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Poor Man’s Figure Photography Setup

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Friday, January 7th, 2011 at 10:54 am

Me and my fiance decided to go to our local mall here to buy something to eat for dinner. We are near the exit of the mall when I noticed a book inside the arts & crafts store.

Since we already stopped in front of the store, My fiance decided to go and look inside since she told me she needs those sticky notes for her work. At the same time, I was really thinking of getting some random materials that i think will help me on my figure photography hobby.

I checked the items inside the store and bought the ff:

4 pcs of square shaped styrofoams

a pack of toothpicks

tape

tracing paper

4 pcs of colored paper (really don’t know what it’s called)

Spent roughly $3.

I used those materials to create something like this:

Poor Man's Figure Photography Setup (2)

Poor Man's Figure Photography Setup

 
Light setup is composed of 1 7 watts (front) and 1 3 watts (top) daylight bulb. I used the tracing paper as a light diffuser. I used Daylight for my White Balance although some of my photog friends told me to just leave it @ auto. (I really don’t like the image if its under auto)

Poor Man's Figure Photography Setup (3)

Poor Man's Figure Photography Setup

Poor Man's Figure Photography Setup (4)

Poor Man's Figure Photography Setup

 
I used the toothpicks to assemble the styrofoams as the platform for my figures. Also used the colored paper as the backgdrop.

And here’s the sample shot using my custom setup.

Poor Man's Figure Photography Setup (5)

Poor Man's Figure Photography Setup

 
Not bad for $3 eh? :P

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POST CURRENTLY HAS 2 Comments
  1. Thursday, December 27th, 2012 at 11:42 PM

    nice setup….thanks for sharing…
    i love take photo with my figures too,ive a dslr camera but i didnt know which lense is suitable for this type of photography…can u help me?

  2. Friday, December 28th, 2012 at 12:15 AM

    @xynsawa: Thanks! You don’t actually need an expensive lens to take great pictures. Even the stock lens 18-55mm will work great in figure photography. You just need to know how to use all the manual controls of your DSLR and how to control the lighting in your shots :)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
About The Author Nico Cardenas is the creative mind behind Otakumouse: Toy And Figure Blog. He has a very strong interest in Japan's otaku subculture. He's a gamer, figure collector, and a noob photographer. He currently works as a full time Interactive Designer based in Manila, Philippines. Shoot him an email at needlemouseinteractive@gmail.com.
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