how do you get clear close ups from a digital camera?

Question

I sell on ebay and cant get a clear picture on small items like coins. I have a poloriod 7 meg camera and they all come out blurry. Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

This article of mine is about jewelry, but it applies to coins as well. There are some sample photos of coins that were made using exactly the technique I describe.

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 did these with my Nikon Coolpix 4600, just to show you what a really inexpensive camera can do. It's a 4 MP camera that I paid about $150 for a couple of years ago.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/577501964/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/577501976/

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 2

It's actually in reverse. You need a high zoom lense with the macro feature. For this you need a really top-quality camera, one with changable lenses, and probably a 100mm lense or greater. I've got a 300mm with macro and from about a yard away I can take really awesome pictures of tiny, bugs and flowers and stuff. My camera uses 35mm film, but with Nikon, at least, the lenses work on 35mm and digitals, for the most part. Either way, the macro option will take you about $200 for a good lense, plus camera cost, which varies. I'd wait for a birthday or Christmas.

Answer 3

Mostly your camera has a close-up setting, shown as a flower on the camera or a setting in the program.
You might need to go to the most enlarging setting of the zoom-lens before it becomes active.

If you can not find it on your camera you need to read the manual, or tell us which type of camera you have (or how old your Poloriod 7meg camera is) so someone here who knows the camera can tell you how to switch it on.

Answer 4

The easiest way is to get as close as possible without getting blurry and then when you transfer the shot to your computer crop out the parts of the picture you don't want. With 7MP you have plenty of resolution to crop. This will in essence make you have a close-up of your object.

The other way is to read the camera's manual to see if there is a macro mode. Macro mode is usually indicated by a flower symbol on the camera's control.

Answer 5

Alot of cameras hve special macro settings, and if you dont have one there isnt much you can do i dont think.

Answer 6

im not sure...maybe zoom in and let it focus...