OTish - Good nature camera recommendations?

 Trying to photograph spiders today made me realise that I need a
better digital camera as I found it impossible to focus on something
that big (garden spiders with bodies about three quarters of an inch
plus legs are big in my book)! I've got lots of photos of foliage and
brickwork with blurry blobs in front.

Is anyone able to recommend a decent digital camera for close up
photos of little creatures/flowers and the like? I'm happy to spend a
few hundred squid for a good one though for that money I'd like a
proper viewfinder.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================================
URGling from the less wet end of Swansea Bay in between
sweeping up leaves by the cubic metre!

www.rivendell.org.uk

 

I have a Samsung GX 10 and am very pleased with it.

However it is a 'professional' camera and I do use it for professional and
official work
With a zoom lens you can get very good close ups from a distance.

Mike


--

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Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.

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 On 30/09/2011 12:14, Jake wrote:

It might be worth practising with your camera to see how well it
performs at macro. Some will only focus correctly in macro mode if the
lens is at a very particular focal length usually shortest, but
sometimes middle or longest. If the front element of your camera lens is
threaded then you could get close up lenses to put on the front.

A handful will focus right up to the surface of the front element - most
will lose focus lock at about 2"/5cm.

For macro photography a proper viewfinder is a big disadvantage unless
you have a through the lens DSLR. The viewfinder parallax errors when
you get close to something are huge. If it is centred in the viewfinder
then it is not in front of the main camera lens!

You should not need to spend much more than £100 to get something fairly
capable in this department - for instance the Lumix FS35
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-Lumix-FS35-Digital-Camera/dp/B004I1KP5C/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

(though other slightly more expensive ones may be better suited)

I find my Ixus 100IS somewhat frustrating to use in macro mode. If you
are serious about high quality close-ups then a DSLR is the best bet.

Worth asking specifically in rec.photo.digital (but beware of the
trolls) - someone might have experience of best buy P&S for macro work.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 On 30/09/2011 12:14, Jake wrote:

I have used a Ricoh Caplio R6 for the last 4 years. It was bought as a
handy replacement for my old Minolta X700 SLR. The main reason I settled
on the Caplio was the inbuilt macro mode which allowed focussing down to
1 cm - ideal for plant photography.  The 28 - 200 (35mm equivalent)
optical zoom was a bonus.

But I miss the ability to change depth-of-field so that what is in
closeup is in focus whereas much of what is in the background isn't.
That's the problem with the small sensors in compact digital cameras -
basically everything is always in focus (the aperture is fixed at f3.3
wide angle, f5.3 telephoto)!  I also miss the ability to connect an
off-camera flash (the inbuilt flash is only usable to a couple of metres
at most.  It is possible to get something further away lit, but you have
to turn up the ISO sensitivity, and then you get more noise and grain.

As to needing a viewfinder, I understand that some digital SLRs actually
use a small version of the LCD on the back that you look at through the
viewfinder.  In that case, you might as well just use the back screen
(unless there is too much light to see it clearly).

Read as many different reviews as you can when you have a shortlist; you
may find that someone has discovered something which you would
absolutely hate to have to put up with on an otherwise perfect camera!

--

Jeff

 "Jake"  wrote ...

For a "proper" viewfinder you need to go to a Digital SLR and for those the
sky is the limit and they fill fit interchangeable lenses of all shapes and
sizes. A DSLR viewfinder looks through the lens you are taking the photo
through so you see what you get, any other type you have problems especially
photographing in close up as what you see will certainly not be what you
photograph. If you seriously want to get into this type of photography you
will also need a ring flash to fit on the lens.
Work out how much you want to spend and have a chat with a good camera shop.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK