My 1/72 Scale Sopwith Camel Plastic Model

I recently found most of my plastic airplane models in a box in the shed. Most of them have some damage, like broken landing gears, propellers etc. Some of the broken parts are missing. After 35+ years, my Revell’s 1/32 scale Sopwith Camel is 100% intact. I used a strand of wire to add the rigging, and those are still intact. So while I wait until buying some plastic cement to fix the broken ones, I setup a “studio” in the back yard to photograph them.

I wanted to try an make them as real as possible. I’m using a piece of roofing material as my runway. It gives it a gravel look. In this session, I’m using my Canon 5D and my “nifty-fifty” 50mm lens. Since I don’t own a macro lens, I’m using my Kenko extension tubes (12mm, 20mm, 35mm), but mainly the 20mm. I’m using a tripod and I waited until the late afternoon, so I can use the sun as it sets, but I also used a silver reflector for fill-light.

The first picture is my crude setup. You can see I used a trash can and a plastic container so I didn’t have to sit on the ground. On the second photo, I put a quarter beside the model to give it some scale. Hope you enjoy them!

I converted most of the color pictures to black and white, and I will post those at a later date.

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Mike is a Central Valley California landscape and nature photographer whose subjects include scenes from Merced County, Yosemite, SeKi, and the eastern Sierra. He is currently living in Atwater, CA.

The text and photographs are © Copyright Mike Matenkosky (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Mike Matenkosky.

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