View Poll Results: What camera do you use to take jewellery photos?

Voters
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  • Film SLR

    0 0%
  • D-SLR

    16 57.14%
  • Compact with aperture/shutter settings

    11 39.29%
  • Compact without aperture/shutter settings

    3 10.71%
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Thread: Your compact camera can't do jewellery photography

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
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    Romsey
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    Default Your compact camera can't do jewellery photography

    Well, that seems inflammatory enough...

    I'm reading a new book on craft photography at the moment that claims that DSLR and (film) SLR are the only ways to do amateur studio photography in this area and that compact cameras are unsuitable because they can't set aperture and shutter speed. It's a pity, the rest of the book content is pretty good.

    So what I'd like to know is - does anyone have a compact where you really can't set the aperture & shutter speed? I know it can be done with my OH's compact, I've asked around colleagues and theirs can too, so where's the cutoff on cost where this functionality drops out?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
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    Default

    Peter, I think cameras on phones are a bit limited, but every digital camera I own has the option of manual adjustment. I am a camera nut so have lots of them in my collection, in film cameras I have 35mm. Minox, Olympus and Nikon, in 120 medium format film size a couple of Mamiyas a C330 and an RB67, in digital I have four Lumix models and one Nikon DSLR with enough Nikon lenses to stock a shop. Add to this a couple of tripods, a monopod, and a set of studio flash lighting complete with backdrops equipment. My latest Lumix is an FZ45 and it is great for jewellery photos, the photo shows a ring photographed with the Lumix FZ45, camera set on taken on Autofocus with the lens set for close ups and, only £220 from Amazon at the moment if anyone is interested, it's a good camera complete with a Leica lens.
    James

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    Last edited by Goldsmith; 07-03-2012 at 10:37 AM.

  3. #3
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    Dec 2009
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    Central London
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    Default

    Upto last November, I used my Sony Cybershot. The only way I could influence the exposure and aperture was to change the Exposure Value, or alter the ISO number. The result was I cold not achieve a white background (it was always blue or green, according to what light was specified). Also I could only marginally influence the aperture and so the depth of focus by changing the ISO.

    All this was easily resolved when I changed to a Canon EOS1100D. Dennis.

  4. #4
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    Aug 2010
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    England
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    Default

    If money is no object then you cannot beat the quality of a good DSLR with a good lens. I did some comparison photos for a friend who was considering buying a Lumix FZ. You may be interested in seeing the results, I set up one of my flowers and took these photos with the same natural lighting. Yes I can see a difference in the quality of the two photos and I prefer the Nikon DSLR photo, but when you compare the equipment costs the Nikon D90 camera and 60mm Macro lens cost me circa £900 and the Lumix circa £220.
    What do you think?
    James

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  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
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    London
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    Default

    I switched to a DSLR (Canon 550d) fairly recently, before that I took all my pictures with a little Fuji Finepix. Aperture, and shutter speed could be controlled on the Fuji, but I prefer the results with the Canon, although obviously it was a lot more expensive.

    Pictures taken with the little Fuji:

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    And pictures taken with the Canon SLR:

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    So yeah, I think saying you can't take pictures with a compact is nonsense, so long as the compact has some ability to manually control settings.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
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    1,743

    Default

    the husband is a photographer and is horrified because I use the camera on P. I figure if he doesn't like the results he should do it for me.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Location
    Rhondda, United Kingdom
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    Default

    I do a lot of photography too, and use a Canon 5D for almost everything, but I often nick my husband's Canon G9 for macro work as I prefer the results! Although if I could afford the macro lens I really want for the 5D, I'd never use anything else! I'm just set up for portrait and landscape work on my big camera rather than "product photography"...


    Melanie

    http://www.spinysharklythings.com

  8. #8
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    Jul 2009
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    Romsey
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    Quote Originally Posted by ShinyLauren View Post
    So yeah, I think saying you can't take pictures with a compact is nonsense, so long as the compact has some ability to manually control settings.
    Seems to be mostly a consensus on that - although I note one person has voted for a compact with no manual mode, I'd really like to hear their input too if possible?

    I use a Nikon D5000 - I decided I would rather buy lenses than worry about the quickly-obsolete camera body; my standard (no pun intended) lens for jewellery is now a 105mm macro although I have a couple of others too.

    BTW Lauren - what are you using for a background on yours? I can't work out which is background and which is post-process.
    Last edited by ps_bond; 07-03-2012 at 03:33 PM.

  9. #9
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    Mar 2010
    Location
    Brittany
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    Default

    Currently using an Olympus XZ 1, but as I get regular hand-me-downs from my partner who seems to buy cameras quite frequently no doubt that will change quite soon to a Fuji X10 as it is suffering from "orbs" whatever they are and so he is getting a new one.

    I find for my purposes, product shots, the Olympus is very good and on the odd occasion I have the problem Dennis mentioned of not getting a true white background that is easily fixed in Photoshop with auto colour correction.

  10. #10
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    Aug 2009
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    London
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ps_bond View Post
    Seems to be mostly a consensus on that - although I note one person has voted for a compact with no manual mode, I'd really like to hear their input too if possible?

    I use a Nikon D5000 - I decided I would rather buy lenses than worry about the quickly-obsolete camera body; my standard (no pun intended) lens for jewellery is now a 105mm macro although I have a couple of others too.

    BTW Lauren - what are you using for a background on yours? I can't work out which is background and which is post-process.
    Oooh, I'm getting a Canon 100mm macro soon - exciting! Just using standard kit lens that came with camera at the moment.

    Everything is background, nothing is post-process except for the standard sharpening and dust speck removal. It's glossy photo paper that I printed with sort of coloured gradients and circles if that makes any sense? It's looking a bit battered now though - been using it for years!

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