Just wanted to share some points in regard to taking sixth scale photography.

Before jumping to tips on taking photo,it's important to understand how a good picture is taken. A lot of times when you snap a pic it's blur and not as sharp as you want it to be.
1. Camera shake. The slightest camera movement will caused motion in your pic.
2. Tiny LCD liveview. Don't be fooled by the preview screen.Especially those high mp camera. If a 10mp image cramped into a 2” lcd screen obviously everything will look sharp. So do zoom around to check on focus.
3. Shutter speed. Keep track what shutter speed you're using. High speed can freeze moment and where as slow speed will need longer exposure time to snap.
4. Aperture. High value (f11-f32) aperture will caused less light going into your camera hence slower shutter speed. Low value (f1.4-f5.6) enable more brightness to camera so it takes faster shutter speed. So selecting the right aperture will affect what shutter speed you are shooting.
5. Focus. Make sure your camera is point to the area you want to focus on. Because our toy is already a miniature object hence it's crucial to get the right focal point.
(Oh shoot...forgot to add another important point!!! )
6. Colour.So you took a shot,the colour is too warm or too blue.The cause is the white balance reading is off as your camera couldn't pinpoint actual white of your subject.

Solution:
1. Always use a tripod. So when you buy your camera chances are they throw in those cheap china made tripod. Do keep it around as it can have other prupose. P&S camera should be ok to use those tripod because of its light weight but SLR and heavier super zoom camera better invest on a more sturdy tripod. (On older camera,turn off the anti-shake feature because it still have slight motion to lens.)
2. Use a remote release or 5 sec timer so there is absolutely no movement to camera when pressing the shutter button.
3. Do not trust auto mode in your camera. (Varies from different camera manfacturer.) At the end of the day it's just a standard feature in all cameras. A lot of time the auto mode works well in out-door scenario but when comes to low light condition the result is a let-down. Dial knob to A (Aperture mode) which you determine the aperture value while your camera propose the shutter speed. Not to worry what shutter speed you are using since we are using tripod to eliminate camera shake. Some people will prefer P (Program mode). Essentially it's auto mode that allows you to change apperture and shutter speed manually.
4. You want everything sharp,go to your highest aperture value f32. But your shutter speed can go up to 30 secs or more and depending on lighting situation. F1.8-F5.6 will give more shallow depth of field so be careful on which part you want to keep in focus. The middle is F8-F11.
5. Exposure compensation (ev+/ev-). Even after you get the proposed shutter speed it's still not accurate. So go to exposure compensation to increase or decrease the value to your desired exposure. Use your preview screen to judge your exposure liking.
6. Spot focus. Point your camera to focus area you want and half pressed the shutter button if you intend to recompose framing.
7. Check white balance setting.Make sure your image is not too yellow or blue.Fiddle the preset settings or manually input your preferred value.
Voila!That should be it. And another method:
8. Off camera flash. The proper basic position of flash is 4 to 6 inches on top of your camera. So no matter how you diffuse your camera built-in flash it will never get the optimal result. With an off camera flash you will able to control direction of the light source and warrant a freezing moment to your shot.Hence no worries on shutter speed and aperture. Some P&S camera does support off camera flash. You can even mount the flash unit on a tripod so your camera can remote trigger it.

Taking picture:
1. Try not to shoot straight-on to your subject. Picture tends to be dull and unflattering. Position camera low and top to get a sense of perspective.
2. Study up the rule of 1/3rd. Not every single framing has to be center. Varies up composition and let some empty space to compose foreground and background.
3. Have a mini turn-table or lazy susan around for your optimize figure position. Provided you are not seeing the turn-table in your shots.
4. Have some telephone books,thick magazines or boxes to elevate your figure. Adjusting tripod is more troublesome when you can just simply raised up your figure. Same goes for point #3.
5. Use white card or black card for reflector. To brighten or darken shadow area.
6. Fishing line. Use fishing line to secure your figure so it don't stage dive every now and then. Do a rig on top of your figure where you can fasten the fishing line.
7. Masking tape,wires and blue tack readily available for any securing condition.
8. Use reference for posing.
9. Varies angle as much as you can. Once you got wide shots,go in for medium and tight shots.

A lame insight. The more pictures you snap the more your skill improves. After some time you will instinctively know what aperture and shutter speed to use.

At the end of the day,you are the one who took the shots so it's your personal interpretation of it. Just take a little effort to look at references from magazines,movies,tv commercials,and photographers so you get a hang at composition. Some even complained my shots do not show the full figure but why would you want to take the same shots as other when you have a choice to make it your own.

DSLR buying guide.
I came across a lot of people asking which camera brand to go for.If budget not an issue please go ahead with a new nikon and canon.Especially if you are a first timer with DSLR,branding really don't matter much.The perogative is to learn to take good picture first before you get into top range camera and expensive lens.As a DSLR camera,all are able to take good pictures.The only difference will be lens availability,ISO performance,focus speed,and third party support.

Currently I saw a lot of camera hobbyist gunning for latest gears,so do troll around camera forum for good deal on secondhand equipment.Some would say don't get second hand camera as shutter count is high and hamper a dslr lifespan.So when testing a second hand camera do take a snap and check what the file number is.Usually that will indicate how many shots been taken with the camera.An average DSLR shutter actuation is around 50k.If buying a high end model it's still worth it as changing a brand new shutter is still a better option than buying a brand new model.If entry level model do give this a check.

It's a must to feel how the camera felt in your hand when buying one.You need to be comfortable when holding it to begin with.As different manufacturers have different camera aesthetic value.

Lens.Don't fall into gearhead trappings that need to have the latest lens range.As it will never be an end to better lens being cycled on the market.Obviously what you pay is what you get.A 50mm that cost 300++ will never match the quality of a 3K++ 50mm.And a lot of time an average joe couldn't differentiate the picture quality to begin with.And do realised that those expensive camera do need good expensive lens to match the camera full frame sensor.So even you buy a 15k DSLR will not warrant you fool proof picture if you do not have skill and lens to support it.And usually lens investment will cost more than a camera body.

What is a good lens for sixth scale toys.Majority of entry level DSLR camera is APS-C format.While high-end model is on full frame sensor.APS-C camera sensor has a x1.5 crop factor because of it's smaller sensor scale.Full frame is the full glory of 35mm film format.So when you buy a 50mm lens for APS-C camera,the actual focal length is 75mm.On full-frame it's 50mm.This is a blessing for us because we are exploiting the crop factor so our lens can take tighter shots.On 50mm you have no issue getting decent wide to medium shots.The next will be 85mm and 100mm which can take even tighter shots but also cost more.So rather than spending 5-6k for 100mm you can opt for 50mm or 90/100mm macro lens around 1.5 – 2k.Still too expensive?Well you can go for
Raynox Macro Conversion Lens around 300.The function is that it magnify your shot on lens to cheat a macro capability but with some loss of picture quality and work best on manual focus.

What I mentioned above are towards prime lens with fixed focal length,meaning can not zoom.Chances are you have the option to buy a kit lens that come together with your camera.It's more of a standard zoom lens with focal length of 18mm to70mm range.You still can use it but the aperture ring won't go as wide as f2.8 and it's more of f3.5-f5.6.It's cheaper but you will lose the small value aperture and picture quality is not as sharp as a prime.But still can use for toysnap and combine it with Raynox is good enough to take close-up shots.Raynox also can be use for superzoom P&S camera.

Do I need that huge MP???A lot of time we don't at all.The original intention for high MP is to convince photographers to switch from film to digital format.Their nature of profession require them to shoot high resolution so it can be adapt to large format printing.So camera manufacturers compete with each other to come up with the highest MP to vow photographers.After awhile it became a marketing tool for consumer market.Let's face it the most we gonna do is to upload on flickr and message board.We don't really make poster out of our shots.Hence a basic 6mp is already enough for us.

reserved

Thank you very much,your continuous tutorial for us,Master Crave!!

Thanks Crave...

Thank You Crave...

You all are welcome!Will update more tips and tricks when got time.

ha..haa i see a Sony Alpha there.. thanks a bunch for your efforts bro.