First let me say one thing, the cameras I use aren't honestly the important part of what I'm going to mention here. The main thing to take away is that no matter what camera you use its' YOU that takes the photo. Are your photos dark/blurry/out of focus? It's most likely your fault, not the camera. The camera is a tool, it's your job to learn to use it and use it the the best that camera can be used. People take pictures, cameras don't.
You need to brightly light your subject with the same type of light on at least 2 sides to fully light it. That's what to take away from this... don't try to work against yourself by taking photos of slot cars in dim light... yes they will turn out dark and probably kinda crappy.
-Get close to what you're shooting.
-"Fill" the viewfinder with the subject. So if you're shooting a slot car most of the viewfinder should be the slot car.
-Focus on the closest part of the slot car. Nothing is more distracting that something out of focus in a photo that's right in your face.
-Light the subject so it's easy to see what you're shooting.
So what do I use for cameras for shooting slot cars? Well about 90% of the time I use either my iPhone or my Canon G9 point and shoot. Yes, really. Why? They have excellent macro focus functions. "Macro" means close focus, which means less than about a foot of focus from the camera to the subject. This is the camera that I got maybe in 2007 or 2008... hard to remember at this point honestly.
A true macro lens for an SLR is pretty pricey and frankly I don't have the money and since this camera and the iPhone do such a nice job it's hard to justify spending that kind of money in any case. At some point I'll hopefully buy another point and shoot with a hot shoe (the place where I slide in the trigger for the flash units) so I can upgrade to a more respectable camera :lol:
The lights I use are really the huge difference between getting crappy dark, underexposed images that are too "chunky looking" with the pixels showing.
I've been using these lights since I started working for SCX. Nearly every photo that I've posted of a slot car on a white/black/scenery background has been made using these lights as either flashes OR continuous bright light. There is a switch on the back where you can turn these lights on to use what's called the "modeling lights" which is nothing more than a continuous light that you're supposed to use BEFORE you use the flashes to throw tons of light at your subject.
I use only these 2 lights, I don't have a "ring light" or any other lights I use to take these studio photos.
These are the lights:
This is where I bought them and while this specific set is a slightly newer version of what I have, essentially this is what I use.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... ftbox.html
For static subjects, meaning things that I'm taking photos of that aren't moving like a new slot car, I use either the iPhone or the G9 as I've said. For events I've done however I nearly never use the G9 because it's crap at anything moving or things that might not be brightly lit. For events I've done I've used a variety of cameras and that does get into much more expensive gear. I use a Canon 6D and a variety of lenses from a 17-35mm to a 300mm. Also I use pair of GoPro cameras (a Session "cube" and a Hero5 Black) which I use for both video and photos. I mount the GoPros on a selfie stick... yes, a selfie stick, so i can hold the camera either very high or very low. For a number of quick photos I will also use the iPhone but i try to avoid it if the light is very low. For these cameras I nearly NEVER use flash. I HATE on camera flash for anything other than studio work. I feel that I can most often get well lit images by either moving around a subject to get the best angle for the light I have available.
A bit about my photography background.
Before I had worked for SCX (2007-2010), Carrera (2010-2017) I worked for a number of newspapers from Danville Pennsylvania to the San Francisco Examiner over about 14 or so years as a freelance/full time staff photographer. I shot a variety of events from very local like "Pet of the week", check passings and school board meetings to covering the visit of Pope Benedict to NYC, Hurricane Katrina, the Super Bowl and World Series in 2002 to the 2004 Republican National Convention and Pro Sports in the NYC area for a number of years. As a news shooter you get thrown an assignment and it's up to YOU to figure that stuff out... come back with something they can't publish, you won't have your job long.
I suppose I had one photo that was the highlight of my news career and that was shot on an assignment for the Associated Press while I worked as a freelancer for them in San Francisco. It was this photo of the Oakland A's Miguel Tejada celebrating the HR by jumping into the air after connecting on a home run that tied an American League record for consecutive wins. The photo, shot for the AP, was used widely the next day... the NY Times, LA Times, USA Today, Washington Post and pretty much every newspaper in the San Francisco Bay Area also used the photo as well.
I did a quick Google search and found this.
This was one of I think 3 images I sent to the AP that day of this moment. I got another frame (which i cannot find the dvd of images from that day at the moment so i pulled this from Google images as well) of him stretched out a bit more but his toe was going out of the bottom of the frame and that's always bothered me about that frame specifically.
It takes a long time to learn to use a camera to its fullest. But it's up to you to learn to use it if you're excited about taking pictures of anything. TAKE lots of photos! I NEVER and I mean NEVER take one photo of a slot car and call it a day. I will take at least 2-4-6x of a single angle to see if I got exactly what i want at that moment. When I'm shooting slot pix I always look at every single frame every single time. If I feel I've gotten that angle I move on to another angle. And no, I'm nearly never totally happy with the photos. I'm always learning something even after more than 25 years of shooting. You never know everything there is to know about a craft like photography. Just like with any skill, you always refine a technique.
Some recent work:
For GT Slots for the Facebook page I built and manage for him:
Taken with the G9 with the lights on a white background. The backgrounds i use are construction paper that I bought at Michaels. They are either white or black and they're 22"x28". I run images through PhotoShop to get the backgrounds nice and white and lighten or darken areas that might need it and to resize and sharpen the images just a bit. I do VERY little in PhotoShop other than resize images for the web. Most message boards have 950px as the widest dimension. That's how I size them normally. Whether it's a vertical photo or horizontal orientation.
iPhone images I like to post on Instagram because there are cool filters you can use to give a mood to the photos if you're into that.
Some iPhone images:
My Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/DaveMKennedy
My Instagram page:
https://www.instagram.com/davemkennedy/
I'd be happy to answer questions if anyone has any.
Dave K
