Foldio - An easy solution to taking pictures of miniatures

Finally, I have a way to take nice model photos!

I have struggled to take nice photos of my models for a long time.  Between poor lightning, an old “point and shoot” digital camera, and a general lack of knowledge about photography, getting good pictures never came very easily for me.  Since starting this blog, I have tried a little harder to experiment with backdrops and lighting with mixed success, but I was still never very satisfied.  So you can imagine my delight when I learned about the Foldio, a foldable studio, over on Frothing Muppet’s excellent miniature blog.  Designed to allow for taking professional looking photos with a smartphone camera, the Foldio is essentially a foldable plastic lightbox/shadowbox with a LED strip attached that provides light from all angles.  Although it was initially brought into reality via Kickstarter, the designer, a Korean company called Orangemonkie, recently began selling them to the general public.  I wasted no time and ordered one, and to my excitement it arrived promptly.

The collapsed Foldio, with the 3 included foam backdrops.

The Foldio unfolded, with the single LED strip on the right.

The Foldio came in a small cardboard box that, when opened, contained the lightbox folded up inside a little synthetic cloth bag, with 3 foam background sheets wrapped around it.  Pulling the Foldio out of the bag, I noticed that there were no instructions on how to assemble the device other than a square piece of translucent paper that has a picture of the assembled unit.  Due to its intuitive design, however, within 30 seconds of taking it out, I had it assembled, using the magnets on each plastic side to hold it together.  After sliding in one of the foam background sheets and attaching a 9V battery to the LED strip (which conveniently attaches to the side of the Foldio using the same magnets that hold it together), I was already taking pictures.

The assembled Foldio, with a shot of how the backdrop fits in and the location on the LED strip.

Of all the three backdrops, grey works the best for miniatures (from left to right: grey, black, white).

An old elf freelancer from Mordheim, filled with character, if not a little flat in his pose.

I tried all of the different backdrops and found that grey worked the best for models (white resulted in clear but dark pictures and the black reflected so much light that the models almost glowed).  The Foldio I purchased has a single LED strip along the top, but they also have one that has a second strip attached to the small flap along the front, which can be folded inward to apply additional light.  Without using the second strip first-hand, I cannot really comment on how much (or little) to does to affect the photo quality.  It is only 10 additional dollars for the second, and it is as easy as adding/removing a second battery to use it, so it is certainly something to consider.  However, I must say that I am extremely satisfied with the photos I have been able to take with just one LED strip.  Within an hour of assembling the Foldio, I was able to take photos of models that I was never able to, ones that captured the care put into each.

When these Chaos Warriors first came out, it was hard to resist building a unit with 2 hand weapons to bring glory to the Lord of Skulls!

One of Adam's first attempts at freehand on a large surface, with a grinning face to look like Ivan Isaacs from Hyung Min-woo's Priest.

Although small and very portable, the Foldio can effectively accommodate some of the larger models on the market.

The true strength of the Foldio is its ease of use and portability.  It easily fits into a backpack and sets up in less than a minute.  Regardless of the lighting in the room, or the camera at hand, you can take nice, clear pictures.  While I was able to take reasonably good photos of my models before, it was always a hassle of adjusting lamps and fiddling with plastic card to make a suitable backdrop.  With the Foldio, I was taking better pictures than I ever had before within a few minutes of taking it out of the box, even using the lackluster camera on my Moto X phone.  While $50 is not exactly cheap, if you have struggled in the past to take photos of your models, ones that actually convey the amount time and effort that you have poured into them, I would strongly urge you to give the Foldio a try.  I am certainly pleased with it, and know there will be countless pictures coming out of it in the future.

- Eric Wier