What Camera is good for photographing jewelry (must have macro lens)?

Question

Recently made a light-box (tent) on my own that I'm quite happy with, now I need a digital camera that has a close focal range (macro), any suggestions?

Answer 1

I like Panacea's recommendation for a Canon Powershot A540, or maybe an A620. I have done a lot of close-up work with (now "obsolete") Nikon Coolpix 885 (3 MP), 4600 (4 MP) and 5400 (5 MP) as well as the D70s (6 MP) with a 60mm macro lens. ALL of these cameras will get you down to about an inch or two from the subject, but I'm going to suggest that you want to work a bit farther from your subject. There are a couple of reasons. One is so you won't blow out the highlights with over-exposure. The other is so you have more latitude in your depth of field.

Here is something I wrote about taking pictures of jewelry using a point and shoot camera that would apply to any that I have mentioned, so I'm including it, even though you didn't ask for it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Use your macro setting and experiment. Let's say you have a point and shoot camera with macro and a flash on the camera. You might have to go to a manual mode to do this, but...

Put your ring on a nice background surface. I like to just put it in a ring box. Zoom out at least half-way so that you will be working about a foot away from the ring. Be sure that you get focus confirmation. Shoot a picture USING flash. Check the LCD for the result. If you have overexposed the ring, use the EV adjustment to reduce the exposure. For small items, I often find that I need to reduce the exposure by about 1.0 EV. (That's -1.0 EV.) It is better to have the ring properly exposed and the background underexposed, so just worry about the ring for now. Using a deliberate underexposure will cure the "too shiny" appearance of the stones.

If you know how, you can use either full manual exposure or just Aperture Priority and choose a smaller aperture (larger number) to make the ring show up in better focus.

If you have a DSLR, post your question again stating the kind of camera that you have and the lens that you are using and we will give more details.

If you are doing any image processing at all, such with Photoshop or it's cousins, you can crop the image to 800 pixels by 800 pixels and use Supersize images on eBay. I always use the Picture Pack when I am selling anything of any value.

Check out http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/heartring.jpg which I did a while ago using a Nikon Coolpix 5400 exactly as described above. I do NOT think this is acceptable, but we decided not to sell the ring anyhow, so I didn't bother to do a better job. It's still better than some I've seen. I don't keep old photos of sold items around, so I don't have much to show you, but at least you know that it's possible to get an acceptable result even without spending huge dollars on your equipment.

The key things to remember are:
-Macro setting
-Zoom out to get about a foot away from your subject
-Use flash
-Try different EV settings and expect that you will end up with a negative EV setting, such as -1.0 EV.

Answer 2

Does it really have to be a digital one? With a good analogue camera, which you'll find second hand for very little money nowadays, you will have a great choice of facilities for macro photography. For a similar choice with a digital camera, you will have to buy an SLR of the top price range. The cheaper ones with macro facility leave usually not much choice, and I cannot tell which suits your needs best. Perhaps a Nikon or Canon?
I have an 5 year old Nikon Coolpix 995 (3.34 mega-pixel). With that I can bring objects of about 3 cm width full size on a picture, if they are flat. In spite of the small number of mega-pixels good enlargements are possible.
For this camera there is a circular light for macro photos available (Nikon SL-1). It fits not all cameras named Coolpix!

Answer 3

Any higher end good quality camera is going to work.
Get one with a removable lens (SLR), with a macro function.
The lighting is the most important thing. Really challenging lighting small products like this.
Experiement with "negative fill", meaning that you want some black-foil or black cloth on one side, so it's not all evenly lit (I call it K-Mart lighting - UGLY!).
You want depth & definition, so there needs to be some shadow, which is tough to do with a light box & no negative fill.
Small direct lights, lit from high up, & the back are good to provide specular highlights, which also really help.

Answer 4

Use a 4x5 camera such as a Sinar-Bron.

You don't need a macro lens with this type of camera. Just have a long bellows for focusing close up.

Answer 5

You don't need an expensive dSLR for this type of work....particularly if these images are for display on a computer monitor.

A very good camera that can do this sort of work is the Canon A540 (6 megapixel) point and shoot. It has a macro focus mode that allows you to get as close as 5cm, plenty of resolution and, like all Canon cameras, takes superior quality pictures. For about $200, it's very affordable.

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_a540-review/

Answer 6

My dad has a nikon D70 its good for doing all kinds of photography and it has a macro lens