so i have been taking really not too great fig picutures. started with my phone camera, and that was even worse, then i change to my point and shoot digital canon. that wasn't so bad, but there is lot more to be desired.

i look at francisco (lampo), jd, and nicoles pictures and i just go wow. i mean all fig pictures look good, but they seems to know how to take the picture to really bring out the best in the figs.

what exactly is the skills that is needed to do that? i know good DSLR will help with knowing how to set all those setting manually, but i don't think i'll be dropping couple of hundreds any time soon on the camera.

what can be done with simple point and shoot cameras?

any suggestions?

Stand back, then zoom in with the camera.  It will blur out the background and focus on the object that is closest.  Software can greatly enhance colors and sharpness too.  I'm a novice myself, but this has helped me take better pics.

Lighting helps also.  Avoid harsh shadows and glare.

Pete some cameras have close up or macro feature in menu that lets you get pretty close up to snap just a fig interior or fig itself .
Myself personally take many pictures of same shot at various angles and then pic out the best one .
I use no programs to color or enhance the pictures only 2 programs to put name on it and to resize to about 100kb as the forum picture feature now is quite large even when getting right under the required 1 mb size like i used to.

Here is example using old photosmart 6.0 megapixel camera with closeup feature and no programs to enhance it.

Course it probably took about 12 shots to get the right one as i try to capture exactly how i see it with my eyes into a picture .

This thumbnail little big at 123.kb as it was taken last season before i make smaller thumbnails.
Click it.

My first camera that really got me started in photography was a canon powershot 8 MP point and shoot camera. I loved that camera. Here's some I took with it as a complete newb.





No, these pics aren't as crisp and aesthetically pretty as my current photos, but the cameras are completely different. I think the above pics are still nice, and they were taken with an 8 MP point and shoot camera.
Direct sunlight tends to be too glaring and makes the contrast too harsh. Natural, soft light gives the best lighting. If you angle so that there is lots of background in a distance, that makes for the best bokeh (camera lingo for the out of focus look behind or in front of what you are focusing on). So if you take a picture of a fig on a plate looking down from above, you'll get no bokeh because the background is too close. But if you change your angle and come down to the edge of the table, eye level with the fig, the background will be further away (nearest wall, tree, building, etc) and those items will be more blurred. 

I also do basic photo editing. I have a mac, so I use the basic editing tools it comes with which is iphoto. The things I usually adjust are shadows, contrast, brightness, and color saturation.

The biggest secret is take a ton of the same pix, and pick the good one. That is what professional photogs do. Take pix in the shade if you can, where light is indirect, or on cloudy days when lighting in more diffused (or early morning or late afternoon).

I take all my pix in the shade, where the light is bright but still indirect.

light, yes.. i keep making the mistake of taking picture in the full sun. that gives very harsh picture. but i hate lacking detail due to not having enough light. i try to keep sun to my back and get more light on the subject, but that's not working too well. i'll try indirect light in bright location next time. i wish i remember the things i learned in high school photography class..

Or, get a smart phone.  Use the camera!  Impossible to get a blurry photo.  Send it to your email LARGE, and then crop off what you don't want, and re-size in a photo editing program.  I use photoshop.

This photo is not a fig.  Took it this morning.  I need a row of 21 dwarf citrus on our new frontage, so this is a shot of the baby Flying Dragon Root stock.  Some are about 3" some are 1" or less, and some are just popping up.  Others are simmering.



Good luck Pete!

Suzi