Alafista enjoys capturing photos of his figurine collection so much that he has decided to share with us the best ways you can capture the essence and detail of your favorite toy figurine with a simple compact like the Canon IXUS. In this month’s Compact guide we dive into the art of Figurine Photography.
Figurine photography is becoming a popular pastime amongst collectors in Singapore and Japan. Personally, I have a room filled with figurines of anime and video game characters, and being able to take beautiful photos of my collection and showcase them to my friends and readers is one of the main reasons why I enjoy figurine photography.
Friends and fellow collectors have complained that you need a good DSLR camera to be able to capture good shots. However, I always tell them that it’s not about how big your camera sensor is, but how you put it to good use. A combination of good lighting (usually a table lamp will suffice) and interesting background is more than sufficient to bring out the wow factor in your shots, even if you are using a simple compact camera like my IXUS 220 HS.
The advantage of using a compact camera is that it allows you get close up macro shots of your figurines with just a simple touch of a button. Macro shots tend to offer different yet interesting perspectives and it allows you to see the intricate craftsmanship that was put into making the figurine.
Of course, you don’t necessarily have to stick to just shooting in colours. The “monochrome” creative filter on my IXUS was put to good use in the following shot and it gives me a much cooler shot of Black Rock Shooter that has more contrast.
In addition to shooting in macro, another thing you might want to try out is incorporating interesting backgrounds into the shot. Take for example this shot of Ironman, I put a simple circuit board behind him and it made the shot much more interesting.
In the subsequent shot, all I did was to shine a small lamp behind the circuit board to achieve an effect like it was still in operation and Ironman was really interacting with it. By using your creativity, it helps to create much more wonders and as you can see, the low light sensitivity of the IXUS managed quite well under the low light conditions of this shot.
Another reason why I really like the IXUS compact camera is because of the “Super Vivid” creative filter. It tends to work really well in figurine photography and gives the extra oomph to bring out the colours of the figurines. Take for instance, the two shots of “Yuri” were shot using the Super Vivid function and colours seemed to jump out against the brown background.
A final note is to always try to take multiple shots of the figurine from different angles. The compact camera is small enough to let me maneuver around the figurine while still in macro mode and find those difficult to reach angles that might just be the perfect shot.
So there you go, get your creative juices flowing and soon you’ll be able to take interesting figurine shots that will wow your friends. All you need is a little innovation and a Canon IXUS Camera.
