Beefed Up Vega in 1/144

[Brian da Basher]

Mr. Howling Mouse I would consider it an honor to try and pick up any gauntlet thrown down by you sir. However, one caveat...I never detail anything.    I'm very pleased my tiny airfleet has brought you pleasure.

Mr. Rat-man san, I'm using an antique (5 year old) JVC GR-DVM90. I'd be grateful for any tips you can offer. I'm starting to figure some things out, but would be glad to learn more.

Brian da Basher

[The Rat]

Mr. Rat-man san, I'm using an antique (5 year old) JVC GR-DVM90. I'd be grateful for any tips you can offer. I'm starting to figure some things out, but would be glad to learn more.

Brian da Basher

sigh... I can remember when a 5 year-old camera was still state of the art, hell, I'm still working mostly with an Olympus OM-1 and they date from 1970!

Unfortunately you're right, with the pace of digital camera development anything 5 years old is nowhere near what you can get today. But there are still some tried and true methods for getting more performance out of a camera, whether you're using film or a ccd. If you've got a 35mm SLR around then try this; take the lens off it, turn it backwards, hold it in front of your digicam lens, and shoot through that. In fact it should be right on it. You will be able to get very close to your subject that way, but too close to photograph the whole aircraft. As an example, here is a picture taken with a reversed 50mm lens showing some model parts with a Canadian 25 cent piece for size reference:



As you can see, it gets close!

If you have a good quality magnifying glass you can experiment with that. I use a set of magnifying filters for my old camera, I just stack them together, hold them in front of the digicam lens, and fire away. That's how I've got most of the close-ups you've seen in posts like the Ekranoplan one. Being digital it costs me or you nothing in film to blast off as many pictures as I like and pick the ones that look good. Just experiment!    

[Glenn]

There have been two very interesting models of the Vega, and both in 1/48. The earliest, Lindberg and the other, by AMT. The Lindberg model is more accurate, as the spatted undercart of the AMT model is too narrow.
Glenn