I have tried the Olymypus C3002 and found it wanting. The
interchangle lens is a screw-on macro attachment. Olympus has come out
with a new 4 meg camera-the E10. The E10 is the first 4 meg Camera on
the market ( I think) and should be under $2,000. Again, the E10 uses
a screw on macro attachment as the close up lenses. The best lense for
jewelry close up work is a 100MM Macro Lenses in 35mm terms. As of
yet, no digital camera comes with true interchangle lenses except the
the Kodak Pro Series and the Nikon Digitial F1. Both of these Camera
are still above most peoples budget of $4,000 + for the cameras. The
problem I have had in trying to shoot with a light box, is most
digitial camera’s are not set up to use a “hot shoe” type flash. Most
Pro light boxes are set up to use a “Hot Shoe” type flash which do
not work well with consumer type digitial camera’s. Light boxes like
Gem Vision’s image dome uses 3400K lights which are adjustable. You
can make a light box using “milk glass” and “Ott” lights to produce a
similar effect.
I like Olympus camera's very much and I have a complete OM2 setup
which I have used for Microscope photography for years. I have several
of OM special close up lenses including the 100 macro with a
polarazized ring flash. I hope that someday Olympus will make a
reasonable Digital camera which will utilize the exsisting lenses but
I do not think it will happen in the near future. Sony has come out
with a new model MVC-CD1000 which uses a small CD to record pictures.
It has a 2 meg picture, USB, and a Lithium battery. I have not seen
this new camera yet but feel the lenses problem is the same as in
previous cameras. This new Sony seems to have solved some of the
hurdles of past camera’s. The problems in taking jewelry do not apply
to normal consumer cameras. Having already spent thousands on trying
to solve these problems, I currently am using a Nikon 990 (camera #6)
with the ImageDome. I shoot an average of 12 pictures a day and
satisfied. To go a a bigger Meg picture is not the answer. A 3 meg.
picture can not be reproduced with current ink jets. I currently use
an Epson 900 using Kodak 117 lb paper. Get 81/2 x 11’s and quarter it.
It saves lots of money. I use PaintShop Pro 7 to adjust, crop, and
tweek.
First, I would like to thank all of you who have added to this
thread.We all have are own needs and expectations. So your choice is
your own, and I respect that.I would also like to get a digital
camera for my work ,I have had the opportunity to talk with a few
professional photographers and it seems that scanning a slide will
still give you the best image for the web. For the best examples go
to http://www.guild.com
Check out the jewelry pixs,I would like my shots to look so good. It
is pricey to have slides scanned by a professional lab but it will
give you the best results ,It just depends on how good do you want it
to be.
pros have told me that the one problem with the digital cameras are
the optics, in time this will change,these people are doing things
like the car adds you see in magazines,“very picky” I have heard the
same thing from jewelry photo pros,My point is look at the best and
decide what is acceptable for you.
I presently do mostly prints and then scan them into photoshop 5.5
,work with them for the web ,its getting better but yes I do waste
alot of prints.I use some for inventory records.
Thank all for the great tips and advice,please keep it coming.
Hi Michael, Kodak will scan a roll of 36 exposures to a PHOTO CD for
about $18. The resolution of the images is 6 megapixels, almost twice
the resolution of the best (under $1000) digital camera. This is
WAY,WAY more pixels than you need for a web image. It is a very rare
web image that has more than 0.3 megapixels. For about $9 you can
order a Kodak PICTURE CD in which the images are about 1.5 megapixels,
still many more than you need, or can use, for a full screen web
image. This service is usually available at your drug store or Target
or Walmart store. If you already have a film camera, I suggest you try
this out before you spend Big Bucks on a digital. Of course, if you
want the fun and novelty of using a digital camera (like me), that’s a
whole other story.
Check out the jewelry pixs,I would like my shots to look so
good. It is pricey to have slides scanned by a professional lab but
it will give you the best results ,It just depends on how good do
you want it to be.
I used to get my slides scanned onto a CD and it cost about $2-3 per
scan. Last year I purchased a Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart Slide
scanner for about $300. It’s specifically made for slide scanning and
works wonderfully and scans up to 2400 dpi (I haven’t actually scanned
over 1200 dpi on it). The color, gamma correction and quality of this
scanner has been very good for me. I often don’t need any touch ups
for the web other than scaling and cropping on a photo editing program
like photoshop (I use the Unix program GIMP). Some jewelry and stones
really do look better on film over digital. I do about 50/50.