Thread: Pictures

I'm looking for some suggestions for a digital camera that will take decent close ups of razors. I'd like to take clear closeups of trademarks, blades and scales. My current camera just won't give me a clear picture when I zoom in. Is there anything you can recommend under $200.00?

Please read Photographing Razors - Straight Razor Place Wiki first (and the lightbox instructional linked therein). Most cameras, even ones that cost USD 200, will yield decent results if you follow the suggestions in the articles.

I use a $90 Sony Cyber-Shot.

Originally Posted by grags

I'm looking for some suggestions for a digital camera that will take decent close ups of razors. I'd like to take clear closeups of trademarks, blades and scales. My current camera just won't give me a clear picture when I zoom in. Is there anything you can recommend under $200.00?

With the kind of money you are talking about it is going to be a tough job getting what you want. With todays cameras it is the lense not the camera that will give you what you want. In your price range a tube extender to give you very closeup pictures is probably what you want. I used a Kenko Tube Extender on this picture with my Nikon D-80.

bj

This is from a Canon SD790IS in macro mode. Image is at 100 %, with just the light from my window at around 9:30 conditions were cloudy. Razor is a Dovo Perlex.

No flash, no zoom, ISO 80 f/2.8 0.125 sec. Image was only cut, no retouching was done.

This camera should be around 200 $ in the US.

Regards,

McKie

My current camera is point&shoot canon sd700is. You can probably see some of my photos around and I do them the almost worst possible way - just in front of a window.

If you don't need it to fit in a pocket how about Canon S1 IS 3.2 Megapixel PowerShot Digital Camera - eBay (item 160322856487 end time Mar-22-09 19:38:08 PDT)
for 1/3 of your budget.

Most decent cameras should be able to get you pretty good pictures. In most photographs that I see the limiting factor is not the camera, but the photographer. In particular their lack of understanding of lighting, or laziness to make it good.
Lot's of realy poor shots with DSRLs all over the place too.

With 200 dollars you could buy 2 or 3 point and shoots that'll do the job just fine. As pointed out above just stick your camera in Macro mode and get good lighting.

Also being an avid photographer DO NOT fall for the number megapixels. Once you get above 8 or so it's pretty arbitrary and you should start looking at other factors such as lens quality and battery life

This will explain what I'm talking about
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/te...2&pagewanted=2

My Ricoh Caplio R1 came out 5 years ago and can do this
(handheld, under a lamp,uncropped, just reduced resolution.)


I imagine any decent brand modern compact with a macro facility will do what you need.

EDIT> Does your camera let you use any manual settings? If you use a tripod and slow shutter speed you might get better results without changing camera.

EDIT 2> How about a $60 USB microscope off ebay?