Need help choosing a camera for merchandise photography

stereoneeds

ill start by saying i am a SUPER noob when it comes to photography. i am an ebay seller and put up a few hundred items a month. im sure i cannot give a link to my ebay store, but my seller id is the same as my id here. for 10 years i have been taking pictures of products on a sheet with my old canon sd400 pocket camera, and im thinking its time to get serious about this now. i purchased a 40" white photo cube and 2 light stands with reflective umbrellas to put on each side of the cube. when it comes to choosing a camera and lens though i am lost. i have a budget of about $1000, and really only need one lens. i will be shooting car stereo products- head units, speakers, amplifiers, and subwoofers. any help is greatly appreciated! thank you.

Robin Casady

You don't need much in the way of megapixels for ebay. What you want is good color, and a good lens. I'm not sure which body would be best for you, but the lens I'd choose would be the AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D. It sells for $470 new. There is a newer AF-S version of this lens with slightly faster autofocus, but you don't need that for merchandise.

Go to my web site, and look at my sections for shift knobs and telescope parts. Most of those images were shot with a D2x and 60mm Micro. This lens is great for portraits on a DX camera, and also great for shooting details, like a serial number plate, or other small item. It is actually a great all-around lens. Mine is sharper than most of my other lenses, even at infinity focus.

I'm selling my D2x because I've bought a D700, but my asking price puts it and a lens out of your budget. Otherwise, it would be a great camera for you.

ziggy53

Honestly and truthfully, I believe that the overall "best" cameras for general product photography are the advanced digicams. If you have sufficiently powerful flash units, the smaller imager size yields excellent extended DOF by default, and many advanced digicams come with very nice close focus and macro capable lenses.

I do suggest the addition of a close-focus diopter lens which allows greater working space to the subject. The Canon 500D series have great clarity and give you 500mm working distance and they work nicely at the telephoto end of most digicams.

The camera you choose should have some capability to trigger external flash units. I do prefer to use an RF trigger on the camera and RF slaves on the lights. That means a digicam with a hot shoe capability. I also prefer a "Live View" capability, which most digicams have by default, and a video-out to a large monitor for composition and focus.

A good choice for the camera itself might be the Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. It has a hot shoe for the flash trigger and it has both composite video out, for an external monitor, and HDMI, although I am not clear whether HDMI is active for capture and composition. Unfortunately the lens lacks filter threads so you would have to adapt a 500D to it.

If you feel you must have an interchangeable lens camera, one of the Four-Thirds or Micro-Four-Thirds cameras would probably work nicely. Add a suitable macro lens and you are in business.

In that case I would go with either an Olympus E-620 or E-600 and maybe their Olympus 50mm, f2.0 Macro ED. While this is a bit beyond your budget it is a very high quality solution with mostly very good properties. You can purchase the camera in refurbished condition at Adorama to save a bit.

chrisjohnson

I guess after 10 years on ebay and your current business we should be asking you what you mean by "getting serious".

Some kind of mini-studio is a good idea - I imagine. So you are already buying lights and consistent background..

I would get a decent entry level dslr with a macro lens. The new Canon Rebel (550) and a 60mm macro should do it plus a decent tripod. The macro shots will help you stand out from the crowd while you can take normal shots as well. It should fit within your budget and if you feel like splurging you can buy a kit zoom for a few hundred extra and use it on the holidays you take with your profits.

stereoneeds

by getting serious i just meant its time to invest in some better equipment, and ditch the 10 year old camera. i didnt know i would need an external flash. is this a must or am i ok with my photo cube and lighting on each side of it?

ziggy53

stereoneeds wrote: »

by getting serious i just meant its time to invest in some better equipment, and ditch the 10 year old camera. i didnt know i would need an external flash. is this a must or am i ok with my photo cube and lighting on each side of it?

For the best, most accurate, color rendition of products I highly recommend using electronic flash as the light source. Flash has the most complete color spectrum of any of the more common light sources. Most electronic flash can also be adjusted for output, making it easier to control lighting ratios.

Daylight florescent is also fairly commonly used for somewhat less stringent color requirements. In that case I recommend using bulbs with a CRI (Color Rendering Index) of above 95, preferably 97-98 CRI. Since florescent bulbs burn continuously you don't need a trigger/slave setup, but it's more difficult to control the output and set ratios. Flicker can also be a problem unless you use the modern high-speed electronic ballast technology.

Tungsten and Halogen is also sometimes used, but heat and fire dangers are real with the higher output bulbs and there is less color spectrum than daylight or flash so color fidelity, especially in the blues, can be a problem. There is also a color shift when you try to attenuate the output, so you have to adjust to different white balance with each power adjustment.

Daylight, incandescent and typical fluorescent spectrum (electronic flash is very close to daylight):

http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~avery/course/3400/light/blackbody_color.gif