picture this (2)...

Internet shopping is amazing. Two days after my last post regarding photographing figures, I've got a small cell phone tripod, a remote shutter release and a macro lens with which to experiment.
My goal was to use the tripod and remote shutter to avoid camera shake. The shutter release is fine. It's a simple BlueTooth device that connects with the phone. However, I'm not convinced that the tripod is of much use. It consists of three flexible legs attached to a spring loaded 'c' clamp that holds the phone. While it does just as advertised, I find the clamp to be difficult to hold open when inserting or removing the phone. I think I'd prefer something that slides to adjust for the size of the phone and is then tightened with a thumb screw to secure it. But the real issue is simply that the tripod's minimum height is about five inches above table height. Which means that I need to raise the surface upon which the figure is sitting if I want to photograph from the same level. It's an easy enough issue to fix by using a stack of books of the proper height as a platform, but it's inconvenient. All in all, the tripod just makes it trickier to line up the shot.

I find it much easier to just set the figures on the table then set the edge of the phone/camera on the table too. If I need to raise the camera half an inch or so, I just grab an appropriate number of playing cards (well, Longstreet order cards, really) to raise the camera lens to the height desired. As long as I keep the camera on the cards/table, camera shake doesn't appear to be an issue. So... the shutter release probably won't get a lot of use, either.

I installed a free, open source Android camera app for the phone. Open Camera is exactly what I wanted. This is heads and tales above the default camera app that came with the phone. As a matter of fact, Open Camera provides a zoom function from 1x to 4x. I think this will pretty much make the macro lens--which is a fixed 10x--superfluous. I'll have to experiment a bit more to see exactly what the capabilities are.

The warrior maiden who oversee my on-line shopping tells me that the 4 'natural light' LED lamps should arrive tomorrow. Then I'll really be ready to learn the ins-and-outs of miniature photography. Once the lights arrive then I'll concentrate on finding a good continuous background solution.

Meanwhile here are my test shots for today:

1:600 scale Dutch War Artisan ship

1:600 scale Dutch War Artisan ship

1:600 scale Dutch War Artisan ship

25mm Old Glory Gallic Chariot

25mm Old Glory Gallic Chariot

25mm Old Glory Gallic Chariot

25mm Wargames Factory Romans

25mm Wargames Factory Romans

25mm Wargames Factory Romans