advice from the pros (or semi-pros)

i know pretty much zero about photography, but i really want to learn how to best utilize my little compact camera for taking photos of books - we have these awesome little handmade books, but totally shit photos of them up on our website, so i need all kinds of advice, from lighting to what the hell i should be doing with the actual camera. i understand that there's only so much i'll ever be able to do, given the camera i have (i need to find it and get the specs), but i know for a fact that other ppl are getting way more out of similar cameras than i am.

help!

If at all possible, put the books near a large north-facing window to get the best possible light on them. Short of that, any other window that lets in a lot of natural light. You want to avoid interior lighting (which is usually flat and ugly, and you'd need to correct the color balance) and your camera's flash.

you have any shots you've already taken so we can get an idea of what you're aiming for??

i'm too embarrassed! i'm gonna find the camera and attempt some shots and maybe post those for some critique.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4115/4870421924_2ee1009271_z.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4116/4870415462_593fd205e8_z.jpg

not enough light? looks really grainy and not sharp at all.

that already looks really good! you can try a setup like this for really cheap

http://www.diyphotography.net/homestudio/cheap-homemade-diy-studio-no-lighting-needed

thanks dyao! any tips for the settings on my camera? it has all the pre-sets, so i just used the 'food' pre-set.

the 'food' preset will work fine! if you are just in regular mode, try turning on the 'flower' mode (picture of a flower) which means macro a.k.a. closeup.

if you want the text to be sharper, then you'll need to get closer to the book, either by zooming or moving the camera closer. what kind of camera do you have?

a panasonic DMC FS5, according to flickr.

also: what about the picture size? it's currently set at 7M, although i don't even really know what the means. when i upload the pics to my PC they're HUUUGE, which is a pain. is it important for them to big for the quality or anything? or would that only matter if i was cropping them down a lot?

yeah 7M is pretty big. if it's just for the web, then something smaller like 3M (don't know how your camera sizes this, exactly) would be more than enough.

you won't need to crop if you get the framing right when you shoot it...

okay, i'm gonna try again tomorrow, when there's more light, and with a better background, and see how they turn out. thanks so much for the friendly, non-patronizing advice - i feel like less of a loser now ^_^

thanks for your advice too, milo - i gotta figure out where the hell north is around here.

I would also recommend using something like iPhoto or google's Picasa to organize and edit your photos with. just using the 'auto contrast' or 'auto color' functions in either can improve the look of a photo drastically.

anyway post the new ones after you've taken them! I don't actually have any experience with studio photography, I'm sure some of the other regs on here do though...

Second one looks pretty good IMO. I don't see grainy and blur - if you're looking at them zoomed 100%/full size on your monitor, they won't look as good as when you resize them for the web.

If you want something head-on like the first, try propping up a white board to your left (angled back to the window facing the book) to reflect some of light back onto the cover.

okay, today i made a little more effort - more sun and used some white paper i had lying round (but i need a bigger sheet) - and i'm really really happy with how they turned out. honestly, they're about 100x better than any other photos we've taken:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_LV99RVocutg/TGc9I2vEqEI/AAAAAAAAAQs/CUkHygoWuSo/s512/P1020659.JPG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_LV99RVocutg/TGc-5uFQKzI/AAAAAAAAARA/JpXT3XCU2MU/s720/P1020668.JPG

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_LV99RVocutg/TGc_U9JdARI/AAAAAAAAARI/5_BCwymW6vI/s800/P1020672.JPG

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_LV99RVocutg/TGdAoT-f0VI/AAAAAAAAARg/7wzS25pJIok/s512/P1020685.JPG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_LV99RVocutg/TGdBY1GQXTI/AAAAAAAAARw/u3SVO_rLB9o/s576/P1020692.JPG

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_LV99RVocutg/TGdCsBzAlpI/AAAAAAAAASY/WnAsEVHuYmc/s512/P1020710.JPG

one thing i only noticed after i'd taken all the photos: the window wasn't totally clean so there were some smudgy shadows on the paper/books.