What is the best digital camera for real closeup shots, like of freckles or side of a nose or eyelashes?

Question

If you have experience with an easy to use, but great detailed camera, I'd be very grateful for your advice. Thanks.

Answer 1

Just put this camera in Portrait mode.. and you'll see what I mean...

The best camera for under $200 is the Canon A550

* 7.1 Megapixel
*4X Optical Zoom
* Very good photo quality, noise levels low through ISO 400 (in good light)
* Well built for the price
* Very good performance
* LCD visible in low light
* Some manual controls
* AF-assist lamp, good low light focusing
* Good movie and continuous shooting modes
* Impressive software bundle
* Uses AA batteries; great battery life
* USB 2.0 High Speed support

Answer 2

If you do any image processing at all with Photoshop (etc) or Gimp or Picassa, you are probably getting decent enough resolution to crop those features out of pictures you are already taking.

I have written a semi-long piece about taking pictures of jewelry for selling on eBay. Much of it would apply to your situation, as you want to do "macro" photography also. I'll just include that answer and every time I say "ring," you can read "nose."

The best way to take photos of jewelry for a web site is with a digital SLR and a macro lens. 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 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 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.

I happen to have some photos from old auctions on an FTP site. I think that these were all taken with a 3 MP Nikon Coolpix 885.

http://members.aol.com/swf08302/carvina.jpg
http://members.aol.com/swf08302/skullfront.jpg
http://members.aol.com/swf08302/konkontu.jpg
(The patch is about 4 inches long.)

Here are a couple of coin photos done exactly as described, but using a D200:

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

I'll have to post a few Nikon 4600 or 5400 macro photos for future reference...

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/ (light box)
800 x 800 http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/412244164/

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 3

Canon
Power Shot A7100i

Answer 4

Better cameras for details are SLR ( Sistem Reflex Cameras )
because you can choose the type of the lens ( Macro lens for close ups ), but they are very expensive...

so, for an easy to use (point and shoot camera), and cheap camera, you can try 12x optical zoom lenses and to increase close up with 'auxiliary' lenses ( same brand of camera or Tiffen, Hoya etc etc).

1) Kodak EasyShare Z 612 (US 201.00)
12x zoom lenses
(for close up)
Kodak 55mm 1.4x Teleconverter Lens for Kodak EasyShare

2) Canon PowerShot S3 IS, 6.0 Megapixel, ( US 276.00 )
12x Optical
(for close up)
Canon 58mm 500D Close-up Lens

3)Olympus SP-510 UZ, 7.1 Megapixel, (US 230.00)
10x Optical
(for close up)
Olympus MCON-40 Macro Extension (90.00)

4)Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7, 6.0 Megapixel, (US 248.00)
12x Optical
(for close up)
Panasonic DMW-LC55 55mm Close Up
or
Hoya 52 mm Introductory Filter Kit

good close-ups !!!!

Answer 5

your in luck! any digital camera with 4 pixels is capable these days and the answer is all of them are good.