New Panther picture with diffuse lighting

Following suggestions from http://www.theminiaturespage.com I tried taking a picture of my tanks with diffuse lighting. The lighting in my light box comes from four 2' tube lights mounted in a square box that you generally see in an office ceiling. To make the light diffuse, I taped thin packing tissue under this box, so the light has to pass through this. I think the tanks look better. I may now be able to fool around with the image to accurately depict what the tank really looks like.

Photo frustration with my airbrushed tanks

I have been painting, airbrushing, washing, dry brushing, tweaking and teasing some WW2 German panther tanks for a few months. In life they look fantastic. I'm not just saying that because I put so much work into them. They really do look great. They have bags of contrast, dark spaces that look dirty, faded out cammo (actually you can hardly tell that they are cammo, they are so faded and "dirty"), yet the dry brushing picks up all the raised areas, especially the zimmermit anti magnetic mine paste, while leaving the dark areas still looking dark.

So what is the problem? Well, the photos I have been able to take look awful. There is no exposure setting that can really show the dark areas, while maintaining any light. There is no setting that shows the light areas properly at all. The best I can do is fade the whole thing to a light colour which totally wipes out the contrast. It looks like I've done a crappy job.

My next hope is to combine images with a HDR package like GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program). HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. Computer programs, or the cameras themselves, combine several exposures to produce a range of exposure that would not normally be possible. Here are three images I took at different exposure settings. Firstly, the one the camera wanted, next -1 exposure value, lastly -2 exposure values.

This is the image my camera wanted to take. It has totally zapped the contrast.  Those areas that look a little darker in the photo are really dark, with that yellow colour dry brushed over showing up the zimmermit.

Second photo at -1 exposure value.

Third photo, at -2 exposure value compared to the first, and coming closer to the darkness for some of the dark areas (which are still darker in reality)

The tanks are from Old Glory USA.

10mm 7YW Pendraken Prussian infantry

I've finished 38 Prussian battalions. This is just a sneak peak. The units are musketeer, fusilier, and mixed grenadier regiments in a variety of poses. First battalions have a mounted officer.

28mm Old Glory Sudan Camel Corps

I bought a few bags of Old Glory, mainly Renaissance and Colonial,  figures to see what they are like. I've an interest in Sudan games, having seen an article about Peter Guilder's collection in Battle Games magazine.

I think these figures are really nice. They can add some variety to your colonial games i.e. break up all those Perry figures..

The Ride of the Valkyries in 15mm

I'm painting a huge Vietnam Commission for a customer. Here are some of the eighteen helicopters in the order. I didn't get all the decals, which were forgotten when the order was posted to me. So you will see that some helicopters are "bare". The Helicopters are from Battlefront.

The gun ship's sharks teeth were hand painted as Battlefront's transfers are hopeless.

Where there are markings on helicopters, they are for the the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion which famously supported elements of the 7th cavalry at LZ Xray. Battlefront probably decided to offer these decals due to the popularity of the film "We were soldiers" which depicted events of that battle.

Command Decision 15mm Panther tanks

I've actually painted, and repainted, these tanks a few times. I gave up on my harder and Steenbeck airbrushes (two!) and ordered an Iwata. After fooling around with the Iwata I got terrible results until I realised that the nozzle was clogged. Doh!

This present incarnation of my tank tactics has the vehicles base coated, then ink washed, and then "highlighted" in parts again with the base colour, which is desert yellow in this case. The over sprayed camouflage colours were sprayed quite faintly (except on tank A where the brown came out a bit heavy) as this is what I've seen from most period photography. This could have been as a result of wear and tear.

I've lettered the tanks to make commenting easier. Any thoughts?

Italeri Roman infantry (set number 6021)

There are many nice, and very cheap, plastics sets on the market. I've painted this set of Romans for someone in Australia

The building in the background was there so I could check the colour balance for the camera. I broke my Canon SLR camera, which will take months to get fixed, and have had to use my "holiday" camera. After a lot of experimentation I managed to get some decent pictures. At least the colours in the photograph are an accurate reflection of the colours on the figures.