Dermatology Macrophotography

LittleLew

I have a friend who wants to use a small P&S as she does her rounds as a resident in the hospital to photograph skin lesions and has asked me to recommend one/several.

She would rather buy one used since the chance of reimbursement is slight.
Any suggestions for recent models of P&S that will give reasonable resolution and lighting with built-in flash would be very welcome.

TIA,

Lew

Skippy

LittleLew wrote:

I have a friend who wants to use a small P&S as she does her rounds as a resident in the hospital to photograph skin lesions and has asked me to recommend one/several.

She would rather buy one used since the chance of reimbursement is slight.
Any suggestions for recent models of P&S that will give reasonable resolution and lighting with built-in flash would be very welcome.

TIA,

Lew

The Canon Power Shot SD870IS Digital ELPHis a real nice little P&S.
Has a lot of manual focus settings along with a MACRO setting.
Great little camera to learn with, as it can either be used in full AUTO,
or you can change most of the settings manually.

Well worth a look at

I brought one in USA last year, fits nicely into your pocket.
It's $259 at amazon.com at the moment.

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-SD870IS-Digital-Stabilized/dp/B000V20S3G/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1213707423&sr=8-1

.... Skippy
.

LittleLew

thanks, this person is not camera-wise and the manual issues don't fit for her.

any other suggestions further down the cost chain?

Lew

ziggy53

I don't believe that any P&S or digicam has a flash suitable for the purpose of dermal macrophotography. I strongly recommend a ring-light flash for that work and that rules out most simple cameras.

You might be able to make do with a Canon PowerShot G9 (because it has a hotshoe with E-TTL and Digic III processor) and a Macro Ring Lite MR-14EX. Mounting the ring flash might be tricky as it normally mounts to the lens via the filter threads and I'm not sure what adapters might be necessary to work (if indeed that would work).

Nikon might have something similar in both advanced camera and ring flash.

The proper recommendation would be a dSLR and macro lens (probably a few lenses would be required to cover the different lesion sizes) and ring flash. Remind your friend about the field she has chosen and the costs of appropriate tools and equipment.

There are more "Rube Goldberg" methods that could use simpler cameras and flashes, but your friend would have to commit to less conventional methodology and more experimentation.

LittleLew

Thanks for the information. My friend is a geneticist who needs to capture subjects from the size of moles to entire faces, hands, etc. things quickly and simply. The camera will not be used for final clinical macrophotography of dermatologic lesions but only to collect simple images of all size items as aides memoire. Accurate clinical photographs will be taken by the hospital medical photographers.

A simple P&S that will fit in her gown pocket is what she needs - and wants.

Thanks in advance.

Lew

ziggy53

As long as your friend is only interested in what would amount to "digital macro snapshots", I am reasonably impressed what I see from others using the macro mode on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3. This inexpensive camera will focus down to around 2 inches but I have no idea to what actual magnification.

I do think I would experiment on putting some frosted tape, like Scotch "Magic" tape, across the flash when it is to be used at very close distances. A "dome" diffusion device might be better. A simple reflector on the opposite side from the flash could help fill in shadows and provide more pleasing light with little trouble.

Review here:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2008_reviews/panasonic_fs3.html

Sample images:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2008_reviews/panasonic_fs3_samples.html
http://www.cameras.co.uk/camera-reviews/photos.cfm?photo=panasonic-dmc-fs3&title=Panasonic%20DMC%20FS3
http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/assets/15039.jpg