This is not a post about dioramas, but it's tailored to folks who don't have higher-end equipment to comfortably produce decent photographs of diecast cars. It's to show that it's not necessarily the camera's problem if it can't focus on the subject matter. Sometimes it's the photographer who doesn't provide enough light to let the camera work at its best. I'm sorry for pointing fingers, but the "Sorry I'm not a photographer" excuse doesn't work, because-
Surprise! I'm not one either! 
Here I demonstrate that it doesn't take expensive equipment nor post-edit wizardry skills to output something decent. It starts with two simple things, adequate lighting, and a bright non-reflective surface.
^ Taken with an 8 year-old camera. I've seen people taken worser photos with a smartphone half as old. I picked out 3 different coloured cars to illustrate how lighting affects the highlights and shadows. The matte black needs a lot more light than a gloss white for instance.
The last one is a bit of a stretch, but the point is, if you get lighting in the right places, you'll be able to present the subject matter in a way pleasing to the eye. What you will need to remember is to get your digital cameras or phone cameras to focus on the right spot. If it has a hard time focusing on your designated point, point the camera to focus on another object (at the same distance you ideally wanted your photograph to have), set the focus so it doesn't change, and move it back to your subject matter.
If you play around with your camera's auto-focus, you may notice it can't focus on objects too close to the lens, or it will tend to focus on whatever detail it can pick up that is the sharpest or has the greatest contrast. Use that to your advantage. If the camera won't work with you, you should work with the camera.
Two things you will notice:
-reflective surfaces won't illuminate as much because they deflect some of the light, so to get enough light on these, you may need a more powerful source of light.
-White works well because it's a light colour. It helps illuminate the bottom half of the car. You may like your wooden cabinet more than a white piece of paper, but remember your photos naturally won't turn out as bright.
You can apply these notes to your dioramas and/or other light box setups. When you get around to presenting photos often, it may be a drag to have the added step of post-processing, but it pays to learn how to work a photo editor anyway.
Enjoy. If you feel this contribution will be useful to anyone you know, if you could be as so kind to redirect them here, I'd appreciate it!
Haven't seen anything from you in quite a while. Would be interested to see any builds - fences, tracks, etc? Done anything lately?
Diorama wise, no. I've been focusing on my studies since there's a lot I still need to learn, as well as landing a job for the summer work term.
Dioramas, custom cars, drawings, and everything else can come after that.
But I've ideas written down, I still have supplies stocked up, but haven't committed to anything yet. But before I proceed, I need to find a way to store these things away for future use.
And thanks for the words on my previous post. 👍
