With a week left until the exhibition, a little bit of panic is beginning to set in! Something important and time consuming that needed doing urgently was the backscene. As you've seen in a previous blog, this will make a huge difference to the layout. Having looked at the forecast, and given that time is going to be tight considering how long it could take to be printed (still no guarantee that it will make it in time, but let's just hope it does!), it was a case of going out today (well, yesterday technically since it's gone 2am here) or never!
In the end, I apparently had a 3 hour window where there would be no rain, so I ventured down to arrive at Hurst Spit for 3pm, giving me 2 hours of hopeful sunshine. When I left home it was raining heavily (and then I drove through 2 more showers during the hour long journey!), but upon arrival at Hurst it was beautifully clear weather; thankfully with only a few people braving the windy and changeable conditions.
With the bonus of free parking, I got the tripod and DSLR out the car and set about battling the wind (and my word, was it a battle, even with a tripod!). I did consider walking down the 2.5mile spit to take some at the very end, but somehow the long walk on shingle just didn't appeal to me (I've done it before!). The castle at the end is very interesting though, so if you're ever in the area, the walk is worth it (or there's also a ferry from Keyhaven).
Quite contempt with not walking too much on the shingle (And given the bitterly strong wind), I barely got on the spit when I found an ideal location for some panoramas. Since all I need is a tiny bit of sea, a lot of sky, and preferably The Needles; anywhere along the spit would be fine!
Having spent a few hours tonight (these things always take longer than expected!) using a panorama stitching program (it's free; Windows Image Composite Editor), I finally ended up with some half decent panoramas. Compared to Calshot's backscene, the clouds in these ones are much less prominent and threatening, which actually suits the sunbleached fictional Sandy Shores pretty well!
Taking the photos:
Now, I'm not an expert at photography, that much I am quick to state! However, here are some things to think about if you ever consider taking photos for a backscene; some more obvious than others:
Above: Not a huge amount of sky, but the colouring is spot on, and it has a nice summer haze feel to it.
Above: This one is full of problems! The obvious one is the sun, and resulting glare. But there's also the beach bottom left, the colouring is too vibrant, and the market post is there again!
Above: Similar to the 3rd one, but fewer clouds and a slightly darker colour - almost too dark?
Above: And just to show how far away the castle is, here's a telephoto shot of the end of the spit. No good for Sandy Shores, but quite a nice background if it wasn't for the huge shingle spit on the right!
Phew. That was a lengthy post! Anyway, hope that may be of interest to someone!
In the end, I apparently had a 3 hour window where there would be no rain, so I ventured down to arrive at Hurst Spit for 3pm, giving me 2 hours of hopeful sunshine. When I left home it was raining heavily (and then I drove through 2 more showers during the hour long journey!), but upon arrival at Hurst it was beautifully clear weather; thankfully with only a few people braving the windy and changeable conditions.
With the bonus of free parking, I got the tripod and DSLR out the car and set about battling the wind (and my word, was it a battle, even with a tripod!). I did consider walking down the 2.5mile spit to take some at the very end, but somehow the long walk on shingle just didn't appeal to me (I've done it before!). The castle at the end is very interesting though, so if you're ever in the area, the walk is worth it (or there's also a ferry from Keyhaven).
Quite contempt with not walking too much on the shingle (And given the bitterly strong wind), I barely got on the spit when I found an ideal location for some panoramas. Since all I need is a tiny bit of sea, a lot of sky, and preferably The Needles; anywhere along the spit would be fine!
Having spent a few hours tonight (these things always take longer than expected!) using a panorama stitching program (it's free; Windows Image Composite Editor), I finally ended up with some half decent panoramas. Compared to Calshot's backscene, the clouds in these ones are much less prominent and threatening, which actually suits the sunbleached fictional Sandy Shores pretty well!
Taking the photos:
Now, I'm not an expert at photography, that much I am quick to state! However, here are some things to think about if you ever consider taking photos for a backscene; some more obvious than others:
- Set your camera to manual mode if possible. Set the correct ISO (I think I went with 200 here, since it was pretty sunny), and set the fastest shutter speed you can get away with. Turn off things that may interfere with consistency; that's things like active D-lighting and auto-focus.
- Use a tripod. Always!
- If your camera has a live display, don't use it. You'll need it off to use the high shutter speeds. Otherwise you won't be able to press the shutter button fast enough, and with things moving (i.e. waves in these photos), you won't get a good panorama (for obvious reasons!)
- Overlap each photo as much as possible. Not only does this make it easier for the software to stitch, it gives more reliable results, and if one of the photos isn't any good (i.e. a bird flies in!) then you haven't lost out. You can airbrush some stuff out (I had to edit a bird out of one of these panoramas), but other problems may not be so easy to fix.
- Predominantly take photos in portrait orientation, rather than landscape. This means you get more height in the panorama without having to take two levels of photos (land, and sky).
- The bigger the size of the photo, the better! This also applies to the settings of your camera, and what camera you use. So make sure everything is on maximum quality and size! DSLRs are preferred, but Calshot's backscene was done with a point-and-shoot digital camera (although that was 9 years ago!).
- Think about the time of year and weather conditions you want to portray on your model, then plan your visit accordingly! Don't do what I did and leave the backscene to the last minute!
- Always take multiple panoramas (I went through over 600 images in total today, with 20+ panoramas). Only a few are likely to be good enough, so I never expect to nail it first go.
- Consider what you need for your background. Will you need to flip the image (as I will need to) whilst editing the image? Will that cause problems with any text etc.? Try and frame your panorama well. Whilst easy to crop later, you'll end up with a smaller panorama!
- Is there anything glaringly obvious that is out of time period for your modelled era? Satellite dishes are easily forgotten about in particular. But also think about any houses, cars, boats that are in the shot.
- Oh, almost forgot. The most important one - check your horizon is level! My tripod is old and knackered, so I'd recommend getting one with mini-spirit levels so you can adjust the legs and get it level. Also, a handy tip, most cameras have a grid view in the viewfinder - use it to get your horizon level. Something I found that helped is turning on the grid whilst on live view mode, checking the horizon is level, then switching live mode off when I'm happy with it.
I'm sure there are other factors to consider, but that's all I can think of at 2am!
Editing them:
- Windows Image Composite Editor is free to use, and is just as versatile as most paid software! For editing I just use Paint.NET (a free, and much more advanced version of Windows Paint). Cheapskate? Me? Did I mention scouting out for the free parking!
- Check and recheck the stitched panorama for any issues. All of mine have been tweaked somewhat, some more seriously than others. Stitching is rarely perfect, especially when you were battling wind whilst taking the photos!
- Tone down your final panoramic image. As with all modelling, I try to tone down/desaturate colours a little bit; backscenes are no different. A vibrant backscene with vivid colours, whilst nice, will stand out like a sore thumb! Even the first panorama shown below is a little too vibrant for my liking, particularly for the seaside haze I'm looking for.
- Again, bigger, and max quality, is best! Whilst cropping/framing the image to suit the layout is important (all mine have been cropped somewhat), you want to keep the file as big as possible.
- Make sure your final image is in the correct aspect ratio for that which is required for the layout.
- For print, you will have to send a 300dpi image to the printers for decent quality. I won't explain what that means here; it would take forever, but there are plenty of resources online with a quick "Google"! If in doubt, ask the printers - they know what they're doing!
Above: This first one is a little too vibrant for me, and will need de-saturating a little. Framing wise, it's pretty spot-on though for my needs; it's got a huge sky, and the horizon is low (although I'll probably flip the image).
Above: Can you spot the problem with this one? Colouring looks fine, but that marker post is in the way! Also, there is not enough sky.
Phew. That was a lengthy post! Anyway, hope that may be of interest to someone!
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