Photos, two thoughts for us amateurs:
-- use the macro capability of the digital camera;
-- make sure of the lighting, but don't hesitate to use flash, even a forced flash if the lighting is so low as to limit shutter speed or require a very large lens opening that would reduce depth of field.
Finally, you need very good software to do image enhancement/repair. I use Adobe Photoshop 4.0 and made sure that the software has a special module for my point and shoot digital, a Leica D-Lux 3 that came out about a year ago. Haven't figured out how to work with images in RAW that the Leica takes as yet, so I use the standard edit features on the JPEG images: key is darkening highlights and accentuating mid-tone contrast. The "unsharp mask" is not so useful for macro shots such as we take on guns.
Best of the Season
