Photography is another hobby of mine, but I do not normally do close-up work. This page shares the lessons I have learned so far in trying to photograph miniatures and terrain.
You can sometimes get away with scanning a 25mm single miniature straight in to your software without photographing it first. Lay the mini on the bed of the scanner, leave the cover open, cover the mini with dark cloth and scan it in! Most scanners seem to have sufficient depth of field to cope with this, though there is a significant light fall off toward the back of the mini. I have found that more expensive scanners do better at this. The advantages of this approach are that it is cheap - provided you already have the scanner - and you don't need any photographic experience or equipment. The disadvantage is a loss of quality when compared to photography in my opinion, and it won't work for large miniatures. Here is the same miniature scanned, and photographed and then scanned:
One thing I have noticed is that images look different in different viewers...Netscape, for example, has preference settings for image dithering which can make a huge difference.
You are going to need some basic photographic equipment and some household objects:
A single-lens-reflex camera is one in which you see through the camera lens itself when looking through the view finder. Macro lenses are expensive. If you intend to do only occasional close-up photography you can get good results by buying a close-up filter for one of your existing lenses. I use a +2 filter on a 35-110mm zoom lens and this gives me about 2 x original size on a 6 x 4 print. The colour correction filter is to correct the colour of the light coming from the desk lamp. In theory, the processors should correct this for you, but I have found that I get better results with the filter. If you don't want to buy one try it without and see if it works - if the processor doesn't correct your photographs properly you will get an orange caste to the prints. I use a medium speed (ISO 200) print film...slow films may give sharper results but exposures get very long which can itself lead to other problems. The grey card is to help get the right exposure. Again, try without if you wish.
I have found that I get best results from longish exposures using a tungsten (ordinary light-bulb) lamp. Before coming to this conclusion I experimented with flash photography, but close-up flash photography requires great expertise and/or specialised flash equipment for good results.
Set up your miniature or terrain on a table top. Fix your camera to a tripod with the lamp illuminating the mini from one side. Experiment with turning and positioning the reflector to get a balanced lighting effect without harsh shadows. Check the image for extraneous backgrounds, composition, chopped off heads etc.
You must use a very small aperture - f22 or smaller - or you will not get sufficient depth of field to get all of the miniature in focus. If your camera has a depth of field preview then use it to check image sharpness. Depth of field will only be one half to one inch at these distances.
Work out the exposure. First, set your aperture to a suitably small setting (the bigger the f number, the smaller the aperture) and then adjust shutter speed for correct exposure. With a 100 watt lamp and reflector I get exposures of 2 to 6 seconds at f22 to f27 on ISO 200 film. Stand very still, and start the exposure using a remote release or timed release if you have one.
You might want to bracket your exposures. This means taking more copies of the same subject with different exposure settings, usually one at a lower and a third at a higher exposure from that indicated by your camera. I suggest one stop exposure either side of your 'correct' starting exposure. To do this, take your first picture. Halve the shutter speed leaving the aperture the same, and take another (your camera will report an under-exposure), and then go to double the original shutter speed and take a third (your camera will report an over exposure). Chances are one of the three will give the effect you are after.
To take record shot of single miniatures, as opposed to miniatures in terrain settings, you can construct a suitable background with thick coloured paper. Tape or pin one edge of the paper to a wall or stand of some sort, and bring it onto the table top to create a smooth curved background behind the mini. Stand a mini on the bottom of the paper, set up you camera and focus. I now remove the mini and take an exposure from a grey card. One I have this exposure I photograph every figure at this exposure, and in fact I leave the camera focus set and move the miniature back and forth to focus it. This is a quick way to work and the simple set-up makes exposure from a grey card the ideal method. You should still use a reflector to get some cross-illumination - and remember to have the reflector in place when you take the exposure from the grey card.
The only way to win is to experiment and take lots of photos. Keep careful notes of each shot, but be warned - processing labs often mix up the order of the photos. So make each shot slightly different (even just turning a mini slightly) so you can identify them from the negatives if necessary.