New digital camera?
my digital camera at work is starting to die. by die I mean an increasing amount of hot pixels. Sometime in the coming months I get to replace it, my budget is probably going to be around the $600 (this is the total budget) range. The basic features I need it to have are good macro (I photo jewelry) and that it can take pictures in raw format. Any suggestions?
July 25th, 2007 at 6:56 am
It might be worth it to look into sending it back for repair. I was having major issues with CCD sensor on my Nikon going haywire and came across this:
http://www.nikonusa.com/email_images/nikonusa/service_advisory/coolpix.html
(just got it back from them good as new and all I had to pay was the $10 to ship it out to them)
See this for a few more cameras:
http://www.fatwallet.com/t/24/716298
Definitely doesn’t hurt to try.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
You can’t top the Coolpix 4500 for getting the lens close to the object you are photographing unless you get an SLR with a macro lens. Theoretically you can enable some sort of raw mode on it (http://e2500.narod.ru/raw_format_e.htm). I’ve been too scared to try it on mine though. With jewelry though, getting in close might not be the answer if you want to avoid reflections.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
The old one is a canon g3. no recalls on it and I’d hate to think what they charge for fixing it. The problem with the 4500 is finding one, I dont know that we really want to buy used off ebay… tif mode would actually be fine though, I just need to have no compression artifacts. For slr we do have the SP 90mm adaptall macro lens (manual focus). camera it would work well on? from what I’ve read the pentax ones are most compatible with the adaptall lenses. anyone have any thoughts on them?
July 27th, 2007 at 7:03 am
You want an SLR with a macro lens. How you get there with a budget of 600 dollars is up to you.
I would try to find a used ef-s 60mm macro lens + the chintziest used SLR body I could find that accepts ef-s lenses and try to get the price below 600 dollars if it was me. Or I’d lobby hard for a budget increase.
For instance I can get a used Digital Rebel for $364.00 dollars and the aforementioned macro lens for $339.00 on KEH.com (which is, admittedly, out of your budget range.) Or if you want to stick with your existing lens you can get a used pentax body on KEH for cheap too.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:57 am
you mention the ef-s 60mm macro lens, what about the ef 50mm macro? for the price difference is the ef-s a definite should have vs the ef?
July 27th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
looking further the ef is a 1:2 and the ef-s is a 1:1. does the lens crop on the digital cameras affect that, bringing the 1:2 closer to 1:1? Another choice is maybe a “Sigma Normal 50mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro Autofocus Lens for Canon EOS” its 1:1 from the start. quality compared to the canon?