Hello painters of the Dark Lands. Amidst recent prodding to do the thing I was virtually bullied into starting this thread. I am by no means a photography expert which will no doubt show here but maybe that gives folks encouragement that it doesn’t take much to get your Golden Hat entries in ship shape. As many lament, photos can be the most difficult part of entering the contests. We all create lovely models on this forum, it’s time to show them off properly!
To start this will mainly focus on the black backdrop style I use but I would strongly encourage anyone to add lessons learned in photography and/or share their setups in this thread to collect our knowledge here.
STEP 1: BOX
Here is a simple cardboard box with one side cut out to let in ceiling ambient light. Two of the flaps have also had windows cut in them. Those side windows were covered with white tissue paper ideally with as few wrinkles or creases as possible. This helps diffuse the light from my crappy lamps. I’m sure better lamps/bulbs would be… better?
For a while I just had black construction paper in the box for backdrop. It works okay, but could be better. Results look like the below image. You could certainly stop here for the dirt cheap easy setup.
STEP 2: SHE LIKES CLOTH
Upgrade your setup by becoming an apprentice to the Sith Lord, Darth Backdrop. @MichaelX turned to the dark side first and convinced me quickly with the results he was getting. Even in this picture you can see the difference between black paper and black cloth. Green Stuff World has a few different sizes but I went with the XL MAXX DARTH. If anyone has any alternative sellers of a similar product please link them in here! GSW also has 
full lightbox solutions but like… just… grab a box… and… some lights… Hopefully the pictures below will at least justify the cloth purchase compared to sad doot Squidward above.
STEP 3: PHONE
We all know the primary purpose of a phone is for taking pictures of your minis. Camera experts say that better cameras would be better but you can get okay results with a phone. I have a dumb tripod to eliminate hand shaking that I admittedly skip sometimes when I want a specific angle. Also, I tend to add a 3 second timer so the pictures are delayed from the movement of pressing the button. Small tip, minimal extra effort. Does it help? Probably?
STEP 4: DARKER THAN BLACK
Now that I’ve wasted your time and money for something that still looks meh like the below, let’s try to actually black out.
It’s amazing how much dust impacts the result. To maintain your cloth, buy lint rollers and don’t leave the cloth in the open collecting dust for long periods whilst you’re just fosching your pile of shame and not doing any BATG. Also don’t fold your cloth when storing, roll instead so it doesn’t develop creases.
Try to position your mini a good bit away from the back of the backdrop. The backdrop, should be the background, in the back. Play with this depending on the size of the mini, the size of your box, and which cloth you buy. The XL cloth gives you more flexibility to move your mini around. I’m sure trial and error was exactly the advice you were looking for to really speedrun your way to the Golden Hat Hall of Fame.
Play with these factors to get a good result that keeps most of the mini in focus while getting a nice blackground. Take a lot of pictures and write down what you did that worked for you.
- Drag those exposure settings down.
- You don’t need to put the camera too close to the mini.
- You don’t need to zoom in too much, cropping after the fact is okay.
As I said, please add any of your experiences taking photos of your collection. Camera advice for pros? Tips for white backgrounds? Post processing tips? Any other purchasable solutions?
Here’s a before and after Darth Cloth comparison.
