I have had my digital camera for about 2 years now. Prior to getting it, I had not used a camera for model pics (say, Instamatic!) I am so NOT an expert, but I keep playing with it. Here is what I have found mostly works for me. Your camera may have different settings or names for stuff. I don’t really know what a lot of these things are; I just read the manual, poke, jiggle, and curse (not always in that order!). Press the shutter and hope for the best!

Setup: camera on tripod, using a cable release to trip the shutter (The timer would also work, but the Fuji one has to be reset each time-too awkward to use.) I never freehold the camera.
Lighting: preferably outdoors in sunlight or shade.
Camera: Fuji FinePix S7000.
Quality mode: 6 megapixal
ISO sensitivity: 200 bright light, 400 sometimes in dimmer light but not always. Seems to alter the amount of “grain” or “mushiness” of the photo.
Manual mode (aperture and shutter speed manually settable, as opposed to full auto)
Aperture manual setting: F8 (max for this camera, gives best depth of field for me)
Macro: Single flower for most shots, double flower for shots within 1” or less. Most pictures are taken with the lens between 6-8” away and single flower (who came up with this flower stuff anyway?). Double flower has limited DOF.
Focus: I use the auto focus almost exclusively.
AF (auto focus) mode: Center or Multi
Zoom: occasionally used. DOF can get tricky.
White balance: Standard camera shade or sun setting as required
Photometry: Multi (whatever this is)
Sharpness: Hard

Once I have the shot setup, I usually take 4-8 shots, changing the shutter speed for each one, from bright to dark (or reverse). I move the camera in or out a couple of inches and retake the set of shots. I can take 50 to 100 easy to get 2-3 that I like.

I don’t have a sophisticated photo-editing program yet. All I do for now is crop/straighten, and maybe bump the contrast/brightness a bit and add a touch of sharpening. I can also do a bit of “digital dusting”, since taking photos seems to attract dust and bits like ants to a picnic! ****dest thing! The color is straight from the camera, since my cheapo program has no useable adjustment. This is one area I hope to get into soon.

I still need to find a decent indoor light source, since I can’t post-tweak my photos yet. I also find issues with vertical distortion. May be a lens/macro thing, probably solvable with a more expensive camera! Yep, just throw some more money at it!

Hope something here is useable. Now here is a link to a tutorial where the guy knows what he is doing!

http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9868