I have a very good camera, but take a lot of photos for pleasure, but I'm having the hardest time getting photos of miniatures to look good. I can take photos of terrain, but not the miniatures... or the miniatures and the terrain.

Do you guys have any tips and tricks? I know about the macro range (my camera has 0cm) but would appreciate any advice to help.

Cheers,
Arabin

Given the recent advice Denny gave me prior to posting the MA sneak peeks, I can suggest two words: good lighting. To get some of those shots I had to take my bed-side lamp with no shade and hold it in one hand directly over the model while I took the picture with the other! And if your camera's digital, set it to the highest rez possible.

Biggest bit of advice (and from a person who never takes pictures ) do not use the flash. Ever. It will wash out the details completely on small subjects such as miniatures and miniature terrain.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* You can experiment with the use of gels and filters on your lighting as well, one warm one cool for starters. While I do not take pictures I used to run lights and sound for theater and folk concerts...

Thanks for all the suggestions, plenty of tricks to try. My camera is digital, but I have no worries about the batteries draining fast, or image quality (always take max quality photos).

For those interested, this is my camera:

The IS stands for image stability and is an amazing feature for Canon. I wouldn't recommend a powerful zoom without it.

I'm fine with most photos, but macro photos are fairly new to me. I'll try holding a lamp above next time. I'll also try miniatures with white cardstock behind and underneath so there is nothing to focus on except the miniatures.

If I have any success this weekend, I might post some next week.

Thanks again for the advice.

Arabin

Good points. I need to play with it more this weekend. I haven't experimented much with the macro setting but it's interesting to hear your comments about why it won't work with auto focus. I bought the camera for outdoor photos so it works fine for it's primary purpose... but it would be nice to be able to take nice photos of minis and terrain.

Also, I will look over the manual again, but I find that it's often better to talk to a real person and understand what they do. The manual is often written in jargon that takes a while to fully grasp

Arabin

Another recommendation for lighting: if you can, buy a pack of "natural light" lightbulbs. They will give the truest color representation, other than going outside.