Best camera for close up shots....like bugs, flowers, jewelry in the $250.00 and under range?

Question

I would like to know...what are the best camera brands for close-up (zoom-in) shots for things like bugs, flowers, and jewelry? I'm looking for something in the $250.00 and under price range that can get VERY clear close up shots.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Most cameras now a days take excellent marco pictures. The A640 takes great pictures and is highly recommonded. Like Dr said. Its all about technique more htan the camera. Why is Ansel Adams so good at take pictures? Because of technique. Thats an extreme but its a good example. If your a perfectionist, you want to keep the camera as still as possible when taking macro. The sightiest movement will make hte picture horrible bad (case in point just keep it as still as possible.) All cameras are different on how they take macro but most just have a button that looks like a flower and when your taking marco you push that then you can take macro shots.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

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RE:
Best camera for close up shots....like bugs, flowers, jewelry in the $250.00 and under range?
I would like to know...what are the best camera brands for close-up (zoom-in) shots for things like bugs, flowers, and jewelry? I'm looking for something in the $250.00 and under price range that can get VERY clear close up shots.

Thanks!

Answer 4

Best Camera For Close Ups

Answer 5

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Answer 6

I think more than the camera, it's your technique that matters. You can use any point and shoot in macro mode and get pretty close. Some only go as close as 5 cm (2"), but some get really close. The thing, is getting really close is NOT the trick to getting good macro shots with a P&S camera. If you are a bit away from the subject, it is much easier to control the lighting. You will have to learn how to crop in some image editting software, but this is not too difficult. I use Photoshop Elements, but many here use Picasa or Gimp, which you can get for free.

As far as a good choice for a camera under $250, I'd suggest that you look at a Canon Powershot A630. My son has this camera and I have used it for macro pictures exactly as I am going to describe. It has 8 MP, too, which is going to be very helpful in getting "closer" to your subject, because you will have plenty of image to enlarge without losing quality.

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. For flowers and bugs, you might be outside, but even then, flash will help you to control your lighting.

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 item on a nice background surface. I like to just put it in a ring box or on some velour. 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 item, 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 item properly exposed and the background underexposed, so just worry about the jewelry 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 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, using a 60 mm macro lens on a DSLR:

800 x 800 http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/yorkie01.jpg
800 x 800 http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/montblanc05.jpg
800 x 800 http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/412244168/
800 x 800 http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/412244164/

Go to these review sites and look at the sample images. There are a couple that I would consider macro mode that you would be interested in seeing. I'm sorry that I don't have any A630 macro shots available on my own computer to show you.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_a630.asp
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_reviews/a630.html

Answer 7

Consider the Fugi FinePix S5200. Check out Website
dpreview.com

Answer 8

Um, don't go Nikon. (This is coming from a Nikon SLR user) Nikon is losing its edge with their compact cameras. Anyway, there's one camera that comes to my mind, the Canon S3IS; it's a superzoom that can focus on objects that are touching the lens. Otherwise, look for "minimum focusing distance" on a spec sheet. No particular brand has strong macro capabilities throughout their entire line up.

Answer 9

Hey there,
A good thing you can do is attending a comprehensive photography course. If you can't afford it there are many online courses available.

I recommend this great web site: http://www.goobypls.com/r/rd.asp?gid=557

It has very well made and explained video lessons that will help you a lot.
Hope it helps.

Answer 10

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