Digital camera for taking pictures of x-rays...?

Question

I work at a vet clinic and am looking for a digital camera that has good aperature/shutter speeds to take quality pictures of xrays. I'm only looking to spend up to $300. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

When you say you need to take pictures of X-Rays I assume you mean while they are on the viewing glass.

If so you'll definitely need a tripod with at least a tilt head. You'll probably be working with the camera in the portrait (vertical) position.

The camera you choose must allow you to use manual settings because you're going to have to experiment to get the exposures right. It also has to allow you to set a long exposure - maybe 15 seconds - or accept a mechanical cable release and have either a T or B setting on the shutter speed dial. A zoom lens of 18-70mm should allow you to fill the frame from a reasonable distance.

Since what you are going to photograph is a backlit subject, the room lights will be off or at least dim. Place your camera on the tripod and get it in the portrait position. Make sure the camera is level and as parallel to the subject as possible. Zoom in until you have all of the subject in the grid of the viewscreen.

NOTE A: What follows is precision guesswork. Use as a starting point only. You'll have to experiment.

Set your ISO to 200

Set the aperture (f-stop) to f5.6

Set the shutter to T or B and attach the cable release

Try a 30 second exposure

If its underexposed (too dark) increase to a 45 second exposure. If its overexposed (too light) decrease exposure to 15 seconds. This will require some fine-tuning; your correct exposure may be 27 seconds or 39 seconds.

NOTE B: Limit your changes to only ONE variable - shutter speed. This allows repeatable results. With practice you'll be able to better judge what your starting exposure should be.* (I'm assuming that different X-Rays have different densities, depending on what body part was X-rayed. My guess is an X-ray of a hand would have a different density than a chest X-ray.) Record the exposure time with every acceptable photo and your estimate of the density of the X-Ray successfully photographed.

As I said earlier, exposure is going to be a trial and error exercise. The only way to avoid this is to use a spot meter and set it at ISO 200 and f5.6, meter off the X-Ray and use the shutter speed it computes. A good spot meter will easily cost $150 to $250 - almost your camera budget.

* A long time ago, when I did a lot of black & white printing, I could pretty much estimate exposure times. This isn't much different.

Answer 2

er, if you are going to work in low light and need to take pictures up close, you'll need a dslr camera. Otherwise, most camera these days will have a fast enough shutter speed. I think you'll need image stabilization (I'm assuming you're doing macro indoors without a tripod). Get a camera with aperture and shutter priority of course. I would suggest the canon A710 IS or canon A570 IS for your needs. There's also a new A720 IS coming out in october. I cannot tell you for sure, but I think the A570 IS would take better pictures than the A710 IS, because longer zoom lenses are usually not that great at both zoom extremes. Besides, the A570 IS have higher ISO settings and newer technology.

Since you can't afford a dslr, make sure to turn on as many lights as possible in whatever room you're shooting in.

Answer 3

you won't be able to, by using fact to take x-rays your digicam could ought to emit radioactive rays that would kill human beings with a view to take the image, so in different words the government does not enable us to have a digicam like that.