I want to buy a camera & start taking pictures to sell things on e-bay. The Canon PowerShot A550 Digital Camera is a nice very inexpensive camera, If you want it I saw it at Ritz Camera, they also got some promos at http://www.prioritycodes.com/Electronics... for a discount Since you said you're looking to take pictures of things to sell on Ebay, I would recommend a camera with a good Macro function. I have found a digital with an excellent macro function, the Canon PowerShot a540. It's relatively simple to use, it comes with two user guides, one Basic .. and one Advanced... you can do plenty of things with it and the screen is big enough that you don't always need to use the view finder, which I found pretty handy.
I paid $129.00 for it at Sears In November 2006. I think it retails about $150.00.
I also have an Olympus digital, and an HP Photosmart... I find that between these three digital cameras, that the Canon is a bit better than the Olympus because of screen size and more options, and better zoom. The HP feels a little cheap and flimsy (to me anyway).. the Olympus is heavy and seems to be built like a tank (Ive drop kicked it across a street into a curb and picked it up and was able to take pictures, no problem) which is great! I think if I did that with the Canon though I would have some problems - the Canon has an orientation sensor inside and adjusts the image in the LCD for whichever way you angle the camera... handy... but Id be scared to see what happens if I dropped it.
Ya never know , it could happen.
Anyway good luck with whatever camera you decide on, anything is great for just point and shoot really. One of my co-workers went to Best Buy and her husband got her a cheap $100 camera and it's super slim and has 6 meapixels zoom and is great for the random photos she takes of all her kids.
Again, good luck whatever you decide though.
Take it easy,
mir :) Go for the Canon A550, it will do everything you want
and then more... google it... Here are a few choices:
Slim and Small- No limit- Canon SD900
Slim and Small- $300-400 limit Canon SD800 IS (Has Imagine Stablization)
Slim and Small- $200-$300 limit- SD600 6MP
Ultrazoom- Canon S3IS (Has Imagine Stablization) 12X optical 6MP
Budget Camera- No limit- Canon A640 10MP 4X Optical Zoom
Budget Camera- Less than $300- Canon A630 8MP 4X Optical Zoom
Enutheist Camera- No Limit- ($500+) Canon G7 10MP 6X Optical Zoom
SLR- No Limit- Canon Mk-II $5000 w/o lens
SLR- $3000 - Canon 5D Full Sensor
SLR- Budget - Canon 30D
SLR- Below $1000 w/ lens kit - Canon Rebel XTi
Just depends on what you need. For a general all purpose camera, the Canon A640 is one of the best. It has great imagine quality and i think has the most bang for your buck. There is also compact pocket size cameras but your paying for the size and not imagine quality. The imagine quality is usuable by most standards but remember it aint no camera your hopeing to sell pictures with. I own the SD700IS from Canon, I love it. I take it everywhere with my Rebel XTi just incase i need back up (even though the SD700 cant compare to the XTi). The pictures are great for a family slideshow but dont plan on going WOW. The SD series are mainly for convience so that you can slip it easly in a pocket or purse without worring too much about space it takes up. The A series are more based on imagine quality in a small size, but it wont fit in your pocket, trust me. I think best the camera in your price range is the Canon Powershot A540. You can find it "everywhere" for about $170. I've recommended this camera within my own family, so I'll be living with the results of this recommendation right along with you. You can use the rest of your budget to buy a decent memory card.
Go here and read an extensive review:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_revi...
Check the sample images, too.
This will blow your mind. The A530 is now discontinued, but it was the "little brother" to the A540.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/150-vs-5...
Canon just introduced the A550, which has more pixels, but offers less user control. I'd be happy with the A540.
A550 review: http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_revi...
You will need to add a memory card and I suggest the Sandisk or Lexar brand in any speed. You will spend from about $20 for a 512 KB card, which is perfectly adequate, to about $40 for a Sandisk Ultra II, which is as good as you'd ever want for this or many other cameras.
My brother has the A540 and my mother-in-law has the A530 - on my recommendation - and neither one has stopped speaking to me yet.
As far as taking pictures for eBay, the A540 will work out okay for that.
Here is a stock answer regarding eBay close-up photography. I admit that most were taken with an excellent camera, but I used lesser cameras for years.
If you are not going to go with a DSLR, almost any point and shoot with a macro mode will serve you well. The thing is, I feel that you need to use the flash to force the aperture to close while still having enough light for an exposure. Many here will tell you different, but follow this advice and see what you think.
Use your macro setting and experiment. Let's say you have a point and shoot camera with macro and a flash on the camera. You might have to go to a manual mode to do this, but...
Put your item on a nice background surface. I like to just put it in a ring box or on some velour. Zoom out at least half-way so that you will be working about a foot away from the ring. Be sure that you get focus confirmation. Shoot a picture USING flash. Check the LCD for the result. If you have overexposed the item, use the EV adjustment to reduce the exposure. For small items, I often find that I need to reduce the exposure by about 1.0 EV. (That's -1.0 EV.) It is better to have the item properly exposed and the background underexposed, so just worry about the jewelry for now. Using a deliberate underexposure will cure the "too shiny" appearance of the stones and metal.
If you know how, you can use either full manual exposure or just Aperture Priority and choose a smaller aperture (larger number) to make the ring show up in better focus.
If you are doing any image processing at all, such with Photoshop or it's cousins, you can crop the image to 800 pixels by 800 pixels and use Supersize images on eBay. I always use the Picture Pack when I am selling anything of any value. If not, eBay will re-size your picture anyway.
Check out http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/hear... which I did a while ago using a Nikon Coolpix 5400 exactly as described above. I do NOT think this is acceptable, but we decided not to sell the ring anyhow, so I didn't bother to do a better job. It's still better than some I've seen. I don't keep old photos of sold items around, so I don't have much to show you, but at least you know that it's possible to get an acceptable result even without spending huge dollars on your equipment.
The key things to remember are:
-Macro setting
-Zoom out to get about a foot away from your subject
-Use flash
-Try different EV settings and expect that you will end up with a negative EV setting, such as -1.0 EV.
I happen to have some photos from old auctions on an FTP site. I think that these were all taken with a 3 MP Nikon Coolpix 885.
http://members.aol.com/swf08302/carvina....
http://members.aol.com/swf08302/skullfro...
http://members.aol.com/swf08302/konkontu...
(The patch is about 4 inches long.)
Here are a couple of coin photos done exactly as described:
http://www1.snapfish.com/slideshow/Album...
http://www1.snapfish.com/slideshow/Album...
Here are a couple more auction photos done as described, using a 60 mm macro lens on a DSLR:
800 x 800 http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/york...
800 x 800 http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/mont...
800 x 800 http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04...
800 x 800 http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04... Well definitely a Sony. Nothing but a Sony. The Coca-Cola of Digital Camera. The Real Thing. Well as you can see, I am an avid unashamed biased Sony fan. Check it out http://www.geocities.com/lcming/sony or http://www.geocities.com/lcming/cameras |
