phones, of course, you have no choice.
• Using a camera with a viewfinder, make sure you hold it
comfortably, so you get a good view of the scene through
the viewfinder, but without pressing the camera right against
your face. Try not to squint too much, as your face could
twitch at the wrong moment! Imagine you’re holding a
rifle – tuck your arm under the camera to support it,

Lighting
• If you follow the advice I gave in the last issue about
lighting, many of the problems associated with focus
will simply disappear. This is because the sensors inside
modern digital cameras and phones are primed to focus on
whatever is best lit within a scene. Unsurprisingly, therefore,
if the entire scene is in gloom or dimly lit, the sensor has no
idea what to focus on.
• This is also why it’s a good idea to avoid using flash
wherever possible – the sensor is programmed to home
in on those bright spots created by the flash, and in my
experience, that’s rarely what you actually want to make
the centre of attention. In a shot of ancient or medieval
miniatures wearing lots of shiny armour, the result can be
chaos. In a horse and musket game, bayonets and buckles
suddenly jump centre stage. Grrrr! Camera shake! Nothing’s in focus here.You can spot camera shake by
• As previously discussed, what you really need is good, the ‘doubkle edge’ effect – look at the dragoons on the right.

MINIATURE WA R GA M E S 33
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020
Editorial News/Events Column Feature
Taken within moments of each other, two shots of the same scene, under the same lighting conditions, but re-composed using focus alone. Left, attention is
Feature: Wargames photography
drawn to the mass columns of Confederation of the Rhine infantry, whereas on the right, they now just form part of the backdrop, as the focus switches to the
French dragoons. I set the camera to f.3.2 using its Aperture Priority function; the ‘film speed’ was ISO 400 and the shutter speeds, determined automatically by
the camera, were 1/12 of a second (left), and1/15 (right). Note how shallow the depth of field is for the right-hand close-up – those cavalry bases are about 25mm
wide, so it’s no more than around 125mm (5"). If only I’d moved back a little and taken another one focusing on the dragoons, they would all have been in focus.
so the camera, your forearm is as vertical as possible, taking
all the weight of the device. Your right hand is then free to
press the shutter, in a smooth, controlled motion: don’t
‘stab’ at the shutter, rather ‘squeeze’ it as you would
a trigger. This technique is particularly important if you
have a full SLR camera with a longer lens attached, or you
are using the lighting rig shown last time.
• For smartphones and cameras with only a screen, try not
to hang it out over the table with your arms fully
extended. This is asking for trouble. If you’re lucky, and the
light is good and the camera uses a fast shutter speed or ISO
setting, you might just get away with it, but trying to hold
a position like this while you compose your shot is hugely
risky, both in terms of the risk of camera shake and, of
course, the risk of wobbling and accidentally colliding with
someone’s beautiful soldiers on the tabletop!
• If you can find the space at the edge of the table, your
elbows make an acceptable bipod. It’s certainly better
than hanging your camera in mid-air. Other acceptable
platforms might be the back of a chair or, at a pinch, a
willing bystander or partner who permits you to rest on their
shoulder – as long as they keep still!
Confused Camera
In the old days, you either had an Instamatic, which had such
a wide depth of field that everything as far as the horizon was
in focus, or you had a ‘proper’ SLR, in which case you had to
manually adjust the focus ring around the lens, set the aperture,
adjust the zoom and so on whilst composing your picture.
Nowadays, all digital cameras and mobile phones have an ‘auto-
focus’ facility, but the vast majority of people don’t exploit the
simple tools at their disposal. It’s rather like Microsoft Word,
where people persist in using multiple spaces or tabs to align
stuff across the page when there’s been a perfectly good tab
alignment tool included for the last 25 years! The fact is, we’ve
become so used to technology doing almost everything for us,
we’ve got lazy. Well, if you want to take better pictures, pay
attention!
• With a digital camera – whether it has a viewfinder or not –
frame the picture you want to take, without pressing
the shutter, but have your right finger hovering close to it.
Now look at the scene, and decide which thing or area
you want to have the most crisply in focus. Depending
34 WWW.ATLANTICPUBLISHERS.COM
Profile Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
on the overall lighting, this may not be the brightest part of
the scene.
• What I want you to do now is remember the scene you are
currently looking at, then ‘aim off’ slightly (you could
think of this as ‘adjusting for wind’ like a marksman) so that
the thing you want to focus on is dead centre of the
screen.
• Now, press the shutter HALFWAY until you hear a
‘beep’. Then, keeping your finger where it is, return to
the original scene, steady yourself, and press the
shutter the rest of the way. Incidentally, it’s always a good
idea to hold the position for a few moments afterwards, to
give the camera time to complete the exposure.
• Let me explain what you’ve just done. Having decided on
the overall picture, you have then, by ‘aiming off’, told the
software which specific part of the scene it should use to
determine the camera settings, such as focus, depth of field,
ISO setting and, therefore, exposure time (shutter speed).
This can be really helpful, especially if the interesting part
of the shot is slightly too dark, because the camera will
now have compensated for that, brightening the area (and
everything else).
• On a mobile phone, such as an iPhone, it works slightly
differently. You compose your shot as above, but then you
use your finger to tap the area on screen that you
want to camera to focus on, without actually moving
the device. On the iPhone, a little square border appears
to acknowledge the area you have selected. Then press the
shutter button as usual.
By playing with this technique of ‘aiming off’, you’ll also
start to learn something about composition, a subject we’ll
discuss next month.
DEPTH OF FIELD
This subject is admittedly confusing – even I am perfectly
capable of getting things topsy-turvey!
God Bless Wikipedia, because their definition is very good:
“In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography,
depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the closest objects
in a scene and the farthest counterparts in the scene that appear
acceptably sharp in an image. Although a lens can precisely
focus at only one distance at a time, the decrease in sharpness is
gradual on each side of the focused distance, so that within the
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020
Editorial News/Events Column Feature
The version on the left (f.8, 1/12 second) is very much a group shot; switching
to f.3, 1/90 second) clearly makes the marshal stand apart from the others.
DOF, the unsharpness is imperceptible under normal viewing
conditions.
In some cases, it may be desirable to have the entire image
sharp, and a large DOF is appropriate. In other cases, a small
DOF may be more effective, emphasizing the subject while de-
emphasizing the foreground and background. In cinematography,
a large DOF is often called deep focus, and a small DOF is
often called shallow focus.”
All well and good. unfortunately, the several thousand words
that follow on the page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_
field are extremely technical indeed!
In essence, ‘wide’ or ‘large’ apertures correspond
with the small f-stop numbers on your camera. So an
aperture of f/2.8 is wide, while an aperture of f/22 is
very small.
Focusing distance also has an effect, with wide apertures
offering a great deal more depth of field when focused on a
subject far away than when focusing on a something close to the
camera. But the simplest way to affect depth of field is to
change the aperture setting. For purists, making this change
can blur the picture slightly, but for wargamers shooting most
things within a few metres or even less, you won’t notice.
As I mentioned back in issue 361, larger apertures (lower
f-stop number) let in more light, so you can use faster
shutter speed to freeze movement, such as at a sporting event.
Fortunately, wargamers don’t tend to move very fast! A smaller
aperture reduces the amount of light passing through
the lens, requiring a slower shutter speed – and thus increasing
Profile Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
Feature: Wargames photography
Dramatic use of shallow depth of field, again at Kelham Hall, where I spotted
this column of Prussians in a League of Gentleman Wargamers’ game.
The choice was f.5 and an exposure of 1/5 of a second using ISO 400, a
combination which both throws the command group into sharp relief and
exaggerates the length of the column disappearing into the distance.
the risk of camera shake or subject movement. As mentioned
last time, if your camera permits it, you could compensate by
increasing the ISO, allowing you to use smaller apertures to
increase the depth of field and use faster shutter speeds.
TOP TIP: when using your ‘macro’ setting, and placing
the camera very close to the subject, the problem of depth of
field is exacerbated. I have seen many photos where the front
of a miniature is in focus, but the back is not! The answer is to
move away from the miniature, re-focus
and try again. With cameras taking such
high resolution images nowadays – even
my iPhone 5S is 8 megapixels, and many
phones are much higher than that –
you can always crop the image down
afterwards with no worries.
CONCLUSION
Learn to control focus and depth of field
to really unlock your creativity. I’ve only
had space to give you a few examples
here, but you can clearly see that your
photos will begin to tell stories, by either
showing the broad, overall picture with
almost everything in focus, or homing in
on little vignettes and incidents around
the table. Practice makes perfect!
A good use of a moderate depth of field to focus
on the knights, using f.8 and a long a shutter speed
of 1.2 seconds on a tripod to combat the gloom of
Kelham Hall at Partizan 2009.
MINIATURE WA R GA M E S 35
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020
Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile
Wargames photography
Master your digital camera or phone: part 3
The Editor concludes his short series with
an explanation of the subtle art of composition,
rounding off with some technical notes about
how to output your images for various media.
R
ounding off this series, I thought I’d do my best to give
you some insights into what might be
thought of as the most ‘arty’ aspect The rule of thirds
of photography: composition. You
may feel intimidated, stepping into a strange works with
realm which may, at first, seem dangerously
‘touchy-feely’, especially if you’re the sort of the way we
chap who likes his facts nailed down and his
measurements strictly Imperial. But fear not, naturally
help is at hand.
In fact the composition of an image view a scene.
has been reckoned, by some, to be just as
measurable as the range of a longbow or the rate of fire of an
MG42 or the penetration power of an 88mm round.
THE GOLDEN RATIO
The most important piece of terminology commonly used in
connection with composition by artists is ‘The Golden Ratio’.
What do we mean by that? And where does it come from?
The Golden Ratio – or Golden Mean, or Golden Section, or
Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
Golden Rectangle – was used extensively by great artists of the
Feature: Wargames photography
Renaissance such as Leonardo da Vinci (when it was known
as the Divine Proportion), and is still used today. It was being
investigated and exploited hundreds of years BC by Pythagoras
and Euclid, a well-established principle of geometry and
mathematics. What it boils down to is the diagram at the foot
of the previous column. The idea is that the blue square is in
perfect proportion to the red rectangle, and that together, they
in turn create a perfectly proportioned rectangle.
The principle is described thus: a golden
rectangle with longer side a and shorter side
b, when placed adjacent to a square with sides
of length a, will produce a similar golden
rectangle with longer side a + b and shorter
side a. Got it?
This ratio has also been used in computing
to generate fractals, and has been discovered to
be how nature has created things like the shells
of snails and ammonites. If you really want to
get in to this (and it is a strangely spellbinding
process), then take a look at http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Golden_ratio. You’ll also find lovely diagrams like this, showing
how to create objects sharing the Golden Ratio:
Now, don’t start worrying that I’m going to suggest that
you indulge in a spot of algebra before you press the shutter on
your camera or mobile phone. Perish the thought! Nor would
I want you to imagine that you should concentrate entirely on
composition, when in fact, whilst you are gaining confidence,
it’s just as important for you to think about the lighting, focus
and depth of field we talked about previously. And in any case,
there’s a much simpler rule of thumb you can use that will serve
you just as well in 99% of all the hobby photographs you are
MINIATURE WA R GA M E S 33
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020
Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile
likely to take. Indeed, with experience, you will learn to apply
the same principles to your other photos too, such as holiday
snapshots or family portraits. And there’s even better news:
your camera is already set up to help you, with the solution
completely built into even the cheapest devices – The Rule of
Thirds.
THE RULE OF THIRDS
The theory is that if you place points of interest at the
intersections or along the lines that divide the picture plane into
thirds, your photo becomes more balanced and a viewer will be
able to interact with it more naturally. It has been found that
people’s eyes naturally alight on the intersection points, rather
than the centre of the shot, so using the rule of thirds works with
the way we naturally view a scene, rather than against it.
As so often in this series, a picture speaks a thousand words,
Feature: Wargames photography
so let’s look at some images. We can try to achieve these effects
in post-production by cropping, but the idea is that over time
you will learn to adjust composition instinctively when you are
looking through the viewfinder (or, nowadays, usually at the
LCD screen on the back of the camera).
As mentioned above, your device is already set up to help
you. There’s almost always an option to turn on a grid to help
you compose your pictures. Most people think that this is just
to help you get a level horizon, but now, you can look at this
facility more creatively. Look, there it is, two horizontal lines
crossed by two verticals – the manufacturers haven’t provided
this by accident! From now on, you’ll never look through your
viewfinder in the same way again; instead, you’ll be making use
of those lines to create more interesting pictures.
Just bear in mind that symmetry = dull. Of course, we must
also be aware of purpose. If you’re taking photos to demonstrate
painting techniques or uniform details, then be as dull as you
like, so that the viewer can concentrate on the minutiae you’re
showing them.
By and large, we must take photos of what is there. Gamers
get a bit funny if you lunge over their table to pick up and
move units that aren’t quite in the right place for optimum
composition... This means you need to move around the table,
constantly looking for the best angle. Don’t forget to kneel
down and take a look from the ‘miniatures’-eye view’ too. This
is where those tiny tripods prove very useful.
Now let’s go a stage further. Having created a pleasing, but
relatively static, composition, let’s add some movement.
Through the viewfinder of the Editor’s S7000. Pressing the Display button
allows the user to select various options, including the 3x3 grid.
34 WWW.ATLANTICPUBLISHERS.COM
Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
The grid is more subtle on an iPhone, but there it is. Here the division of
the composition into approximate thirds is obvious, with the colour party of
Regiment von Eintopf close to one of the ‘nodes’. A pleasant, but dull photo.
Obviously, I’m not talking about movement in the literal
sense, as we are dealing with still images (though moving images
make use of precisely the same principles). However, by making
use of perspective, we can add drama to our shots.
We’re all familiar with perspective: things closer to us appear
bigger than those farther away. (And no, I can’t get that Father
Ted scene out of my head either, as he tries to explain the
principle to Father Dougal using miniature cows and a real herd
standing in the field outside...) More importantly, perspective
uses the principle of ‘vanishing points’, where lines converge,
usually on the horizon. Perspective is commonly described
as one-, two- or three-point perspective, depending on the
number of vanishing points. Our images can make use of this
to convey a powerful sense of movement and drama. For an
in-depth explanation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_
(graphical).
The thing about most wargames, from Ancients through
to the late 19th century, is that they are jam packed with units
in linear formations, both as individual units and as brigades,
divisions and so on. This allows us to capture a tremendous sense
of depth and distance, particularly in connection with the depth
of field techniques described last time.
Let’s look at a really simple example opposite. The first photo
shows Regiment von Eintopf from the front. Even using the
Rule of Thirds, there’s only so much that can be done with an
image like this. How can we improve it? Simple: move to the
side and re-take the shot looking down the line of troops. What
a difference! We know they are only static miniatures, but isn’t
it amazing that now, the perspective created by all those nice,
A better shot. Note how the column of infantry passes through not one, but
two of the nodes and the building in the foreground creates a sense of depth.
shaun.randell@btinternet.com 24 Jun 2020
Editorial News/Events Column Feature Profile
smart ranks implies a sense of movement, in this case from right
to left. If you’re really clever, you’ll take photos of your games
from a consistent viewpoint, so that the Red army is always
shown moving from left to right, whilst the Blue army advances
from right to left. (Note that I took the shot on the right at f.8,
and the bottom one at f.3 to focus just on the colour party.)
With modern-era and skirmish games, with fewer figures and
vehicles on the table, you’ll be looking to achieve a similar effect
by finding clever sight lines, with objects at different distances.
Don’t neglect the scenery either – buildings have nice, straight
edges that run off to vanishing points in the distance.
You can vary the number of vanishing points by raising or
lowering your eyeline: the closer to the ground your camera is,
the more dramatically perspective lines drop off to the horizon,
whereas a higher point of view produces sweeping battle scenes
with the horizon in the far distance.
As with all the techniques you’ve learned in this series, the
best thing is to play around. If you combine these lessons, you’ll
soon be producing images to be proud of. And nowadays it costs
nothing except time to create hundreds, thousands even, of
practice images, after which you can simply delete the ones that
don’t work. If you’re lucky, one of them will be a winner, and
the more shots you take, the better you’ll get at knowing what
works best.
FINAL TOP TIPS
It so often happens that when you’re concentrating on the
techniques, you miss some of the really obvious things that will
help you to produce good pictures.
Scenario Painting Modelling Reviews Advertising
1. Bent bayonets and spears. I have lost count of the number of
otherwise perfect photos ruined by units whose weaponry
looked like a spaghetti factory. Straighten them up!
2. Please, please, please stop taking photos of the backs of your
troops, unless it’s to achieve a specific effect! We want to see
what they look like from the front!
3. Fluff on the lens. For the couple of quid it costs for a good
quality lens duster, there’s no excuse. Always check your lens
before starting a session, and use it at regular intervals. Check
the miniatures, too.
4. Clutter. I’ve grown to tolerate dice on the table, since they
are an integral part of real games in progress, and I’ll even
allow the occasional tape measure or ruler to creep in.
But playsheets, magazines, books, drinks cans, coffee cups
and goodness knows what else on a wargames table can
absolutely ruin the effect.
5. Wargamers’ err... ‘midriffs’. One of the unfortunate but
Feature: Wargames photography
unavoidable aspects of wargaming is that all our beautiful
scenery and miniatures are displayed at somewhere between
knee and navel height. A row of denimed crotches is enough
to turn even the strongest stomach. The best solution is to
politely ask those playing to step to one side for a moment.
6. Resolution. Be aware that images that may be perfectly fine
for your blog are unlikely to be sufficiently detailed for use
in print. The reason is simple: publications are printed at 300
dots per inch, whereas screen resolution is a mere 72 dots
per inch (or occasionally 96). The solution is obvious: make
sure that you are making use of your camera’s maximum
image size. You will be able to check this in your camera’s
settings. Mobile phones are usually automatically set to
capture images at their highest setting. If necessary, invest in
a higher capacity memory card so that you don’t suddenly
find you’ve run out of memory halfway through an event.
You can always reduce image resolution and preserve detail,
but if you try to enlarge a low-resolution shot, it gets fuzzy.
7. File type. For use online, you want JPG or, at a pinch, PNG
formats. For print, you can send high quality JPG images
or TIF files. PDF should only be used for images that are
produced from artwork combining text and images. It is
important to remember that JPG images are ‘lossy’ – they
reduce file size by actually dumping information (detail)
irrevocably, so always use the highest quality setting (80%+).
Always save files in RGB (Red, Green, Blue) – leave the
conversion to CMYK for print to people like me.
And that, my friends, is enough from me. Get snapping!
MINIATURE WA R GA M E S 35