Good Advice

From Oldham, UK, 1 post

Hello,
I am a 3rd year student on a 3D Design course at Manchester Metropolitan Uni. I need to take good photos of my jewellery pieces as part of my degree show next June. In particular, I need to take good quality close up pictures of my work ie very close up! I want to buy an SLR camera but have next to no knowledge about them. I do know that I don't want anything with millions of features. I want to take good quality close up pics and then have the option of taking good 'everything else' pics. I have a college friend who has an extension tube for her camera so any info on these would also be good (for extreme close up pics).
I also don't have a great deal of cash to spend so if anyone knows of good second hand options, I would be glad to hear from you.
Thanks

From Doncaster, 1 post

Try the Ricoh Caplio RR30. It is a digital with 3 mpxls and can focus down to 1 cm. Can then use your pC to edit pics to what you want. Well worth the £250.

4 posts

The best camera for taking very closeup crisp photos is the Nikon Coolpix 885. I sell jewellery for a living and this camera is by far the best of my 10 cameras!! Yes, I'm a bit of a photography geek and so bought and tried many including high powered Canon, Fuji, Pentax etc and always come back to the nkn 885 and it is only 3.21 megapixels!!! For optimal clear and closeup pix with the nkn 885, the trick is to go into the setup menu and choose "Slide copy Adptr" under LENS, then go back up to Image Adjustment and choose "Lighten Image". This is a perfect setting for taking very close up pics of small items of jewellery, inside, during the daytime. MAKE SURE THE FLASH IS DISABLED. This is important. It is not needed. No extra lighting is needed. I take my daytime pics in the laundry inside the house, near the back door. This gives me enough sunlight. Next, upload your pics to NikonView 6 (or higher) software editing program. This software can be used with other model cameras also and it is THE BEST. You can bring your pics even closer by "cropping". The images are never distorted no matter how close you crop. You can lighten/darken, change the file size etc etc etc as you do with other software editing programs. I'd be happy to help anyone out. thxs.