I changed my "studio" quite awhile ago (new desk, faster computer, etc.), but just now updated the pic... Thanks to advice from Chris Marshal (O2Bfunny@aol.com) my lighting has improved dramatically. The lights I now use are the same type as the ones Mattel used for the CD Rom they made.

Here is a pic of my old "studio".

I only left this pic up to show you what my original lighting was like. Good results can be obtained from utility type floods, but they are bulky and produce way too much heat (at least in the summer). Notice the really old redlines.com logo I made that is on the screen. I think Mattel would have come down on me hard if they had seen it.

Here is my latest setup.

The lights are fully adjustable and (in the pic above) I have them very low so their brightness didn't wash out the scene. The main reason that my Hot Wheel pics are nice is that my digital camera is capable of very close macro work. Here is a nice picture (that I stole from Canon's web site) of the camera. Please note that this camera is no longer available! It has been replaced by the Canon PowerShot A5 which has been improved as far as resolution goes, but I didn't check into it yet. For the time being, I am happy with what I have. I now have a PowerShot G2 which is very nice and fast The images are nice, also.

I would not recommend this camera (or the newer version, PowerShot A5) to someone that was taking pictures of their family. It has a fixed focal length lens (equal to a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera). There are cameras out there in the same price range that have zoom lenses and lcd displays and other gadgets that this doesn't have. BUT, none will focus to 3" AND none have a 170 meg hard drive that fits inside the camera (the new A5 compresses pics into jpgs inside the camera, so the HD isn't needed). The hard drive is VERY important when it comes to taking high quality pictures! This does not come standard with the camera, but is a must have. Without it I could only take 4 pictures and I would have to download into the computer because EACH image takes over 1 meg of memory at 832 by 628 pixels. That would be a little inconvenient...

Once I take the pics, usually about 30 to 35 at a time, I have to hook the camera up to its' docking bay. This plugs into the printer port. Once that is done I upload the camera's contents onto my computer's hard drive. This takes about 20 seconds (even faster now...) per picture. I had to upgrade my computer when I bought the camera because my P60 system was smoking from working so hard (it took over a minute per pic)! While it is loading, I find something to do because the uploading takes every bit of my processor and I can't even open a different window to read email (256 MBs of PC100 RAM sure make a big difference). Once in the computer, I edit the pics by cropping them and compensating for contrast and color errors. The camera seems to have the most problems with red cars in blisters. I think it has something to do with too many shades of red cause an internal sensor to overcompensate. Once I name and save the edited pictures to my hard drive, I have to upload them to my server and link them to the text that they correspond to. Of course, then I have to check to make sure they are all linked up properly. I hope that this description answered your questions!