Shooting Rally cars in 1/43 & 1/18

Bodwick

I'm putting this under Sporting goods because it's a specific type of model I'm shooting, namely Paris-Dakar rally vehicles in 1/43 and this one at 1/18.

I picked this Nissan up on eBay sent from Hong Kong and have a few more arriving shortly.
As soon as I got it out the box it was in front of my camera to try a few shots.
So I spent a bit of time yesterday shooting front, side, high & low. This is the first time I've moved down the scale to anything so small and it took me some time to arrive at the final set-up(about 100 shots)...Ending pretty much how I would shoot a real car(so thats how I should have started). There is room to start fine tuning the final set up as moving anything even slightly at this size changes the entire shot.

The question is. Does this look right or am I wasting my time trying to make it look like the original ie. a real car? Which is what I think I'm trying to achieve.
I could set it up on a bed of sand and drop in a background picture of the desert but would it be worth it..:scratch

I'm no model expert and wondered if anyone has shot this sort of thing in the past. I'm looking to shoot about 15 models (if they all arrive) to put on a Dakar web site....So would you expect to see obvious models or models set in a scene.....

Any help on improving this would be good...Thats in all ways not just scene help...

I will probably shoot both methods to give me something to do untill the weather improves...:):

Shot at 70mm with two flash, No.1 behind and above rear. No.2 ring flash very close left of lens. 1/200 f22. slight crop & a touch of dust(windscreen) focus on door joining body at mirror.

Angelo

Bodwick: I first looked at your image before reading your post and didn't realize it wasn't a real vehicle. Pretty great model and photograph.

My only suggestion would be to use a very plain background or have fun with a realistic background like a desert scene as you mentioned. This purplish variegated background is too busy and clashes with all of the colors of the model. IMHO :

cletus

Hey Bodwick,

Fun subject.

I'm not quite sure about the lighting. It looks like there is too much fall-off from the front of the car to the back. The front is almost too bright, while the back is noticeably darker. If the flashes are pointed directly at the model, maybe turning them around and bouncing them off a piece of white foam core would difuse the light enough to even things out.

Did you happen to see this thread?

bkriete

Shooting with a white background might help even out the light and shadows. Would look a little better than the purple also, imho.

TristanP

I'm gonna echo what Cletus and bkriete said. Resting the model on foamcore (or similar) will reflect light back up and the rear-end needs a tad extra lighting. Otherwise, it looks great. Nicely detailed model and good colors, shot from a good angle. How big is the actual model?

Bodwick

TristanP wrote:

I'm gonna echo what Cletus and bkriete said. Resting the model on foamcore (or similar) will reflect light back up and the rear-end needs a tad extra lighting. Otherwise, it looks great. Nicely detailed model and good colors, shot from a good angle. How big is the actual model?

Thanks for the input everyone, I'll give the suggestions a go and post the results in due course...

The Nissan 1/18 is nearly 10 inch long by nearly 5 inch high..The 1/43's are about 4 inch by 1.5 high...I thought I'd start with the larger one as it's so much easier to shoot than the smaller cars....It could be time to buy that macro lens I've been wanting for so long......