Hello Snagy,
I am using a small Camera Sony Cybershot AVCHD 20x (optical zoom) (some 250€). Mounted on a camera foot (absolutely essential!).
The flat is inserted ion a self-adhesive black velours, provided with a slit at bottom, and set on a inclined piece of wood (which I am using for regular painting of flats). The velours attracts dust and hair, but is easlily cleaned with fresh tape..
The lighting is a cool light (6000 – 6400°K) daylight 80 Watts as shown. The white is adjusted to that light on the camera (special function), here to 6200°K, to obtain a correct whte and colour balance.
Sensivity to 100 ISO. Focus on center point, lighting also on center point, manually adjustable. I usually under-expose slighktly (here -0.7 ) to get details in the shadows instead of saturation, and compensate on the photo later. I use a delay for the photograph of 2 secods, so when I push on the button, I have two seconds fr the camera to be absoluteky without any move to get sharp photograph. Even in exhibitions, I use the camera foot, sometimes with a zoom 10 fold at distance, and a 2 seconds delay = photograhs remain sharp !
After the photograph is taken and darken the contrast to get a black background, and adjust the Midtone to match the colour and contrast of the flat in front of me… I am using Microsoft Office Picture Manager, very simple and straitforward software for adjustments … provided with Microsoft Office. When dusts or hair have been forgotten on the background, I clean with a software called PhotoFiltre Studio.
Below a few pictures of the installation.
