Up until last year, my only experience with scale models were those AMT car kits we would assemble as kids. Then my good friend Don Railton contacted me to ask me to photograph his amazing 1:32 Scale Lobster Wharf. Don worked without plans or even so much as a sketch! He just started at one end and let it evolve. His investment of about 500 hours paid off with a Best in Show at the 2007 National Narrow Gauge Convention in Portland, Maine followed two months later with a Best Structure at the First Annual Craftsman Structure Show in Mansfield, Massachusetts. My photos of his model have just been published as the lead article in the Winter 2009 edition of The Modelers' Annual from Westlake Publishing.
I thought you might like a few tips for photographing scale models. Probably the most important is the use of your lens's smallest lens opening (big f-stop number) to maximize depth of field. Of course by stopping down to the smallest lens opening, your shutter speeds will slow requiring the use of a tripod. It's a good idea to lock up your mirror and use a remote shutter release to minimize camera shake. Your lowest ISO rating on the camera will provide the best image quality. Get views from a variety of angles, but "eye" level in the model makes for a good realistic shot. For the wharf, I also shot up from a "water" level to simulate what the view might be from an approaching boat. Use a variety of lenses—you can click on “View Details (EXIF)" in the Lobster Wharf photos to see what focal length, f-stop, and shutter speeds were used for the various images. Focus is always a challenge with these close shots. If your automatic focus isn't doing the job for you, switch over to manual focus and use a depth of field table like this great one from DOFMaster.
Let me know if these tips were helpful to you.
Happy Shooting!