A Simple Guide To Help You Take Better LEGO Photos

[@LEGOhabibi]

this was his subtle way of showing off his sick moc

[@GringatTheRepugnant]

Some tips from my own experience: - If you live in a place with long dark winters, it's worth getting a daylight bulb for the room you want to photograph in! Though I recommend swapping it out before bed if that room is your bedroom. - You can make phone holders out of lego if you don't have one. I made one to fit on top of a tripod I got off my dad that was meant for old fashioned cameras from the 90s! Used some technic liftarms, rubber liftarms and rubber bands. - Don't accidentally sit on your roll of paper. - iPhones will nowadays take a short video and choose the best frame as your saved photo. It's possible to go in to your picture settings and turn that off or select a different frame. - The "fix" option on phone/windows photo editor is often enough to do the trick, though I usually still up the brightness. - turning down the "warmth" option is usually a good idea. Same logic as Lego switching to bluish grey colours. It just looks more crisp and clean. - When I want to adjust the colours I max out saturation, make the adjustment, then put saturation back down to normal. That way I can see better what the slider is doing.

[@BenCossyOfficial]

Fantastic tips old friend! Especially the one about not sitting on your roll of paper!

[@GringatTheRepugnant]

@@BenCossyOfficial All my MOCs with that old black background had the ripples from that 😅

[@The_Yeet]

I do want to say. Some of the things you said not it to do: Taking photos at weird angles, having light right behind them causing silhouetting, and taking photos of just certain parts of the moc, etc. can all be done to create a certain effect. However, it’s best to pair up some more creative shots, with clean full on shots that showcase the whole moc.

[@BenCossyOfficial]

For sure!

[@EpicAdventurer-cb1gd]

That's exactly what I try my best to do!

[@nikifilik3932]

This bedside table in front of the window with an A1 sheet is literally my photo setup! Really good video, about how actually is easy to get a good photos

[@jaxgordon11]

One thing I wish people would do more often is to take photos from the back of a moc. It can really help to give a better understanding of the dimensions of a build along with revealing that it isn’t just pretty from the front, but has been fully designed.

[@nochs_brother_2]

Exactly! I always make sure to post all angles of my Mocs, and even internals sometimes

[@iconicstills]

These are some GREAT tips. 1. Lighting is the MOST important aspect of any image, you get that right and you're almost there to a great picture. 2. Nice tip on shooting landscape to crop into portrait, a lot of people don't realise how much more flexible you can be with that extra space. 3. I'd consider the pose/shape of your set/moc. Think of a straight line being drawn across your screen, this line should follow the "direction" of your subject. Can we exaggerate this line by moving our camera? Hard to explain in text, but definitely something to think about :)

[@Kelkschiz]

In regards to the background. You can think about using a background color different from your MOC and then delete that background and insert a custom background using photo editing software. For instance, having a sci-fi MOC with a NASA moon picture as background works great (those NASA pictures don't have any copyright ;). You can also photograph your MOC in front of a monitor or TV that displays a custom background. And then there is the great outdoors, sand, snow, plants, etc when carefully chosen can all make for superb backgrounds that enhance your MOC. I think lighting is an advanced topic when it comes to photography. It can make or break a picture. It can also lift a good picture to a stunning one. There is so much one can do with lighting that it can take years to master. The possibilities are vast. And finally, if you are getting a little serious about photography, get a cheap secondhand DSLR or mirrorless system with a proper lens. These things sound expensive but too many people buy them on impulse. They tend to be dirt cheap on the secondhand market. Please don't buy the latest and greatest, pretty much any system with interchangeable lenses will be a massive upgrade. As for lenses, a nice fast 50mm equivalent would be a cheap but good starter lens.

[@danielbrickson401]

Advanced next please!

[@SirMola742]

I always love totorials like this. I live in a miniscule apartment, and definitely dont have room for, say, a light box, whereas all i'd have to do here is clear off my bedside table. (this is coming from someone who made most of his d&d acceseries from lego i mostly had on hand instead of going down the rabbit hole that is specialised minatures (and followed a similarly simple tutorial for the cases where lego would'nt work)

[@ABrickDreamer]

Great video, for smaller mocs I use a light box, for bigger ones sheet of paper I would love to see the advance tips as well

[@mapowey]

love it. great video

[@empatheticrambo4890]

Honestly thanks so much Ben, I’ve been needing this help. Still, I think I knew a lot of this so the advanced video would be great

[@MCLegoboy]

Another suggestion for taking photos is to have the timer on if using a tripod. Even for just still photography, not even trying to make a stopmotion video, your subtle movements just pressing the shutter can jiggle the camera. This helps mitigate the need to take an unnecessary amount of photos. Typically a shutter is still fast enough that it won't make too big a difference, but anything to help get the crisp and cleanest photos is always a plus. And ever since LEGO began really pushing their more adult focused sets, the plain background is starting to fall out of style for a more "lifestyle" approach to photographing LEGO builds. I've heard the plain paper approach has begun to make things feel very sterile and lifeless, no matter how good the build is. You still want to avoid a lot of clutter, but having a build on a table, not even necessarily up against a wall is not considered as taboo as it once was. Still, there's a lot of attention to focal length and making sure that the build is still the focus of the image, not the environment surrounding it, and all the details about having proper lighting still applies. Having a build on a shelf, desk, or table is not as looked down upon as it once was, so long as those areas are clean. Still, if you have the means, go for the cleanest setup possible with those lifestyle images saved as something experimental, and only shared if they help enhance the presentation of the build. And while most people do just have a build in the center when sharing online, negative space is something to consider, and the classic photography staple that is the Rule of Thirds. For those not in the know, it's basically dividing the image into 3 equal sections across its height, and 3 equal sections of its width. Having a build be a bit off from the center provides some added visual interest. When dealing with a character build, generally, that would just involve moving it either to the left or to the right, with focal points of the body lining up somewhere close to the upper and lower intersections of the 3x3 grid. The purpose of a build that is not in the direct center of the photograph would be to showcase certain aspects of the character with how they behave, how they move, how they fight, and if you choose to go outdoors, it provides added storytelling. These are not hard requirements, but for certain presentation purposes, they will help make the images more engaging, particularly in a scenario where you would have more of a lifestyle photo.

[@drowned2204]

Yeaaa this is that GOOOD content! Thank you very much, and very much hoping to see more I am currently working on background stuff for a stop motion story I will be doing (sometime in summer most likely) and at first it kinda sucked, but now I am kind of getting the hang of things I think, the video about that big house you made really helped to sort of look at things differently, I've got quite a few ideas now, so I'll see how that goes So right now I am just basically trying to look at all the pieces and find ways to utilise them, which is the most basic stuff I guess, but still. It's fun trying to make use of more obscure and colorful pieces - you know, trying to utilise as many as possible so that I can make background for more areas - and I AM mostly going for a factory kind of look, so I suppose it will still end up a bit colourful in areas and things, because there are so many colourful pieces, BUT, I will probably end up using a bunch of them for the structure behind what you'd end up seeing, so i guess there's that* (*I can use the very obscure and unusable pieces for that, utilise the others for actual things) anyway, another awesome video as always, keep it up!

[@drowned2204]

ALSO, that MOC there of this robot with that fish, is really cute and looks GREAT!

[@BenCossyOfficial]

I probably won't do a video on how to do stop motion, mainly because it's not my field of expertise. I'm sure there's plenty of helpful guides from others on KZbin though :) Best of luck with yours :)

[@genericbonk]

I'm really looking forward to the advanced guide Even if this guide is already pretty solid, great job Ben

[@Mate397]

I personally use a portable photostudio with 4 different background colors and two lights plus camera stand. I also use a proper camera (not some super expensive one but a decent machine) to take images, though something makes my images a bit fuzzy lately.

[@Sirnight282]

The photography part has always tripped me up so this video was super helpful. Now all I need to figure out is how to pose MOCs well so they don't come out looking dumb lol.

[@MatejBeranek]

GREAT GUIDE!

[@richardjulien1329]

5:04 : if your house doesnt have a window : damn, poor guy is living in a bunker and still brought his lego ( yup if i had to i would too )

[@Thinginator]

My issue is that my house has universally crap lighting. I've successfully gotten mediocre but acceptable results with a big piece of paper in the hallway with the lights on. But most of the time I just take my creations outside and find thematically suitable location where the sun hits right. It helps that I build a lot of cars and animals, so plants, trees, sand, the sidewalk, or asphalt are all acceptable backdrops. Plus it makes the photos really pretty sometimes.

[@Deus0tiosus]

I have not read any comments, so a version of this might have been covered in a different context. In microphotography (photographing under the microscope) i was taught to overexpose my photos and only darken them down in post-processing. Apparently that would keep more details than underexposed or normally exposed photos. I have not tried it in lego photography myself, mostly because I have only built 1 MOC in the 2 years since learning this concept, but microphotography also really needs sharp contrasts. It also does not need to look pretty, even though it just happens to do so quite often.

[@BenCossyOfficial]

Interesting idea! I can see how that could work, but would be worth trying it out first. Also microphotography sounds rad

[@lukewarm179]

Well dang I wish I knew this before I sent my moc in, do I have to reshoot it now?

[@Caosespacial257]

This is very useful, thank you!💜💜💜

[@jimboskran4892]

I agree with most of the video, I have a very minimal setup for my photography so this is helpful for improvements. I would be using a paper background if the only craft shop near wasn't shut down, But my old tea table works well enough. Personally I disagree when it comes to different camera angles, you can really enhance more dynamic shots by tilting the camera a bit, same with back lit silhouette shots, Those can look spectacular for a moc. Now I'm sure you mean taking only one picture of a moc and not multiple, but it would've been nice to suggest taking multiple different poses for a build to show off the character than just one static pose, it's good to have a static pose sure, absolutely. My problem with mocs only having one photo is that other parts of the moc will never be seen, you spend all that time working on a build only for parts of it never being seen by anyone. Other than that, good tips on what to do and what not to do, this was very helpful and I might go retake some old photos

[@BenCossyOfficial]

Yeah I didn't explain that as well as I'd hoped. I for sure meant that it's an issue if you only take one picture of a moc with it looking silhouetted or with odd camera angles etc. By all means do so for fun, but you can't let that be the only way you showcase your build.

[@jimboskran4892]

​@@BenCossyOfficialI absolutely agree there, there does need to be a standard image of the moc

[@nerelturgeman9972]

Yeessss thank youuu❤❤

[@RobertSmith-tu7rl]

ive needed this for forever

[@Chevyman3030]

When I took pics of the latest mocs (using the city space 2024 rover as a base set) I have I tend to try to get a dynamic angle (vehicle) or pose along w/ some 360 view shots (humanoid/beastie/mech/etc) them in a way that feels like: "this is what it would be if 1:1 scaled" but if it's on a baseplate I do multiple shots getting a 360 view of it even showing off the inside (if it has inside bits)

[@Kamuoro]

Really helpful! I've been trying to set up lighting and angle for my camera but couldn't figure out how to do so. Your tips have been a great help! Btw, I would like some advice regarding taking pictures of Bigger Lego creations. I've having difficulty posing, setting the lighting, and having good pictures.

[@BenCossyOfficial]

The same rules should still apply for bigger MOCs, you might just need a bigger sheet of paper for the backdrop. What specifically are you struggling with?

[@Kamuoro]

​How do I explain it. Normally I use lamps for lighting but there are times when taking the pics, you see light reflecting on some places of the moc cause of it's size. I've been trying to adjust the lamps but the photos end up with the same result.

[@BenCossyOfficial]

@@Kamuoro Maybe it's worth doing away with the lamps and using natural lighting like in this guide. Or take the MOC outside instead :)

[@the-NITRON]

Bruh, you got doubles of nearly every series 25 minifigs? 💀💀💀 Should've scanned the QR codes XD. But in all seriousness, great advice. Really gotta consider getting myself some colored paper for the backdrop. it's what's missing for my current setup. XD

[@BenCossyOfficial]

Nah I bought a full box, so I have triple of each figure ;) It's good wave of figures!

[@ZacBrunswick]

Cool!

[@JLkeepinitrealdude]

😵‍💫 my eternal suffering

[@X.x.SwagMaster420.x.X]

Do a shin reveal

[@narwhalking2788]

Half the MOC us the photo.

[@EpicAdventurer-cb1gd]

Hey Ben, I sent you a few pics of my bionicle chi fluminox the titan of immortality with his hammer of judgement to you via email and can you feature that in your next ccbs upload possibly? Thanks again for the tips!