Nice job
1/48 Dora Wings Messerschmitt Bf-109B
- Thread starter Grant Barr
- Start date
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Snautzer01
Honourably banned
- 40,105
- Mar 26, 2007
Good work so far!
- Thread starter
- #65
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Thanks for the encouragement gents. I haven't been back to the workbench much in the past week - still cleaning up the mess from having to close up on the business. I have done a few bits and bobs which I hope to update over the weekend.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Sorry to hear things went south on the business opportunity.....
On the modelling front doing good.
On the modelling front doing good.
- Thread starter
- #67
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Thanks Wayne - hard to keep a fledgling business afloat when your customers suddenly can't come in for treatment! Good news was no one was hurt, with the exception of my bank balance...
Just finished a short session with the 109 - will try to put some pics up tomorrow.
Just finished a short session with the 109 - will try to put some pics up tomorrow.
- Thread starter
- #68
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Pics of progress below.
Repainted the engine with a "dirty" black - mixed with a bit of grey and dark yellow to reduce the stark black colour I had previously. Painted the engine mount frame with a grey (cant quite recall what the RLM # was).
Also touched up places with silver/dark grey Prismacolor pencils to highlight a bit of wear and tear. Exhaust stacks and panels added - to be touched up later.
I've added the two radiator blocks under the engine and given them the same treatment.
Again I must apologise for the slight blurriness of the photos. I have realised two things this morning:
That's all for this morning - thanks for dropping by.
Repainted the engine with a "dirty" black - mixed with a bit of grey and dark yellow to reduce the stark black colour I had previously. Painted the engine mount frame with a grey (cant quite recall what the RLM # was).
Also touched up places with silver/dark grey Prismacolor pencils to highlight a bit of wear and tear. Exhaust stacks and panels added - to be touched up later.
I've added the two radiator blocks under the engine and given them the same treatment.
Again I must apologise for the slight blurriness of the photos. I have realised two things this morning:
- My eyesight is shot - I can't just look through the view finder anymore and expect to get it right. I now need to wear glasses for this as well....
- I need to learn how to get a deeper field with macro shots from my camera - so it's back to reading the damn manual.
That's all for this morning - thanks for dropping by.
fubar57
General
Good stuff Grant. I rarely use straight black any more. Instead I use Tamiya XF63 German Grey, XF69 Nato Black and XF85 Rubber Black, this listed from lightest to darkest. I wear 3x reading glasses while doing my model thangs, really clears things up. And like you, I'm just starting to read my camera manual even though I've had the camera for about three years
If you do use straight Black (Tamiya) , XF-19 Sky Grey lightly dry brushed tones it down nicely.....
fubar57
General
Good to know Wayne, duly noted
- Thread starter
- #73
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Thanks Geo & Wayne - good feedback. Something to play with for the next model...
Crimea_River
Marshal
Nice work Grant. In a nutshell, higher depth of field is achieved with a smaller aperture opening (I.e.higher FStop number). Of course the smaller opening means less light gets in so the compensation is a longer exposure that increases the risk of blurry images due to camera shake. You need to find a sweet spot for this or do as I do: use a tripod with highest FStop number and a remote release. That said, I have found my cell phone camera (Samsung S6) to take more than adequate pictures close in.
- Thread starter
- #75
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Thanks Andy. I bought a Nikon D7100 a few years ago for taking photos at the MotoGP and SuperBike races each year and spent a lot time working out how to take high speed shots with telephoto lenses. Now I'm going almost the complete opposite direction. Seems that depth of field is not easily adjusted once you get in this close (at least not on this Nikon). It seems I have lost the mini-tripod I bought with the camera, so I think that is the next step to try as my hands are not as steady as they once were.
I have tried the phone (iPhone 6) to take shots of models, but they always look slightly off. Can't put my finger on what it is that looks wrong, but they definitely are not anywhere near as good as the DLR.
Thanks for the advice.
Crimea_River
Marshal
Not familiar with the Nikon but for auto races with a long lens you probably used a set shutter speed to get the background blur. So instead of doing that for your models, you need to find the "aperture preferred" setting and set it to something like F24. If that shows a corresponding shutter speed of 1/60 or so, you should be able to get away with holding the camera in your hand.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Agreed, although 1/60th could still cause camera shake, depending on angles and distance from subject.
With a quality DSLR such as your Nikon, it may be better to "shoot" from further back, possibly / probably without using the macro settings, at around f22 or smaller (eg f26, f32 etc) if lighting allows, although a tripod would be better for this. Select "AP" on the control dial ( Aperture Priority ) and adjust the aperture as required. The smaller the aperture (bigger f number) the larger the depth of field. However, when getting in close, the depth of field can actually be reduced, and with auto focus, the main subject may de slightly out of focus in some areas, Using manual focus may help in this instance.
(On the "old" film SLR cameras, with manual focus, the range of the DoF for a given distance from the subject was shown on a scale on the lens barrel, for example, between 3 feet and 9 feet from the focal plane of the camera. This meant that any subject within those ranges would be in focus, as would the foreground and background.).
To obtain optimum results when photographing, for example, a detail area of a model, "shooting" from further back from the subject, instead of trying to get close up, and then cropping the desired area from the full size image very often gives better overall results, and the same can be said when photographing the full subject, such as a completed model.
The example below shows the full image (in this case reduced to 800 x 585 px for forum use), and a "crop" from the full-sized image, re-sized to the same dimensions.
From memory, the original image was taken at a distance of around 18 inches to 24 inches, using the Nikon 18-55mm lens set at around 35mm, with the aperture at F22, and at ISO 200, using Tungsten lighting at that time. Some slight adjustments were made for brightness and contrast in "Irfanview" on my PC, and then the "crop" was produced, and downsized to the finished image.
Hope this helps.
With a quality DSLR such as your Nikon, it may be better to "shoot" from further back, possibly / probably without using the macro settings, at around f22 or smaller (eg f26, f32 etc) if lighting allows, although a tripod would be better for this. Select "AP" on the control dial ( Aperture Priority ) and adjust the aperture as required. The smaller the aperture (bigger f number) the larger the depth of field. However, when getting in close, the depth of field can actually be reduced, and with auto focus, the main subject may de slightly out of focus in some areas, Using manual focus may help in this instance.
(On the "old" film SLR cameras, with manual focus, the range of the DoF for a given distance from the subject was shown on a scale on the lens barrel, for example, between 3 feet and 9 feet from the focal plane of the camera. This meant that any subject within those ranges would be in focus, as would the foreground and background.).
To obtain optimum results when photographing, for example, a detail area of a model, "shooting" from further back from the subject, instead of trying to get close up, and then cropping the desired area from the full size image very often gives better overall results, and the same can be said when photographing the full subject, such as a completed model.
The example below shows the full image (in this case reduced to 800 x 585 px for forum use), and a "crop" from the full-sized image, re-sized to the same dimensions.
From memory, the original image was taken at a distance of around 18 inches to 24 inches, using the Nikon 18-55mm lens set at around 35mm, with the aperture at F22, and at ISO 200, using Tungsten lighting at that time. Some slight adjustments were made for brightness and contrast in "Irfanview" on my PC, and then the "crop" was produced, and downsized to the finished image.
Hope this helps.
Good work so far!
- Thread starter
- #79
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Thanks for the photography tips gents - just need to find the time to experiment with it!!
It's been a busy week and I have been trying to do a little bit to the 109 each night. I've cleaned up and filled sink holes on the prop, and engine cowl panels. The radiator shroud below the engine was a real fit issue, all the fuselage and radiator panels required trimming back and the shroud panels themselves needed to be thinned and carefully reshaped to make sure the panels slip exactly into position. I must have spent 2 to 3 hours trimming and test fitting this panel - good news is it fits pretty darn well now!
The same goes for the rudder and elevators. Both the rear edges of the vertical and horizontal stabilisers needed to be recessed to a concave shape so the rudder and elevators fit more snugly into the stabilisers. You can just see the recesses on their back edges in the photo. This tool me hours to complete as well, but I am still not 100% happy with the fit. I've noticed on reference photos that the angled outer sections of the rudder (at top) and elevators have a largish gap to the stabilisers, however the gap I have with this model looks to be too large. I'm thinking I need to place a very thin slice of plastic card here to shrink the gap to something closer to the gap at 1/48 scale.
In cleaning up and modifying the fit for some of these parts I have lost a few panel lines, so re-scribing panel lines will be a job for the weekend as well.
Not much else to report, thanks for looking in.
It's been a busy week and I have been trying to do a little bit to the 109 each night. I've cleaned up and filled sink holes on the prop, and engine cowl panels. The radiator shroud below the engine was a real fit issue, all the fuselage and radiator panels required trimming back and the shroud panels themselves needed to be thinned and carefully reshaped to make sure the panels slip exactly into position. I must have spent 2 to 3 hours trimming and test fitting this panel - good news is it fits pretty darn well now!
The same goes for the rudder and elevators. Both the rear edges of the vertical and horizontal stabilisers needed to be recessed to a concave shape so the rudder and elevators fit more snugly into the stabilisers. You can just see the recesses on their back edges in the photo. This tool me hours to complete as well, but I am still not 100% happy with the fit. I've noticed on reference photos that the angled outer sections of the rudder (at top) and elevators have a largish gap to the stabilisers, however the gap I have with this model looks to be too large. I'm thinking I need to place a very thin slice of plastic card here to shrink the gap to something closer to the gap at 1/48 scale.
In cleaning up and modifying the fit for some of these parts I have lost a few panel lines, so re-scribing panel lines will be a job for the weekend as well.
Not much else to report, thanks for looking in.
