what is a good camera for taking detailed close up pictures of jewlery to sell on ebay?

Answer 1

If you are not going to go with a DSLR, almost any point and shoot with a macro mode will serve you well. The thing is, I feel that you need to use the flash to force the aperture to close while still having enough light for an exposure. Many here will tell you different, but follow this advice and see what you think.

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 and metal.

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.

Here are a couple of coin photos done exactly as described:

http://www1.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=57759389/PictureID=2801041875/a=75953750_75953750/t_=75953750
http://www1.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=57759389/PictureID=2801041874/a=75953750_75953750/t_=75953750

Here are a couple more auction photos done as described:

800 x 800 http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/yorkie01.jpg
800 x 800 http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/montblanc05.jpg

If you are interested in a full description of an SLR set-up, post a new question and ask specifically for that information. I'm gathering from the nature of your question that you might be in the point and shoot market.

Answer 2

Most important thing you can do is use a tripod. You may think you're steady, but you're not. Try this experiment. Tape a newspaper to a wall so it can't move at all. Now, take a picture of the paper handholding the camera. Take a couple actually. Now mount the camera on your tripod and use the remote cable, or the self timer. Take a few shots like this. When you get your pictures, you will be amazed of the difference. I forgot to mention that when you take the pictures, do it close enough to read the print.

Answer 3

i have achieved this earlier a pair of circumstances with a lot fulfillment. set up your lights with solar (favored) or a astounding lamp or directional gentle pointed on the jewellery. Have both a undeniable heritage, or astounding pillow or blanket to advance and exhibit the piece. Set your digital camera on the utmost pixel putting for the superb determination (you are able to always make the photo smaller with out compromise in %high quality, no longer visa-versa). Get as on the fringe of the piece as achieveable to get a good, sparkling photo. once you've a tripod or table certain gadget to strong the digital camera for the photo the more suitable constructive. readability lights heritage i do not favor to apply the digital camera's flash (organic gentle appears superb, then incandescent), yet sense free to attempt, attempt it with out the flash and with the flash and observe which one you want more suitable constructive. to boot, it truly is nice to take a variety of of images and choose the photo(s) you only like the superb. H a p p y S e l l i n g !

Answer 4

any camera would be good as long as it has a macro setting. your best bet is to get a great camera lens - i wouldent worry about megapixels anything 3MP or over is fine.

a top camera choice would be a kodak easyshare as long as it has a german made "Schneider" lens