The development of digital camera technology and photo editing software has made it possible to achive results that would have required specialist equipment only a few years ago. For example almost every digital camera on the market today, including the ones being sold second hand on eBay, has a "macro" feature to let you get in close to the subject. To do this with an optical camera generally required the purchase of a special lens, and that's assuming that the camera was one of the more expensive types that had the facility to take different lenses.
Automatic exposure and auto-focus, features that were once only available on top of the range film cameras, are now built into even the cheapest of digitals. However the science and technology is only one side of the photographic coin. The other side is an art, and no amount of techno-wizardry can stop you taking lousy pictures if you can't be bothered to obtain an understanding of the basics.
Before we even start to look at the camera we have to realise that when we point a camera at a distant hill with wooded flanks and fields stretching out in front of us we have a whole sky full of light bouncing off several square miles of subject matter and into our lens. When we point the camera at a model of the same thing we've got whatever light can be bounced off a couple of square yards i.e. a lot less light is reaching the camera.
Thus a model that is photographed with 'normal' light will not have the same contrast (the difference between light and dark), as the real thing. This, in case you hadn't realised it before, is why we paint shadows and highlights onto our models: there simply isn't enough light bouncing off them to do it naturally.
Of course if we've done a good job with our paint brush then we're not going to have too much of a problem, however we are still going to take much better photographs if we flood the model with light.
Alas you cannot simply put your model under a desk lamp and expect good results because all of the light will be coming from a single direction; resulting in the subject being brightly lit on one side and dark on the other. What you really need is two or three lights, and maybe a few reflective surfaces as well, as demonstrated by Overlord's 'Studio'.
The best camera in the world will struggle to get good results with poor lighting while even the cheapest camera can get decent results with good lighting.
I don't think there is such a thing as a digital camera that can not deal automatically with exposure but that does not mean that you can just forget about it. Let me introduce Dave. There he is to the right. Everybody say "Hi" to Dave.
Okay, now in the first image Dave is standing on a black T-shirt and in the one below he's standing on a sheet of white paper, and that is the ONLY difference between the two images. The pictures were taken within seconds of each other and I didn't change anything other than the background. In fact all I did was to lift Dave up, removed the black shirt, place down the paper, and put Dave back exactly where he had been standing.
When a camera calculates the exposure it looks at the amount of light coming through the lens, calculates an average, and uses that to work out the exposure. Thus when I photograph Dave on a black background the camera sees that everything is a bit dark... and lightens everything up. The opposite happens with the white background.
It is worth noting that cameras do not generally take an average of the whole image area. A basic camera will probably bias its average towards the centre of the image because that's where the main thing of interest is usually to be found. Slightly more advanced cameras have 'modes' for portraits, landscapes, macro, etc. If your camera has modes, select the correct mode.
If that doesn't help then try changing the background i.e. if your subject is too dark (because the background is too light) then try a darker background, and vice versa.
Note that the above assumes that you don't want to reach for your camera's manual override function. Whoa! Scary!
Hey everybody, Dave is back!
Now the bit you're going to find really hard to believe is that in the first of these new images, Dave is standing on a piece of dark blue paper and I do mean DARK BLUE. In the next image he's on a red carpet and in the last he's on a piece of light blue paper. All of the images were taken within seconds of the previous images and in the same location. So what's going on?
The variations are happening because my digital cameras has, as most do, automatic compensation for different lighting conditions i.e. they try to compensate for the difference between natural and different types of artificial light.
Once again, the way they do this is by taking an average. Thus if the camera 'sees' that everything is a bit yellow it thinks to itself "we must be in tungsten lighting - I'll take out some of the yellow". Most of the time this works fine but when the camera sees your subject on a blue, red, or whatever colour background, it assumes that the blueness, redness or whatever is due to the lighting and makes a correction that messes up the colour of your subject.
The solution is simple: there is a manual override for this colour/lighting correction feature that allows you to tell your camera what type of light you are using so that it does the correct compensation rather than taking a guess. Alternatively, you can change the background.
Focus is something that we don't need to worry about so much these days. Pretty much all digital cameras have auto-focus however we need to be aware that auto-focus will usually focus on whatever is in the centre of our picture. If the subject is not in the centre, for example if we are taking a photograph of two trees such that the space between them is in the centre as opposed to either one of the trees, then we might have a problem.
To overcome this, most cameras have a feature where they focus when you half press the shutter and then take the picture when it is fully pressed. This allows you to point the camera at one of the trees and half press before moving the camera to the required position and pressing the button the rest of the way down.
Note that when you are photographing terrain pieces on a table top, and the camera is on a tripod, it is probably easier to put something into the scene e.g. a figure between the two trees, for the camera to focus on and then remove it before you click the shutter all the way.
Depth of field is the distance between the nearest object that is in focus and the one that is furthest away (and still in focus). It is not the easiest thing in the world to calculate however it is not generally as much of a problem with digital cameras as it was with film cameras because of differences in the way they work.
Digital photography also gives us the advantage of being able to see our results a lot quicker than we could with film and when photographing terrain on the table top we will usually be able to see the results while we still have the opportunity to re-take them.
Tip: If you find yourself having problems with depth of field, try moving the camera a little further away and zooming in on the subject.
Most people will be aware of bad composition when they see it, even if they can't identify the problem, because a badly composed picture simply 'looks wrong'.
A full explanation would at least double the size of this article and that's if we stuck rigidly to the subject as it relates to table-top photography. Of the things that we have discussed in this article, composition is probably the most artistic. There are rules that can be followed to achieve good results however a master of the art will follow these rules subconsciously - except for those occasions when they deliberately break them for effect.
As you are already involved in an artistic pursuit (making model terrain) you might find that you have a 'feel' composition but if not, do a bit of web browsing and read up on a few of the basics and then experiment. If you find that your pictures 'feel' wrong then consider the following:
Where are the points of interest?
If all of the interest is at one side of the picture it will feel unbalanced. Too many points of interest and it will look cluttered.
In which direction does it lead your eye?
Lines or groups of objects can lead our eye in a certain direction. For example if we see a picture of a road leading off into the distance our eyes will tend to follow the road and if there is nothing of interest when they get there...
Similarly if a figure in the picture is looking at something we will tend to follow the direction of their gaze. The biggest distraction comes if they are looking outside of the picture. Note that this does not just apply to people. If there is a vehicle in the picture we will be more inclined to look where it is going than where it has come from.
Are there any distractions?
This should be relatively easy to control in table top photographs that with real terrain but watch out for patches of bright colour or collections of objects that line up (or form other patterns) can lead the eye away from what it's supposed to be looking at.
Is the picture balanced?
We already talked about points of interest but if the picture is dark on one side and light on the other it will feel wrong. Watch for other imbalances too e.g. lots of tall objects on one side and nothing but short objects on the other or lots of complex shapes on one side and simple shapes on the other. Landscape artists (painters) often add things like trees and bushes to their pictures, things that don't exist in the view they are painting, in order to address these kinds of problems.