Tips on Toy photography?

[magicalknight]

(Not sure if this is the right place to post this discussion)

Hello! Recently I've been getting into toy photography. It's mainly toys that I come across or I own. Does anyone have tips on photography? I use my Android phone to take pictures. Thanks! 

[Stormness_1]

Depending on your phone and apps you can do lots of different things with your toy photos. I love messing around with filters and stickers, and editing photos by making backgrounds  monochromatic, etc. I use my regular camera app, as well as the LINE Camera, and Photo Art apps available on the play store. My fave pony pic from my phone is this one of my restored G4 Rarity, using  what from memory may have been the 'white cat' filter using Line camera on my Samsung Note 3:

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the key is to get the focus right, and sometimes on a phone it can be super tedious! I just disable tap to take photos in my settings, and then tap to focus on various items in the picture until you get the level of focus you want, like in this photo, regular camera, same phone, not a pony, but same concept:

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[Nemesis]

I'm not exactly an expert on photography, but I can tell you that lighting is tricky with smaller figures! If you're taking pictures indoors, be careful of over- or underwhelming light sources, as they can really ruin a shot. On a similar note, experimenting with lighting and shadows can make for some really fun, dramatic photos! The great thing about photographing dolls and miniatures is that you can have such drastic and complete control of their environment. ^_^

[HelloGoodbye]

I have an Instagram account for photos of my model horses, so I do quite a bit of toy photography for that page!  My main tip would be to get down on the level of the toy to take the picture because then it looks more "natural."  For example, if I pose a model horse in the grass and I take a picture while laying down in the grass it will look better than if I take a picture from above the model horse, which would make it more obvious that its a model.  Also, getting down on the level of the toy can show off its details.

Scale is also important to consider!  If I want to take a realistic picture of a model horse, I will move or avoid things like leaves, some flowers, cars, fences, etc. because they will make the horse seem small by comparison.  In the middle of a photo shoot, it can be easy to forget about this!  I can't tell you how many times I've done a "realistic" photo shoot only to look over my photos and see a giant daisy or something in every shot that ruins the scale Other times, scale isn't important.  Say I found a flower that looks pretty with the color of one of my models, then I'll just go ahead and pose the horse with the flower.  It will be obvious that the horse is small in that case, but the emphasis of the photo would be on the pleasing colors rather than realism.

Those are my main tips!  Hope this helps!

[banditpony]

Lighting is the key for all good photography. Google how to diffuse light on your phone's camera. DIY is a simple piece of tape.

Also you can look into camera phone stands (can be DIY) to keep your phone steady.

And... Have fun experimenting. Take different angles of the same set up. Get up close, stand back, etc etc

[Leave a Whisper]

Your caterpillar photo is amazing Stormness!

[lostpony]

I second (or fifth, how many times has it been mentioned?) that lighting is paramount.

The next is focus which can be a real drag with android....everything I take now is with mine and I really struggled to get pics of a sunset the other day...better than my previous droid but still beyond its ability.  Foreground stuff in broad daylight is so much easier now than it used to be as fone cameras improve.  I'm ready to move on to something with manual shutter control etc.

Next most important is use what your equipment does best:  use that storage space and take many, many of every foto moving the camera slightly in between and changing angles and distances etc and now that we have digital you can always pull up what you just did to see how it worked.  Make sure to zoom in and see how it looks close up!

Try unconventional angles and pay attention to the angle of the lighting....often you can get amazing results from light angles that are considered no good so change it up and decide for yourself how it looks.  There is little worse than when you are trying to pick out which picture is best, finding something good about all of them but no one picture with everything you wanted.  Also move your foreground objects around too....you never know which arrangement you are going to want later so take many.

There will be many settings on your fone so go through them and play with them and figure out what they do....you can use google for some of them.  If you can't get the result you want, try other settings.  Macro mode helps for close-up shots but I find it sometimes doesn't really do anything so when this happens, shoot from further away.  Your fone camera has limits and learning where and what they are makes a big difference on how well you can use it.  Also true of real cameras I assume .....

Oh yes lastly if you are having trouble with blurriness from moving, try breathing in or out slowly instead of holding breath.  I find that the way the button works with mine can make it hard to hold it still while pushing the button and sometimes you are able to switch it to some other button mode if it's giving you trouble.

[Thrice]

Just for the few customs I've done, I've found I prefer outdoor shots with bright indirect sunlight, environmental colors that offset and highlight the pony, and shots level with the pony.

[Lhianneth]

I mostly shoot with a DSLR, but when I take snaps with my phone, the things I always remember to do are pretty much the same as with a fancier camera:

1. Remember your angles. Since you've got a phone, you can see your results before you even snap, which is handy! So move your phone around and try different angles to get the best shot. Getting down low tends to bring the toys to life. Try to get to their "eye height" like you would with a person, child, or pet.

2. Lighting is key. Everybody else has already said this, but it bears repeating over and over. This doesn't mean that every shot has to be lit up brightly, but you should keep in mind what you're going for! If you want to do low-key shots, read up on how the techniques work. If you want to do high-key, or the like, the same bears repeating.

Some easy, DIY stuff to try:
You can make cheap reflectors to bounce light out of aluminium foil, card stock, or even mirrors with a tissue laid over the surface. A reflector can help break-up bright, harsh light, or bounce light into dark corners that you want lit up without having hard-edged shadows. They're really handy to use, for toy photograph and portraits!

You can make diffusers using tissues, white plastic bags, or ping pong balls that you put over flashlight ends. You can use these to light scenes that aren't quite bright enough. You can also use craft or desk lamps with the same. To use tissues, you just open it up, and tape it over. To use bags, you wad up a couple of plastic bags together, and tape them over the end of your light source. For ping pong balls, you have to do a bit of cutting, but you fit them over the end of your light source and they soften it nicely!

You can also make yourself a "white box" for photography (another word for a soft box) using cardboard, white tissue paper, and some poster board. Google those words and you get a tonne of DIY tutorials!

It all depends on the mood and style you want to achieve, but lighting really, really is key there.

3. Know your camera (or in this case, your phone). Make sure you go over your phone's camera settings to see what you can play with. Not just filters and so on, but different modes. A lot of phones these days have some great settings, including aperture priority, shutter priority, or modes like "close-up"/macro or "sports". Try these modes out, to see what they each do and how they affect your photos. If the camera app has a manual mode, definitely try that out! You can really adjust the quality and tone of your photos by limiting depth of field to what you want people to focus on. Selective focus really makes a big difference between casual snapshots and planned photos, in my opinion.

4. Plan ahead! Know what you want to do before you do it. Impulsive photos can result in interesting shots, but if you have a plan in advance, you can turn an interesting shot into an awesome one. This doesn't mean you have to have a written outline of your shoot a week in advance, but having some idea of the goal you're trying to achieve when you start is good. So, say you want to show a Pony at play. Plan out how you think that should go. Will you need props? Will you need something to support her poses? If you think ahead, you'll also start picturing how you want your photos laid out, which will train your eye and make your photos even better!

5. Look at looooots of other photos. Read photography blogs, and just look at others' shots. If you like a photo, you can try to mimic the techniques they used, too (don't copy 1:1, but trying to accomplish what others have done ahead of you helps you learn new skills!)

[magicalknight]

Wow thank you all for the tips! I will definitely note them and remember them!