New Camera! [Pic Heavy]

I have spent most of the time since arriving home from holidays in assembly mode, eager to get everything in the cupboard and bits box from sprue to model in an attempt to clean up my collection. The new Imperial Guard codex has passed me by as I have no intention of breaking away from my Necron and Blood Angels collections to play a static gun line style of list now that the new edition favours mobility over firepower (to a certain extent), nor do I wish to throw money at more large tank models to fill the cupboards. But I digress, as the most exciting thing at the moment (from a purely materialistic point of view) is my new phone/camera, a Nokia Lumia 1020 with a big ass camera on the back!

I won't bore you with and some sort of Windows vs Android vs Apple debate, suffice to say I enjoy the simplicity of the interface and the ease in taking, editing and sharing great photos. I had toyed with the idea of buying a basic SLR for miniature photography but already felt I had too many devices, my previous phone was on its last legs, and the local shop had the equivalent of a floor model for cheaper than retail. So far I have found find it very useful for documenting things at work and on the go, including some nice sunsets, fancy cars, relatives and quick copies of instructions or similar reference materials. I even tried the inbuilt navigation (once you download the maps you don't use any data).

Shooting from the hip with a decent camera!

Here's what went on to the blog...

...and the original photo.

Once home I quickly set things up to take some miniature photos, using my usual light box set up, and you could see a photo of some Iron Hands in my last post, which i have included above. I also took some better photos of painting class figures for a future blog post, but I have found the ease of use and being always "on hand" a great way to document work in progress shots, for which previously I would have had to move the model to a better location and get the dedicated camera out. All of which dents the enthusiasm for the actual project itself. Below are a few "off the cuff" shots from the past few weeks:

Which brings me to (hopefully) my next blog post covering a recent painting class I attended, in which we practiced "object source lighting" as shown in the above photo. So far I am loving my new brushes, paints and techniques for creating a much deeper, smoother colour transitions. Keep an eye out for the next post!