My friends and I have started a video game company. We are in the process of shooting photos of ourselves as references for in-game characters. My buddy bought a pretty good camera, a Canon PowerShot G9, I believe. It's capable of shooting 4000x3000 uncompressed images, which is good for any texture work we will be doing for our in-game characters. We were basically looking for something that was capable of taking pictures at the same quality level as images you would be able to pick up over at 3d.sk.

We did an outdoor photoshoot with a tripod & a white backdrop on a sunny day, but it then became apparent we have no idea what we are doing, as the results were less than desireable. I don't know if it was the sunlight or some camera setting, the flash / lack of flash that messed them up. When I viewed them in Photoshop to start editing them together, they came out really grainy and lost a lot of the detail that I was hoping to capture and use in the rest of my design process.I was hoping to get enough detail in the character's texture map to apply it to my model in ZBrush, extract the detail into the model, and create a photorealistic model at render time in my other 3D application.

Can anybody give me any tips or point me in some direction as to the right and wrong things to do so that when we do another photoshoot, we aren't wasting our time? We were thinking of having a professional photoshoot done, but if it's something we can do on our own, it would be more cost effective.

Thanks for any help.

-Andrew

Hi Andrew try this google search.
http://www.google.co.za/search?hl=en&q=photography+tips+shooting+pictures+of+people+outside&btnG=Search&meta=

Regards
Christo

Ahhhhhhhhhh ... let's take a step back ... and get some more information. 

In the camera setup, what are the number of pixels and what is the jpeg quality? 

In the PowerShot G9 Camera User Guide, pages 90 and 81 of the PDF or pages 78 and 79 of the paper copy ... you can see how to choose resolution ... you want either RAW or L - Large and also S - Superfine.  The next page explains how to record both a large, fine jpeg and also RAW. 

Another setting to check is the Scene mode Page 91 in the pdf.  Too bad their Portrait mode gives a soft focus ... In any case, that would be something to play around with. 

Lighting is also an issue ... if it was bright and high noon, you would have strong contrast ... perhaps too strong.  Better light would be early morning or afternoon; an overcast day could be even better. 

HTH, but please reply if you want additional suggestions. 

--Martin

Sorry for the late reply. Thanks for the feedback.

I believe our settings are RAW and superfine. We are not shooting in .jpg due to the loss of quality in compression. Although it may be minimal shooting at 4000 x3000, why not get the most out of the photos?

I got some reccomendations that it may be better to shoot indoors with a couple of lights that we can control the intensity of. I think we will try this next time.

Indoors ... studio lights ... in that case, you'll also have to consider color temperature. 

Tungsten (incandescant) lamps have a low color temperature and will give a yellowish light. 

Daylight balanced floods will be better to use. 

Please review the second part of the Light test message thread.  You will find comments about color temperature and studio lights. 

Here is part of it that was Posted Sun, Mar 8, 2009 10:16 pm ,,,

You need to consider Color Temperature.  Check this Color Temperature Chart
and this page on Correlated Color Temperature (CCT). 

Your bulbs might be Tungsten at 3400 Kelvin
... but you might want Daylight or Flash at 5500 to 5600 Kelvin. 

BTW, Tungsten at 3400 Kelvin isn't necessarily wrong ... in fact, it would
be the best lighting for film that is balanced for that kind of light source. 

Aaaaaahhhhhh ... but then again, you aren't shooting film. 

Hope this helps ... ask questions if unsure ...

Comments, please ...

--Martin

My buddy found this online...

http://www.amazon.com/CowboyStudio-Digital-Continuous-Lighting-Carrying/dp/B001P7CAZ0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1238892885&sr=8-2

Would anybody recommend getting one of these if we plan on setting up our own little mini studio?

Odds are, we will be photographing and doing shoots in the future, so for $200, it seems like a decently priced investment.

According to the Correlated Color Temperature (CCT), a flash unit would
have a color temperature of 5500 to 5600K ... however, those lights on
Amazon have a color temperature of 5000K. 

What does that mean?  ... it means that if you were shooting with both
those studio lights and with flash, you would get some odd off-color results

... in an area where the studio light provided most of the light, all of the
colors would tend toward yellow.  For an example, look at the image **
promiselamb** Posted Sat, Mar 7, 2009 10:47 am, in the message
thread Light test. See how the model's face is very yellow on the left
side of the image, but normal flesh tone on the right. 

The lights on amazon will have less of that effect ... but probably still
will be noticable.  

Contrast that with the Smith Victor KT900 3-Light 1250-Watt Thrifty Mini-Boom Kit
on adorama.com for $275.  Before ordering, doublecheck that the color 
temperature of the Photoflood lamps supplied in this kit are daylight
(5500K) balanced. 

You can check the entire SmithVictor line. 

HTH and continue to ask questions. 

Comments, please. 

--Martin