photography 101

1. never use a black background. I know you get your picture taken like that at a studio, but they have flash technology your average digi doesn't posses.
2. Avoid using a flash altogether. I know it sounds odd, but its better to just avoid a flash at all. Tippmann's are almost all black, and they won't pick up much of the light from the flash. Shiny guns just send back a glare. Its better off to use a well lit area and turn off the flash. If you have a desk lamp then aim that at your gun. With a digital cameras, they usually have flash compensators, this means that when you use a flash it will purposely make the rest of the picture darker. Little details won't show up and so on.
3. Use a backdrop. Backdrop??? Sure, everyone has a backdrop in their room, unless you sleep on a bare matress. Use a sheet for a backdrop. It won't reflect light like glossy paper, but it will make a contrast for your gun, especially darker colored guns.     Whats that??? Your gun is white? Then use a colored towel. Light blue and green work good for this.
4. Never take a picture straight on. Picture with just a side profile are getting boring. There is nothing going on in your picture. It really makes it look boring. Never just lay your gun on the floor and aim straight down either. Its boring. Instead try this. Drape the sheet off the side of your bed, down the side, and out onto the floor, now set your ASA/drop on the floor and lean against your bed. Now take a picture at an angle. Don't forget to check for glare.
5. 2/3 rule. Not neccasary but looks cooler. This is more for close-ups of details. Make imaginary lines a third of the way in each direction on your camera. They make a box in the middle. Put whatever your focusing on inside that box. Any bigger and its overwhelming. Any smaller and you can't see it.
6. Don't photoshop unless you REALLY know what you are doing. It will be obviuous. The only thing I use photoshop for on my photos is to crop and to shrink the image size (my camera takes 1280x1124, i shrink to around 600x800). Also a pet peeve of my own. I'm really sick of people photochopping items onto their guns. The pictures just look hokey and stupid. Pleas don't post junk like that. We would rather see your gun when its done, not what its going to look like.
   

More digital cam tips you should know is your aperture. Your F-Stop helps regulate your Depth Of Feild (DOF), the lower the F-Stop the lesser DOF (this is for members who produce an image that is halfway out of focus between the forground and the backround).

Know how to control your ISO! This helps your exposure.Remember, the greater the ISO the less light is needed to expose (More ISO= More "grain" or "noise").

Lastly, your white balance (or your cam's color alignment system for CCD devices).Since light has different temperatures measured in Kelvin degrees, the camera's overall perception of what is "WHITE" is different between a 6000K and a 10000K light.The best way to "balance" this is to take a white peice of paper and hold is up to the camera lens and it should automatically adjust it's CCD settings or you may have to tell the camera manually (depends on what kind of a digital camera you have).

Well, i hope that clears up some "camera problems" for some people. Have fun! 

Unless you don't want to shoot outside, always shoot in the sun, best light ever, and if your picky shoot right AFTER sunrise or right BEFORE sunset (not during). During those times the sun has to travel through a lot more atmosphere and produces a softer light which casts a lighter shadow (as aposed to shooting at high noon). Shooting with a flash does suck bad, but is great for ametuer photographers. Do not hand hold a camera shooting indoors without a flash unless you know what your doing. If your are using a digital camera, go to your white balance settings and change it to tungsen (spelling?), this tells the camera you are not shooting at a nice studio and that you are using household lights. Ahhh nevermind... photography is such a trial and error process and I am still learning it myself, just shoot until it looks good and if you don't use a flash get the camera on a tripod or rest it on a table or it will blur (indoors). And photoshop users that are not pro, try the "Auto color, contrast" commands. You should be the judge if it helped or not though.

"Photographers use similiar things for their gear, called Soft boxes, Basically when you use the T-shirt you are applieing the same conept as those big white umbrellas you see infront of photographers lights."

^try that, it could help.

As for manually white balancing your camera, it is good to try and see what happens, if it looks good keep it. Pro photographers have cards that are a little off-white on purpose depending on what they are shooting. A card for skin would barely be tinted red or blue so you don't look pale and what not.

I'm still a learner in this area, feel free to disagree, I'd like to hear what you have to say.

The Guy wrote: side shots are just getting boring. Plus those arn't really that important. I've seen too many guns that you can barely see because of low light, black carpet, 98's.

Guy,

How do you think mine turned out?

Bruce A. Frank & Son’s Markers

Shot with a film camera, indirect sunlight with flash fill. Scanned into the computer and resized in Photoshop.