For 35 mm photography, use the fastest film that you have available - Kodak Max 800 or equivalent is excellent. The faster speed films will allow more natural light to take over rather than more flash. if you can bounce a flash if you have to use one, all the better. Use macro or close-up lenses (but they need more light), and with a tripod to get the most detail - strong reflected daylight will give the best results. A neutral density filter or polarizer will help eliminate glare. In lieu of close-up lenses you can also use telephoto to take zeroed-in shots, and usually you don't need as much ambient light. Telephoto shots also allow you to be farther away from the ball, which will help to cut down on reflected glare from the flash on the ball, which happens if the flash is too close.

        For digital photography, most of the same tips apply -although you usually have more options to control unwanted effects from the electronics in your camera. Be sure to play with it and thoroughly read the instructions to become familiar with what you camera offers. If there is a macro function by all means take advantage of it - otherwise rely on the zoom power to get the closest looking shot while being the farthest away from the ball again to reduce reflected flash. You can usually adjust the flash strength and exposure level electronically which will also help. Like 35 mm cameras you can get neutral density or polarizing filters that will help. Try to rely on daylight rather than flash if possible.  Also, be sure to try to control the size and resolution of your image - depending on what you are going to do with the images. If you are primarily going to email or post the images to a web site, use the smaller image sizes and a lower resolution...   monitors can only handle image resolutions up to 200 pix so it is only wasting file size to have a higher res (the higher the res the bigger the file)- and, image size for a computer is a lot smaller than that to be printed so use the email or web image function on your camera (there usually is one). If you want to print the images you take with your digital camera, then shoot with a higher resolution (like 300) and the images size that corresponds to the print size you desire. You can either print the images yourself on glossy photo paper, or have them printed professionally on regular photographic paper with professional techniques by uploading your images to an online printing service.

        For both types of photography, consider removing protective or neutral density filters from your camera lens - they can have an impact on the amount of light reaching the camera for the image which means you need to be supplying more ambient light and it may also force you to use a flash. They can also reduce image detail capture on the image - but you will have to more attendant to glare.

        Digital cameras usually always have both optical and digital zoom capabilities, and some of the new SLR 35mm cameras too have digital zoom features. Usually this is a great advantage but digital zoom will not be as clear and sharp as pure optical zoom. Optical zoom relies only the actual optical camera lens and is a pure image. Digital zom is being created within the camera's computer chip using the optical zoom image and then artificially "cranking it up". For many zoomed shots this may be fine but if you are indeed trying to capture fine detail it is not as sharp and accurate. Given the option stay within your camera's optical zoom range, or consider using macro or telephoto lenses rather than using the ditigla zoom feature. Usually you will need more ambient (room) light for optical closeups, with or without macro or telephoto lenses. You will also see much better results if you use a tripod for closeups since a closeup shot is much more sensitive to the most minor movement of the camera. Any place selling cameras or accessories will have a little tabletop tripod that you can get (they are universally sized and fit all cameras) for under ten dollars and it will be the best investment you'll make.

        In addition to lighting, the background is also important to your images regardless of whether you are shooting 35 mm or digital - but, there are additional considerations for digital. Overall, you want a standard contrast... darker backgrounds for light balls and lighter backgrounds for darker balls. But - try to avoid stark white, as it will usually set up a glaring contrast that is not too pleasing to the eye. If you are taking digital photos, very dark backgrounds will add to the file size. In both cases, keep the texture of the background fairly neutral - you don't want a busy fabric print for example that will distract from the Temari - nor do you want a heavily textured background as the same will happen. However - don't discount nature. Not only will you have the benefit of daylight, pebbled pathways or driveways, green grass, cozy spots in the garden, perched on the fence railing or on the rock wall can give wonderful results.

        If you have 35mm prints and need to scan them to digital images, most of the rules about resolution and image size from digital imaging apply. Remember to use the scaling feature on your scanner as you make the scan to reduce the image size from the original, as you will have a better quality image if the reduction is done as the scan is made, rather than reducing the image afterwards.

        Digital and scanned images can have wonderful things done to them by using any of the great imaging or photo editing software titles on the market - such as Paint Shop Pro, Adobe PhotoShop, ArcSoft or even free or inexpensive downloads. Mostly you will be cropping and resizing, but you can do great touchups, color and exposure balancing, and add special effects to your images also. Most scanners and digital cameras come with some sort of image editing software. 

      A word of caution about repeated editing in photo and image programs after you have the image in your computer.  Ideally the best thing to do is to save your original image in the native format of your camera or scanner - usually a TIFF file. However, because this and most native (original) file formats are not compressed (makes them smaller and more compact) they will take up much more storage space on your hard disk. This is when a CD writer or ZIP disk is great - you can archive the original images on these media to save off of your hard disk. Then also save a working copy on your computer.  Doing this accomplishes two things - you will always have the original in case something goes BONK and your computer crashed, as well as having the original in case your "editing" turns into disaster. 

        It's pretty much industry standard (everyone uses it) to save photos in jpeg or jpg file format. This is a file format universally used by most all digital cameras, scanners, computers and image software so that person A can swap pics with person B let alone post then to the internet and email them.  One of the good benefits of jpg format is that it is compressed - the file is smaller than the same image saved as TIFF or BMP.  This compression happens every time you save the file. Because of this there are a couple of drawbacks, most importantly is that each time youow save the file you loose a little detail because of the repeated compression. So - the moral is use your original image and do what you want or need to do within the first of second save. If you don't achieve the results you want, then just start over with a copy of the original again. If you repeatedly work on an image and save it over and over no matter how good your image editing skills you will continue to lose image quality. One way around this is to use the option in your software (most have it) to SAVE COPY of the file rather than just SAVE. The other thing to be aware of is that you do have control over that compression factor - within your image editing software there is a setting for compression factor on jpg files. The higher the compression the smaller the file so the less space it will take on your hard drive and the faster it will up- or download to email or the web, BUT at the same time the higher the compression factor the more image detail is lost. JPG compression works by the program looking at your image and figuring out what pixels (the little dots of color that make up the image) are "extras" and can be ditched without drastically adversely affecting the appearance of the image. So - the higher the compression factor, the more pixels are gong to be whacked out to reduce the file size. This happens EVERY time you save the file to jpg so you now can also understand why repeated savings of the same file eventually whittles down the image quality even if you are not making major changes to the file.

        Another related tip - the more times you "tweak" a file the more you will los off of it too. For example, if you are scanning a photo, use the options on your scanner to scale or reduce size, crop, and adjust colors and brightness/contrast in the preview mode before you run the actual scan, so that you are in effect scanning the "finished" image. This is opposed to scanning the photo as is and then working on the scanned image to reduce, crop, and adjust. Each time you manipulate  the scanned image you are going to reduce image quality.

From Pat - I just got a digital camera and have been experimenting with taking temari pictures too.  Seems like the best ones I took  were in room daylight but not direct sunlight or too close to the window.   Also I took the picture about three feet back from the temari at the highest resolution setting on the camera and then used picture editing software to crop the picture right around the temari.

From Stacy - Photograph the object against a plain-ish, different background.  Dark for light balls and vice versa. If the camera has a macro function, use it!  It will allow those fine details to pop out.  The macro is usually indicated by a flower, or some such, on the control panel. If the camera has a manual mode, use it.  Turn off the flash.  (Close to the ball + flash = wash out.) Lighting is essential.  Take the picture during the day, in natural light. My favorite is to place the object near a window.  Turn on all the lights in the room.  If the ball is too much 'side lit', then place something light (white paper, sheet, etc.) on the opposite side of the object - out of the picture, of course.  This will reflect some of the window's light back onto the darker side of the object (fill lighting.) You can correct many color problems in the computer.  My favorite package is  Adobe Photoshop, but there are much less expensive ones that will do the job.  Using a flash will wreak havoc with shiny threads - silks, metallics, etc.  I get my best results using natural light and no flash.  If your camera has a macro setting, use it for close shots of the temari.  I usually place my temari near a window and take the photo from the side (i.e. NOT into the light.)  If you are using a digital camera, make sure you have it set for the highest-resolution picture you can get.