Doll Photography--Part I   Selection of Cameras and Scanners

Your doll collection is growing--you have dolls everywhere!  In fact, you are swimming in dolls.  And now, you have decided that you want to share your dolls with the world.  Perhaps you want to add a photo of your doll to the About.com Doll Gallery.  Perhaps, you want to photograph your doll for an eBay listing.   Or, you need photos for a doll magazine article, or, perhaps even for insurance records.  But...you are a collector, and you are all thumbs with a camera!  Even worse, the thought of getting your photo into cyberspace sends chills up your spine.   Well, your Guide has what you need--a four-part series on Doll Photography.

This series will focus on photographing dolls, with an emphasis on doll photography for the Internet.  First, we will discuss selection of basic equipment to get your photos on the Internet--cameras and scanners.  Dolls are one of the most difficult objects to photograph, because of the need to photograph  sharp details.  Small details, such as doll markings (or a special shoe!) and small dolls, such as miniature dolls or all bisques, are even more difficult to photograph--often, special instructions and equipment for close-up and macro photography are required, since many cameras (especially digital ones used for the Internet) will only focus as close as, say, 2 feet, which doesn't allow a large enough picture to show such small dolls or details. 

My first major tip is that you MUST have a single-lens reflex camera or a comparable digital camera for doll photography, which is a camera that will photograph exactly what you see through your viewfinder.  If you do not have this type of camera, you will spend a great amount of time just trying to figure out what portion of your doll, doll mark, or detail you are photographing, since the effects of non-single lens reflex cameras (which only photograph a portion of what you see in the viewfinder) are greatly magnified the closer the focus of your photography.  You can use a standard 35-mm SLR camera, or a digital one, depending on how you want to get your photos into your computer, and then onto the Internet.  My first camera that I used for digital photography on the Internet in the dark ages of digital photograph (late 1990s)  was a Hewlet Packard which was NOT SLR; half the time, I cut off the heads on my small all-bisque dolls for my web site.  After that, I used an Olympus D-500L which was a TTL (through-the lens) SLR type camera, and that camera made my life 100% easier. After that, I graduated to a Sony Mavica CD camera (which took the photos on this page and all the photos for my book, The Official Price Guide To Dolls) and, in 2005, to a Nikon Coolpix with fantastic macro capability and a gazillion (well, 8.0) Megapixels, which is way too much for the Internet but fantastic for printed work.

You have two choices for getting photos of your  dolls on the Internet (either for e-mailing to friends, for web sites, or for sales of your dolls on auction services such as EBay, etc.).  One choice is to use a 35mm SLR camera, develop your film normally, then scan the photos into your computer. Good scanners can now be purchased for under $100, and, if you already own a 35mm SLR camera, then this is your cheapest way to get started in doll photography for the Internet.   Keep in mind, though, that you will  have the ongoing costs of purchasing and developing film, and if you intend to photograph many dolls for the internet, this may not end up being your cheapest option in the long run.  When you select a scanner, keep in mind that you can either connect your scanner into a parallel port OR use the new, faster USB connectors.  I have my Hewlett Packard ScanJet on a USB port, and I find it is much faster than the older scanner that shared the parallel port with my printer.   

Your second choice is to get a digital camera, preferably SLR, and then download the photos directly from the camera to the computer.  If you have the initial funds to buy a digital camera (they start at about $300 and go up from there) and plan to take many pictures, then this will be cheapest (and best) choice in the long run, since you will not have to buy film for the camera, and you have the convenience of taking photos with your digital camera and IMMEDIATELY seeing your results--no trips back and forth to the photo developer are necessary.  If you don't take the pictures right the first time, you will know immediately, and can re-take them.   One caveat--digital cameras eat batteries like popcorn, which can increase your costs, but most allow you to plug the cameras into an electrical adapter, which is easy enough to use for doll photography.   My Olympus additionally has rechargeable batteries--another cost-cutter.   Another caveat--some digital cameras do NOT have a macro lens available for them, so you must carefully check what the closest focus is for the basic camera. (Use this resource for help in selecting a digital camera:  Digital Photography Reviews).

With a digital camera, you download your pictures into your computer either by attaching your camera directly to the computer through a USB port or Pict Bridge or through a type of media card (the latest computers have ports for many types of media cards, or you can buy a simple adapter that will work through USB.  My Sony uses mini CDs as the "film" for the digital cameras, the ultimate in convenience, but something that does slow down actually capturing the photos, which is only a factor if you are taking large megapixel photos, since dolls don't move and you wont' have to worry about "missing the shot." 

Part II in this series will discuss your options for getting close-up focus of small dolls, doll accessories, doll details and doll marks--macro-lens, close-up lens, and extension tubes.  Part III will discuss basic techniques for doll photography.  Part IV will discuss software options for making dissemination of your pictures easier.

Part I of the Doll Photography Series (cameras and scanners)

Part II of the Doll Photography Series (close-ups)

Part III of the Doll Photography Series (Tips and Tricks for Quality Doll Photos)

Part IV of the Doll Photography Series (software for photo editing)

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Do you have questions on photographing dolls?  Ask me in the Doll Forum!

Photos copyright Denise Van Patten 2004; taken with a Sony MavicaCD digital camera.