camera help

[Royal]

so my camera broke months ago and still havent got a new one ause i really dont know much about features and brands and all that stuff.

i have a website coming soon so i want to have quality pics of my glass.

i really dont want to spend more than 300 maybe 350 just cause money is tight.

any help would be much appreciated.

thanks

Royal

[mer]

i don't know every brand, i like cannons and sonys. you should check out the black friday sales this week. circuit city has some smokin deals.

[JANKYglass]

i've learned all the megapixels in the world dont mean shit if the lens sucks.

[Chris Carlson]

i think mine is a canon sd800. 7.1 mp.
turn off the flash, push the flower button.
great pics.

[Steve Sizelove]

Get a used Olympus 5050 Z off of ebay. They have a good lens, a RAW file mode, and a low ISO (60) and a low F-Stop. I used my father-in-law's for about a year. Worked great.

The only problem is that they eat AA batteries like mad.

[Cosmo]

Raw is way overkill for web site images. It would take up way too much memory and too many resources. Just shoot in JPG mode at the highest quality (or largest file size).

Your lighting is MUCH more important than the camera you use, by the way. I have seen incredible pictures from $100 point and shoot cameras, and I've seen a person with a many thousand dollar Canon EOS-1 shoot pictures that were horrible. Read your manual, then read it again. Get familiar with what your camera will do. Most any good camera ($200 and over) will take nice pictures if you learn what the camera will do.

Just be sure to write down the settings you use so you can come back to them for the next time. And, don't be afraid to shoot 50 pictures of the same piece. After all, since it's digital, you aren't wasting film...

[Dale M.]

Dittos on what Cosmo has to say....


Dale

[Steve Sizelove]

RAW is overkill for web, but if you're shooting your work, why not have an image that will work for archiving, print, and web? It doesn't take elaborate software to convert a RAW image to a jpeg. Plus, there is a huge advantage when editing.

Also, the Olympus 5050 Z is a point and shoot. They were about $600 new around 3 years ago and received great reviews. I've recently seen them used for less than $100 on Ebay.

I will agree that lighting is very important. I'm not a big fan of light tents, but to start photographing your work, the tent and graduated backgrounds from Alzo Digital are decent.

http://alzodigital.com/online_store/backgrounds_graduated_paper.htm

Also in last summer's 20th anniversary issue of Glassline, Robert Mickelsen wrote an article on photography. It was really informative.

Just my 2 cents....

[themoch]

just got the GF a brand new Cannon SD1000 it's a 7.1MP or something... it shoots freaking amazing photos... when we got it was about $325 and came with a 1 GB card. if you're looking for brand new... try www.newegg.com it's where i buy all my computer stuff.

also, i know Mickelson has done an article about photo quality, check that out, or i have posted a low budget photo shooting solution in the tutorials section:

http://www.thegldg.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7199

[Pakoh]

Cannon good

Kodak bad.

i use a $250 cannon and people always say how nice my pics are....

[Royal]

thanks guys, still deciding on what to get. i know my photo set up needs to be better, thanks for the links and input.

[Primathon]

For a really well-written, easy to read, and frequently hilarious guide to taking really good pictures with very little hassle, I would like to direct you to Dan's Long-Awaited Photo Tutorial (http://www.dansdata.com/phototute.htm). Seriously, this guy is one of my favorite writers; check it out.

[mer]

black friday deals on digicams;
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/black-friday-plan/the-gizmodo-ultimate-black-friday-deal-guide-324697.php

[loydb]

This thread, while not glass-related, is one of the best I've run across on photographing smaller items.

http://www.privateerpressforums.com/index.php?showtopic=5813