Dinky Toys photography specials

You're right Richard, impressive but incomprehensable! The majority of the vehicles shown may never have touched an American road in reality. Still, a lovely scene! BLAW KNOX ADVANCING

I guess this will slow the rush hour down in Dinky Land tonight. Dave

Dave--Nice scene there, and I like the Bedford 'Dinky' van prominently centered in the picture....very appropriate! Terry

Splendid Dave ! nothing to add but what a job to prepare the shooting ! Richard

Hopefully you won't get stuck behind this for too many miles at 20mph Dave

Dave--I am working on my photography and would like some advise on lighting. I shoot indoors and do not have access to direct or filtered sunlight, so need to rely on artificial lighting. What type of lighting do you recommend and how many to give good, adequate lighting and to eliminate shadows. I have not gone down to my local camera store yet, but that is probably next. Thanks! Terry

Terry, I also do my photography indoors. Just take a good place in a well-day-lit room, not too far from a window but without direct sun and that will perfectly do. If the other surroundings -like ceiling, carpet etc. - have light colours or white the light will be distributed even better. Artificial light is too 'sterile' in my opinion, but of course - with the right colour of the light - that will also do. With natural daylight you are more dependent on the weather and you can obviously not take photographs at night. In Photoshop the colour of regular artificial light can even be 'neutralized'. Just some favourites of mine, all done indoors with regular daylight: Kind regards, Jan

I like Jan use a simple table top set-up. There is a south facing window behind the camera and there is an LED light bar on the ceiling above. Like Jan I ALWAYS use a tripod and have all the settings on the camera to manual. Dave

Dave and Jan--Thanks for the tips on lighting and camera work in general. I presently have a photo area set up upstairs that has plenty of room for me to work and a large table area, but has very little natural light. The only real options for me to use natural light are either go outdoors, which many days is bright sunlight, or use our breakfast nook, which has windows on two sides, and may end up working.....I will have to try it and see. I also use a tripod and have been setting my camera for max depth of field, but using auto settings for exposure. I know you use manual setting....do you use a handheld light meter then? Thanks again to you both for tutoring an amateur........hopefully my efforts will improve! The subjects we all have all wonderful in their own right. I would also like to experiment including some of my American Flyer trains....I have both freight and passenger cars, steam and diesel locomotives. They are S gauge, meaning 1/64' scale, which is too small for many of the Dinky's to really look right, but some of the smaller trucks such as the Austin Wagons, and the Fordson Flat truck and trailers will work just fine. Not sure I want to delve into Photoshop....it appears to be a very complex program, needing quite a bit of instruction and/or help. Terry

I use an SLR which has a built-in lightmeter, like Jans, so I use this for the exposure. A lot of the proprietary camera download systems, I use Nikon Capture, contain most of the essential adjustments such as Exposure, Lightening, Darkening, Contrast etc. I have used Photoshop for over ten years now and it is absolutey fantastic but complex and expensive (750). Corel's Paint Shop Pro is a much cheaper and, very good, alternative image manipulation programme. Dave

I had an illegal copy of Photoshop which was fantastic but did not run on the latests Mac OS. I bought also from Adobe Photoshop Elements which is much cheaper and I can't see the difference. Sorry, I do not remember the price but it was nothing like 750. Photoshop Elements does a lot of things that I am not even aware of or I do not know what it is about and the help file donot help much. Anyway, it does every thing that I need and does it well and easily. What is rearly needed is a day of training at a reasonble price and distance. Top secret. If you or somebody that you know and can buy it for you, work for a charity or teaching you can negotiate the software at half price.

Via my employer an elaborate Photoshop package costs some 30 euros only! And indeed, I often use it for research, making PowerPoint presentations etc. But there is no limitation in my using it for non-professional purposes, so, enjoy with me another photography special: PACKARD CONVERTIBLE TWINS DINKY TOYS NO. 181 VOLKWAGEN BEETLE of 1956. WITH ITS FAMOUS OVAL REAR WINDOW OF 1955.