my project for the last couple of days was taking photos of a paletti cronos tt bike. i used a 3.2 megapixel camera (olympus camedia d-395), in my personal photo studio (garage). i use white 3 white cotton sheets (king-size), that are sewn together, and i hang them doubled-up to prevent see-through. seamless paper would have been much better, but i started with one sheet, then another, and another, and now i don't want to discard them (they weren't cheap). i use two sears worklights of 1,000 watts each, aimed at the ceiling, together with my daily neon fixtures consisting of 4, 40 watt bulbs. i never use the built-in flash. i take tons of pictures, pick the best ones, and then massage them with photoshop 7. i crop and rotate where necessary, and i always adjust the levels and color with photoshop. it is amazing what photoshop can do. if i was using seamless paper, many of my photos would be close to professional quality, thanks to photoshop. if you can't afford to own or rent professional photo lighting equipment, photoshop or another good image editing program, takes up the slack caused by an amateur setup like mine. i also use a tripod for all of my shots - a regular-size one (less than $30 at target), and a small/portable one (less than $15 radio shack).
you can see photos of my "studio" setup at:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/
and you can see the photos i took between yesterday and today at:
maybe i'll sell my "photo studio cotton background" (my sheets), on ebay, and then i'll buy the seamless paper.
regards to all,
ray dobbins
miami florida