Camera suggestions?

Not a direct answer, but when I took some photos of jewellery (not being worn) I, too, used manual focus but fully manual rather than AP, set first by a bit of trial and error, but thereafter with the same lighting everything was fine. (I used black velvet as a background, which is one reason for not using auto exposure.)

White balance was a minor issue, and I corrected in Lightroom (software for tweaking photos), using a photo of a grey card in the sequence that I fixed to neutral grey in Lightroom and applied the same as a batch correction to the rest. Some cameras let you set a custom white balance which would save that processing - however processing is often worthwhile to bring out some aspect by tweaking sharpness or contradt or saturation etc (maybe analagous to Naim amps emphasising PRaT!)

I used a Canon EOS 450D DSLR with their 24-105L lens, and a tripod, with dual oblique lights (on opposite sides). Whist the camera can be picked up cheaply now because it has long been superseded, that particula lens is quite expensive compared to your budget, however the 'standard' 18-55 lens often found on that camera (and subsequent 500D, 550D, 600D would probably suffice, so going for something like one of these combinations secondhand might be one option.

But many other cameras should be able to do the trick, with quite a few digital compacts these days having manual settings, though not an optical viewfinder (arguably, however, for that subject matter a screen showing the actual image may be just as good.

I would agree with [@mention:41551091830475636] that use of a live view screen would likely suit better than a optical viewfinder for taking closeup of the jewellery.  The main thing to conquer will be the lighting.  If you could stretch a little, then something like a D3200 (around £200) plus a s/h Tamron 90mm Macro* (another £200) should be doable for around £4-500.  An older Nikon digital camera will come in at even less and depending what the end use of the images is; the lack of resolution might not be an issue.  For example on mpb you can get a D3100 (14 megapixel) for £80 or a pro-level D200 (10 megapixel) for £100 and add a 18-55 lens for general use for another £55.

Add a soft box "tent" for £10 off Amazon and couple of basic off camera flash heads for lighting (or even just a couple of table lamps should do but you will then have to adjust white balance).  You'll also want a sturdy tripod of course.  If you get a camera with its standard zoom that will do duty for general "class" shots. 

Note* the older Tamron AF lenses won't do AF with the D3200 but will still work in MF mode.  The old non-AF lens won't provide metering with the D3200 but may still work in your situation especially if you are wanting to use flash setup where the lighting will be consistent.

Maybe that I'm being overly influenced by the crapness of the lcd screen on the Panasonic in specifying an optical viewfinder, still it would be useful for other "duties", especially that one day a year when the sun shines, briefly, up here.

Don't need a lot of pixels as they'll mostly be for sending to clients after their classes and some going on the website (usually at a reduced resolution anyway) so some of those older Nikon suggestions sound interesting.

Have a monsterously good tripod and more lamps than you can shake a stick at! 

Willy.

Tripod and either a lighting set up of tent, as suggested above, are a must although it surprising what you can do with some white card and a few lamps if you camera has manual settings to adjust white balance (or you shoot in raw which is better).  In addition to the Nikon Eloise suggests you could check out the Canon equivalent whch is probably the 1300D.  However, if it were I would look for a used Canon 20D, 30D or 40D which you will pick up for less than the cost of a new entry level model and which will do a great job.  Likewise decent lens can be had second hand.  The camera world is very much upgrade lead and you will see excellent cameras sold off for daft prices when newer models come out.  Lenses, on the other hand, tend to hold their price if you buy good ones.

Fujifilm X-A1 Body (pre-owned, phenomenal bargain for a crop sensor body, with flip screen for easier focussing at around £100 from fleabay/mpb or whatever), + Fuji 60mm lens (Macro, sharp IQ + Big Manual focus ring) £350 refurbished direct from Fuji website (Open Box/Returned item). Stick 'em on a mini tripod and light box/light tent. Easy peasy.

Or, spring some extra cash on a pre-owned X-T1 say (will be thousands of them about once X-T2 supply is up and running and they're in the shops) and make use of the brilliant wi-fi remote app and you can control camera from your phone, which makes tripod photography stupidly easy. Or get a cheaper, pre-owned (or refurb from fuji website again) X-T10 for about £300, which I believe that also has wi-fi/remote app  but you'd need to check first.

If you don't need the wi-fi, just get an X-A1. It doesn't have the X-Trans sensor but frankly for close ups of Jewellery, who cares? And some prefer the regular sensor anyway. Mine consistently surprises me.

I second Jamie's Fujifilm X-A1 or X-T10 recommendation. Both remarkable little cameras.  Their manual focusing lenses are a joy to use and their 'what you see is what you get' LCD viewfinders and rear screens give you a very good representation of the final image (this can include depth of field preview as well).  Their straight out of camera film simulation jpegs are also very good.  Probably don't need to stretch to an X-T1 (which is what I own) though, as it sounds like some of the features (Water Resistance for e.g..) you won't be needing.  

The Fuji is a great camera... the problem is that the lenses aren't budget options.

With the more mainstream options, you have thing like Tamron's great 90mm available (second hand) for less than £200 if you shop around.  That and a 18-55 'kit' lens should cope with most situations.

So given a (very) limited budget I would suggest the Fuji isn't a good suggestion.

Yes, you can pick up a razor sharp 50mm Canon lens for less than 50 quid which is brilliant value for money for a cheap lens

£23.21 allows you to buy a Fotodiox Canon FD to Fujifilm X adaptor on Amazon. So then you just find yourself the sharpest Canon 50mm FD you can.

C.

I have  bought excellent/mint second hand Nikon cameras from Grays of Westminster.

Something like a D90 with a 18-105mm Zoom (or similar) can be had for less than £300.

You are assured of a top quality piece of kit. Must be worth a look at their website.

Willy posted:

Mrs Willy is returning to her roots as a Goldsmith. She’s commandeered my outhouse as a workshop and, after several months of backbreaking refurbishment, has started teaching silversmithing as well as making jewellery to sell. This raises the requirement to photograph jewellery and people making it. Historically I’d used my Nikon F3 to photograph pieces onto Kodachrome. The F3 is long gone and I’ve been having a bash with a Panasonic DMC-FZ28. Passable for the people but shit for jewellery. Seems to focus everywhere except where required. The alleged manual focus mode is impenetrable.

So looking for pointers for a digital camera. Requirements are:

Manual focus – Preferably mechanical and with an optical viewfinder

Aperture priority

Depth of field preview

Macro capability

Not wedded to any particular brand. Budget is as little as possible, preferable sub £300. Happy to search out something secondhand.

Any thoughts?

 

Regards,

Willy.

I assume you are talking 35mm or equivalent? If you are used to Nikon I would keep with it... Cameras handle so differently between makes... I am a Nikon user and have several bodies - including D3 - but my goto right now is my Nikon D810... yes the 3D autofocus is not as fast as my D3 - but I just love the 36 Mega x 14 bit pixels.. great detail and dynamic range on its full frame sensor - and you can crop without fear. if you drop down to 24 Mpixels and go smaller APS-C sensor then prices drop significantly to around 300 to 500 pounds.

Also if you have your Nikon lenses they should last almost forever - certainly a lifetime. I have lenses such as my AFS 17-35  f/2.8 which is almost as sharp and versatile as it was when bought new about 16 years ago despite me using it about 75% of the time .. and outlived several bodies., though i have had it serviced by Nikon UK which helps combat the wear and tear.

Christopher_M posted:

£23.21 allows you to buy a Fotodiox Canon FD to Fujifilm X adaptor on Amazon. So then you just find yourself the sharpest Canon 50mm FD you can.

Not very user friendly for someone coming from a "point and shoot" background though.

Choose the right tool for the person using it.

A standard 50mm generally focuses at about 50cm giving an image around .15x on the sensor (a 1:6 ratio if I've worked it out right so something around 12cm across will fill the frame with DX).  Something like a Nikon 105mm focuses at around 30cm, but the image is then the same size in the sensor as in real life - so for DX a 2cm wide piece of jewellery will fill the sensor; so you need to work out what you are photographing (and what size it is).  The Nikon 60mm needs to get to 18cm to give the same size (1:1) image in the sensor.

It's horses for courses!

At the end of the day a trip to somewhere like Jessops on a quiet (in the store) afternoon with a couple of pieces of jewellery, a piece of black velvet (or whatever she wants to use as a background) and some patience trying some cameras is what she needs...

Eloise, you said the Fuji is a great camera but the lenses aren't budget. Please don't slate me for trying to offer a budget solution.

C.

Christopher_M posted:

Eloise, you said the Fuji is a great camera but the lenses aren't budget. Please don't slate me for trying to offer a budget solution.

Sorry if you felt I was slating you, but it sounds like Mrs Willy wants / needs a pick up and use solution ... for a photographic enthusiast I agree the use of old lenses on such a body is a possible option ... but horses for courses.

I actually edited my post after to point out the "standard" 50mm lens probably doesn't offer what Mrs Willy needs anyway.

Um, I read it that Mr Willy was doing the photography.

He's probably got an old Nikkor attached to his F3 in the attic. So scrap the Canon FD idea.

Obviously the old Nikkor gives MF (only) and aperture priority as well as manual metering. Just a budget idea on what you said was a good camera.

edit: Ok, the F3 is 'long gone', but you get the idea and Willy is used to manual focus.

C.

For taking close-up photos of jewellery, I’d recommend a camera that you can connect to a laptop or notebook. You’ll struggle to see fine detail on a camera view finder.

 I use a canon 40D. Connecting to a laptop allows the image can be viewed when focusing, plus the camera can be controlled through the laptop.

 My preferred lens for this type of work is a 35mm f2.4 flektogon ( about £120) with an adaptor, it’s effective length is 50mm, it’s sharp and focuses down to under 200mm. Or as David mentioned, the canon 50mm is ridiculously sharp for ridiculously little money.

http://vintage-camera-lenses.c...-flektogon-35mm-2-4/

Eloise posted:

The Fuji is a great camera... the problem is that the lenses aren't budget options.

With the more mainstream options, you have thing like Tamron's great 90mm available (second hand) for less than £200 if you shop around.  That and a 18-55 'kit' lens should cope with most situations.

So given a (very) limited budget I would suggest the Fuji isn't a good suggestion.

So you suggest a £500 (new) lens?!?!? As you say, you can shop around for pre-owned. Do the same for the Fuji...

Or, get an X100, £300 ish pre-owned? Lovely to use, viewfinder, 35mm equiv lens and stick a B&W Close-Up +10 Diopter Filter and you're good to go for jewellery...

If you're of a mind to, you can even take it outside.

Fatcats idea is a good one though too!

For her own work I can usually do the photography as there is generally no rush. However when Mrs Willy is facilitating a couple making each others wedding rings she will need to step up to the plate, capturing the progress of them metal bashing and the final result. The photos are usually shared with the happy couple via a link to an album in google photos. No point having mega pixels as they'll be down sampled.

Leaning towards something like a D200 with a 18-55 lens. Less than #200 so more vinyl/beer/gin for me:-) Seems to meet all the requirements.

Regards,

Willy.

Ps For any DIY sorts out there here's a link to my handiwork   https://goo.gl/photos/jE39QGuRWC1k9PpU9 

Willy posted:

Leaning towards something like a D200 with a 18-55 lens. Less than #200 so more vinyl/beer/gin for me:-) Seems to meet all the requirements.

Sounds a good option to me.  

If it helps... 

...demonstrates the close focus ability of the Nikon 18-55 (at the 55mm end).  For smaller pieces you can always look at alternative lenses later and with the Nikon system you have a lot to choose from (50 plus years worth with some limitations).

On My Olympus EM1 I can set it to take a series of pictures gradually moving the focus point of the lens. I then feed the pictures into Photoshop and it then merges the images to show the sharpness at all distances. It is easier to do than tto describe the process.

Derek Wright posted:

On My Olympus EM1 I can set it to take a series of pictures gradually moving the focus point of the lens. I then feed the pictures into Photoshop and it then merges the images to show the sharpness at all distances. It is easier to do than tto describe the process.

Focus stacking