So here is my first project for miniatures and photography, Emperor Palpatine and his guards.

The miniatures are painted Star Wars Command 54mm/ 1/32 scale figures.

Technical photo details for first and second images. Sony Alpha 77, with Tamron 70 to 300 lens, tripod, ISO 1000, manual settings f25 at 13 seconds.

Sony Alpha 55,Sony 55 to 200 SAM lens, ISO 3200, program mode, popup flash fired, 160 at f10.

Now for the fun part.  George Lucas was inspired by the old movie serials from the 30s to 60s in creating Star Wars.

So here’s how my miniatures look using filters to emulate old movies.

The Silver Efex Pro filter captures the idea of the old black and white (or semi sepia movies) Sony Alpha 77, Sony 100mm prime macro,  ISO 1600, Aperatre priority f32 at 25 seconds (on tripod)

This vintage film image was created in Analog Efex Pro using an old film setting. Sony Alpha 55, ,Sony 55 to 200 SAM lens, ISO 3200, aperture priority, popup flash fired, 160 at f16.

And if the director was still using black and white.  SilverEfex Pro, Alpha 77, Tamron 70 t0 300 in macro mode, manual settings, ISO 1600, 32 seconds at f8.

Finally, how I created the set:

So here’s the “set” for the Emperor Palpatine shoot.  The round base originally supported WalMart’s delicious chocolate fudge cake.  I had kept the base several months ago as I was hoarding possible scratch building material.  The base is set on a piece of black poster board.  The background is a cardboard box spray painted black.  The two wall panels are also from chocolate cake bought from my local supermarket.

Lighting: Three lights on most of the images.  An LED flashlight as you see to the right of the setup.  On top of the box was a small LED light (designed for use with mobile phones, pointed at the offwhite ceiling. The third LED was to the left and about two metres away pointing just to the left edge of the box.

Once I had finished the tripod time exposure shoot, I wanted to get this shot of the set so I used the Alpha 55 with just the popup flash  at -2 without changing the lighting set up otherwise.  I used the same settings when shooting wider shots above with the Alpha 55.