Sweet. Got the Canon SD790 today. Haven't had bench time yet, but I messed around with it a bit. So far, looks like exactly what I need for my purposes. 

An "up close" from the car...

Barely touched the settings (flash forced to off, macro on):

Here's the current WIP with the iPhone:

And the Canon:

Ordered a 4GB card for it ($3 on Amazon!) so I wouldn't have to swap with the Nikon...then this evening found an old 2GB card in the camera bag. Doh!

DoogsATX

,..... and the Photobucket app installed, so I can dump things from the camera to the interwebs pretty fast.

Excellent tip! Got the app myself after reading this, so I'll likely post more pics, now that I don't have to upload to PC...then P/B.

Well...I think I'm going to pass on Eye-fi, at least for now. Just downloaded iPhoto for the iPad last night and it's actually pretty decent for quick corrections. I've already got the SD thingy for the iPad, and the Photobucket app installed, so I can dump things from the camera to the interwebs pretty fast. And I can get a 4GB SD card for like $7, vs. $40 for an Eye-Fi...

DoogsATX

El Taino - I agree, I rarely use my macro. Usually I'll bust it out for the insanely small work (biplane rigging or something), but that's because the 35mm has a somewhat limited focus distance. Speaking of which, I've got the same 35 f/1.8 and love it...I usually push it to f/22 just to ensure everything's in sharp focus, but I may try stepping it down to see what I can get away with. It basically lives with a tripod shoe screwed into it, so setup is a breeze - it's over on the bench and the post-shoot workflow that's the issue. Great pics by the way - exactly why I'm springing for a point-and-shoot. In most other situations I prefer the DSLR, but point-and-shoots definitely bring some advantages to bench photography.

Doogs, that 35 F/1.8 DX is the best $199 invested. My wife sneaks in my cabinet to use it on her D5000 very often. Another alternative to a macro lens is the new 40mm F/2.8 DX 1:1. I found safe heaven with the S8100. You may want to check for an used one.

fermis

 

DoogsATX:

 

fermis - nice and sharp - what phone is that, exactly? Nice to see a glamour shot on a phone where the colors don't shift noticeably toward the edges...

 

 

It's a Sprint HTC (droid). Surprisingly decent pics, for a phone! It does make the blue backdrop very BLUE. Reds, whites and yellows have the same effect....doesn't pick up subtle differences in the shading/fading. Even does pretty decent for close ups....

1/72 B-24

Thats not a model that is a giant holding a real aircraft!

DoogsATX

fermis - nice and sharp - what phone is that, exactly? Nice to see a glamour shot on a phone where the colors don't shift noticeably toward the edges...

It's a Sprint HTC (droid). Surprisingly decent pics, for a phone! It does make the blue backdrop very BLUE. Reds, whites and yellows have the same effect....doesn't pick up subtle differences in the shading/fading. Even does pretty decent for close ups....

1/72 B-24

Thanks Doogs, getting more illumination isn't really an option so I'll look at a higher ISO. That's assuming I can find the manual, skimmed over it when I got the camera but it's so user-friendly I put the book away and forgot where it is

I think I recall seeing an Adobe version on Nikon's website if all else fails.

Gamera

Still using a Nikon CoolPix 4300 I bought about a decade ago, it works for my needs. My biggest problem is either use the flash and wash out the details or end up with shaky cam blur effects so I have to drag out my mini-tripod to take most photos. Then I have to edit them in PhotoBucket. The actual time plugging in the USB cable and uploading them to the PC is the simplest part.

I recently did look at a Droid with the option of direct upload, only question to the smartphone users here is would I have the same problem with shaky blurry photos???

I use pretty bright lighting (two-tube fluorescent shop light ~3 feet above the bench), so camera shake isn't all that much of an issue. 

If you can force your CoolPix to a higher ISO you could probably eliminate a lot of the camera shake, but at the expense of some extra graininess.

Still using a Nikon CoolPix 4300 I bought about a decade ago, it works for my needs. My biggest problem is either use the flash and wash out the details or end up with shaky cam blur effects so I have to drag out my mini-tripod to take most photos. Then I have to edit them in PhotoBucket. The actual time plugging in the USB cable and uploading them to the PC is the simplest part.

I recently did look at a Droid with the option of direct upload, only question to the smartphone users here is would I have the same problem with shaky blurry photos???

Oh yeah.. One more thing.. Watch carefully those colored backgrounds... Stay away from black unless you're taking a shot at "night", but make sure to light it with a blue filter...  Those colored backgrounds, orange, yellow, red, etc., anything other than white or light blue, tend to play hell with your model's paint-shades from shot to shot..  It changes decal colors too..

Little ol' Kodak EasyShare P&S Model CX4230..

Got it offa Ebay for 16.00... Ain't a much camera, but I can edit in the wife's PC as far as color balance and brightness, plus cropping...

To get up close, I set the camera on the "Close-up setting", take three pics each with flash, fill-flash, and no flash..

Then I D/L and edit the full-size pic with crop-feature.. With the Crop feature, once I've selcted the size are I want cropped, it automaticatically enlarges the cropped area four X... 

I dunno what any of the photographer-jargon y'all are usin' means though... 'Cept "Depth of Field", that is.. 

Overall, I don't want to take a shot of a 1/48 scale figure and enlarge him to the size of a 12" figure... That's just askin' for trouble, in my case...

But from my perspective, I'd take far more shots from "Figure's-eye-level" than the wide, overhead shots...  Some of y'all are robbing yourselves of some great effects-opportunities with those overheads..  Take more "Walk-around" shots, ie: like you were taking pics of that P-51 at an airshow..

I use my wife's Kodak Easyshare (thought it was a Canon but ) shows you what I know and set it on close-up.  It does okay, hides some sins which is fine with me BUT most importantly is easy to use.  Nice to have the removable card to keep the fam photos on while I pop it out and use the hard disk on the camera, then transfer so I don't have to mess with the SD card.

I use a Nikon D300 and love it. Has to be the best camera I ever owned.

Bill

Vance & Herc - Eye-Fi lets you do both, or more. Direct transfer to your computer AND upload to some ungodly number of sites AND push to your phone even. I'm not sure how much you can customize the site upload, but I've got a Photobucket Pro account and it lets me do all kinds of resizing in iPhoto when I export.

But that's the thing with the Nikon. I shoot in RAW and tag and edit in Aperture, then use Photoshop for one or two things Photoshop kills at (unsharp mask mainly, and sometimes black and white conversions), THEN shove the mess over to iPhoto to export it. It's unwieldy. Fine for final pics that I want to shine, but as a workaday workflow it sucks.

El Taino - I agree, I rarely use my macro. Usually I'll bust it out for the insanely small work (biplane rigging or something), but that's because the 35mm has a somewhat limited focus distance. Speaking of which, I've got the same 35 f/1.8 and love it...I usually push it to f/22 just to ensure everything's in sharp focus, but I may try stepping it down to see what I can get away with. It basically lives with a tripod shoe screwed into it, so setup is a breeze - it's over on the bench and the post-shoot workflow that's the issue. Great pics by the way - exactly why I'm springing for a point-and-shoot. In most other situations I prefer the DSLR, but point-and-shoots definitely bring some advantages to bench photography.

fermis - nice and sharp - what phone is that, exactly? Nice to see a glamour shot on a phone where the colors don't shift noticeably toward the edges...

El Taino

Hercmech:

Pentax K-7 with a Tamron 90MM macro lens 

 

I used the Tamron 90mm for almost 10 years in both, Pentax and Nikon mounts. That's the heck of a good sharp lens.

Too sharp at times.

Fermis,

Your phone shots are as good as my K-7 shots

Several years ago, when my wife was wanting something digital, we got a Canon.  It's a great camera, and the nice part is the battery was swappable between the Canon SLR and our Canon DVR.  She loves the SLR, but wanted something compact and point and shoot she could carry in her purse and not worry too much if it got lost/stolen.  I got another Canon.  The batteries don't swap between it and the other cameras, but the memory card does between it and the SLR.  I love that kind of standardization.  

As far as picture quality, they are all top notch.  I haven't used the macro capability on the point-and-shoot much yet, I can't seem to finish any kits lately, but she's constantly amazed at all the new features she continues to discover on the point-and-shoot.  I'll have to wait until I'm home to get the model number for it, but it was one of the middle-of-the road Canon point-and-shoots. 

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas

I'm pretty simple when it comes to cameras, I just screw around for a while till I get a decent setting....then it stays there!

I recently replaced my old camera with a cheap ($100-ish) Sony Cyber-shot. It doesn't take the awesomest of pics, but good enough for who it's for!

This one was taken with my phone...

Hercmech

Pentax K-7 with a Tamron 90MM macro lens 

I used the Tamron 90mm for almost 10 years in both, Pentax and Nikon mounts. That's the heck of a good sharp lens.

VANCE:

True that. I have noticed that photbucket does compress them a bit.  I use RAW and my camera is a 14.6 mega pixel. I do convert them to JPEG but they don't get much smaller. I wonder if it is in the phot bucket stting to shrink them. 

I own the Nikon 105 AF-S F/2.8 macro 1:1  VR lens and I never use it. 1st, it is too cumbersome, 2nd, I don't want a $2,500 rig around my dusty bench. 3rd, stopping it down to F/22 or F/32 needs a tripod and I'm to lazy for that. IMHO, we don't need 1:1 magnification even on 1/72 models unless one wants to show brush strokes.

For the glamour shots of my models, I use the Nikon 35mm DX F/1.8 from F/8 to no more than F/13 with a Nikon SB-900 flash. A white ceiling is always our best allied. For the WIP progress I use a Nikon S8100 compact. The magnification ratio is good enough and due to the smaller sensor, I don't need a tripod to get good depth-of-field. It has built in optical vibration reduction and to snap family pictures works like a charm.

This build and final pictures taken on a white piece of printer paper were taken with the CoolPix S8100.

But Wait! You can still get closer hand held.

Hercmech

Direct upload would be nice. The process of taking, editing, converting then uploading is one reason why I don't take more pictures as I go along. It turns into a chore so I usually take pictures then work them when the build is finished then post them.

Now that I'm thinking about it though.... I'd like direct transfer to my Mac, not direct upload to Photobucket. At 2.5 to 3MB per pic, I'd run out of room on the basic account I have now. I generally take all my pics at the highest resolution settings, then downsize them before uploading to Photobucket.

Direct upload would be nice. The process of taking, editing, converting then uploading is one reason why I don't take more pictures as I go along. It turns into a chore so I usually take pictures then work them when the build is finished then post them.

I've seen the eye-fi cards advertised several places - if you go that route let me know how it works for you. Not convinced I need more wifi bouncing around my head on any given day, but sounds like a slick system. Y'know, if it works...

Hercmech

The biggest drawback to having a good camera with a real macro lens is it will show... and magnify every little flaw in your build. I have noticed things in my pictures that I never even noticed using my Mk 1 eyeball. Even after seeing them in the pictures it is sometimes hard to spot.

I've got a dedicated macro for the Nikon, so I know what you mean. Though I usually shoot with the 35mm at f/22 to max out the depth of field.

But god. Anything's better than the iPhone.

Here's my George WIP. 

iPhone - on the bench:

iPhone - on photo table:

Nikon D300s:

And...I just won one of those SD790's TD uses on eBay for $68. Now do I hook it up with an Eye-Fi card and direct uploading to Photobucket? Hmm...

tigerman

I agree. That's why I photoshop my posts. LOL

Say it ain't so!!!

I agree. That's why I photoshop my posts. LOL

Hercmech

The biggest drawback to having a good camera with a real macro lens is it will show... and magnify every little flaw in your build. I have noticed things in my pictures that I never even noticed using my Mk 1 eyeball. Even after seeing them in the pictures it is sometimes hard to spot.

  I've also discovered that having the right camera.... does nothing to increase the speed of my builds.

The biggest drawback to having a good camera with a real macro lens is it will show... and magnify every little flaw in your build. I have noticed things in my pictures that I never even noticed using my Mk 1 eyeball. Even after seeing them in the pictures it is sometimes hard to spot.