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Ok......what is the best way to get a quality pic?
My digital camera gets blury when zoomed in for detail. My cell phone can get in close...but has the takinen with cellphone look.
Any tips?

Does your digicam have a macro setting? The blurring from being zoomed in is caused by the camera shaking. If you have to zoom in to get detail (no macro) use a tripod and also stay within the optical, rather than digital, zoom range of the camera. If the camera only has a digital zoom and no macro...well you're hosed.

If your pictures are blurry its probably because you have the camera too close to the subject for it to focus properly. Macro mode on a camera can assist this by letting it focus on objects that are much closer than normal, however it has the downside that only a very small area will be in sharp focus.

The other thing that causes blur is motion but this only happens at longer exposure times. If you have nice bright lighting then the exposure time can be pushed dow again and motion blur will not occur.

Another option, of course, is just to take a picture from further away so its in focus and then zoom in and crop away all the bits that aren't a picture of the model before posting the picture. you will need a high MP count on the camera to get a decent result from this approach, but it might be all you need. this is effectively what Helotaxi is talking about with digital zoom.

What kind of camera are you using? Also if you search for tutorials and advice in Dakka there are already plenty of threads on getting ebtter pictures.

Flinty's advice is good, however, you need to understand that photography is a very complex subject. The answer to your question can't be answered with a few sentences. You need to understand the mechanical process of photography, how cameras and lenses work, how light works, the difference between "hard' and "soft" light, depth of field, the "exposure triangle" and, argh, there's a lot to know.

What we do when we photograph our minis falls under the discipline of product photography, also known as table top photography. At a minimum you need a tripod and light box. There are a lot of good tuts out there for down and dirty diy light boxes that can be made mostly from things you already have around your house.

I suggest you take flinty's advice and look at the tuts here on Dakka as a good starting point, and possibly join a photography specific forum as well, their are a number of them out there.

Ultra Grey wrote:
Flinty's advice is good, however, you need to understand that photography is a very complex subject. The answer to your question can't be answered with a few sentences. You need to understand the mechanical process of photography, how cameras and lenses work, how light works, the difference between "hard' and "soft" light, depth of field, the "exposure triangle" and, argh, there's a lot to know.

Maybe bold for my first post, but I'd like to disagree to avoid confusion for the OP!

It sounds like the OP is just trying to focus too close. All they need to understand is that camera lenses have a minimum focusing distance, and any closer to that and you'll get an out of focus subject! Another alternative is that, as has been mentioned, camera shake is causing blurred images. This can be solved with better light (really essential anyway), steadier hands, something to place the camera such as, as you say a tripod.

I'm not sure the OP is taking photos with a proper digital SLR camera, though, so I think talking about exchangable lenses, lighting softness and depth of field is just going to confuse! Photography is certainly fun though, albeit as yet another (even more) expensive hobby alongside wargaming


So OP, I'd suggest taking a step back and as has been suggested, cropping your image if you can. I'd be surprised if you don't have enough megapixels to get say an 800x600 crop, assuming you have steady hands and good lighting to get a sharp picture

There should be a button with a pic of a flower on your camera, use this and turn the flash off. Get the picture in sunlight.

Not going to win you any prizes but thats all you really need, oh and consider the background too, a bit of paper or card might do it.

As Mr.Shine said, good lighting and a steady camera will make the biggest difference. I take my pictures outside on a bright day against an all white background. Of course upgrading your camera will also do wonders for your photography.