I've found that flash does a machine no favors. It's far better to have a lot of ambient light with one or more light sources (preferably incandescent) pointed toward but not directly at the machine in order to get the chrome to really shine. As others have written, natural light is best.
I've found that cameras in auto mode will adjust for color, often saturating the shot by changing the RBG values of each pixel as the chip processes the image and commits to memory. Sometimes this is preferred but sometimes I want the true color of the image the lens is capturing. I don't yet know enough about my cameras to set defaults, limit this kind of pre-processing, etc. And the color levels are different between manufacturers and even models, as each have algorithms that determine how the image will appear; often the LCD doesn't quite represent what is stored on the card.