Camera

[Durin]

Hi,

I\'ve been into the hobby for about a year now and consider myself to be a pretty good painter so have decided to go for the Golden Demon Youngblood next year. I often browse sites like this one as well as a lot of forums for painting and gaming and numerous painter\'s personal sites. Now, having looked at others people work for a while, I have decided that I should show others some of mine. For this, I\'ll need a digital Camera.

With Christmas coming up (surprisingly quickly!) Ive asked for a camera and my father said that I could have one. I\'ll be able to spend roughly 250€ on it which I think is about 280 odd $. Firstly, will this be enough for a good enough camera to get clear photos of my models? Secondly, as there are lots of other painters here, what camera would you recommend?

Thanks alot,

Ben Kotas

 

[supervike]

I\'ll speak up...

First off, welcome to the forums.

There are some flat out camera experts on this site, and I am sure a few will tune in with advice.

Make sure the camera has a \'macro\' feature. This will allow the \'extreme\' closeups you will need. I\'d also say that it should have at least 3.0 megapixels (but more is always better). For decent pics, lighting is very important, check out the \"articles\" section for advice on this. Also consider a tri-pod as that will help eliminate \'camera shake\'...

I personally have a Nikon Coolpix885, and it does pretty well.

Good luck!

 

[airhead]

I second SuperVike\'s Nikon Coolpix. I have an old CP-5000 that I got on discontinued closeout (the new 5400 was coming out.). But I am far from an expert on it\'s use - especially in macro mode.

Hints:
Diffuse your lighting (see my sig for a link)
Use a tripod and timed release.
Use as long an exposure time as possible (it increases the depth of field).
Get some photo software to fix color balance and brightness.

 

[Ritual]

The whole Coolpix series from Nikon is good since they have excellent macro functions. I have a Coolpix 775 with 2.1 Mpixels and I can take decent pics with that, and I believe a 2.1 Mpixel camera is quite cheap today. Of course, a 3 Mpixel (or higher) camera is no disadvantage and can probably be useful for other things as well, but in my experience 2.1 is sufficient for shooting minis.

 

[Durin]

Thanks for the replies . Ive had my eye on the Nikon Coolpix range, more specifically the 4100, 3770 or 3100. If anyone has esperience with these, a short review would be much appreciated. Remember, this will be my first camera so I wont want anything too complicated or specialised. Would these be ok? Also, I forgot but this will be a general use camera alwell so the high pixelage should be ok.

 

[Ritual]

I don\'t have experience with any of the models you mentioned, but I believe the controls are basically the same for those features that are common within the Coolpix series. Mine is very easy. I basically just press one button for the camera three times (which gets it into macro setting), then turn the flash off then shoot. In the menu you can set the resolution and I go for highest. The menu is quite simple and intuitive. Good luck!

-Anders

 

[Kendaric]

I had found good reviews on this website when I was looking for a camera... I went for a Coolpix 5700, great, but much more expensive (cheapest I saw was 425$... goes up to 900$).
Anyway, after looking into it, there are two ranges I\'d look into if I were you, the Nikon Coolpix series, or some Canon models.

If it\'s just for taking pics of minis, I think the Nikon would be better (better macro feature, excellent level of detail). Otherwise, look into what \"pros\" advise when it comes to macro photography... Try to find features in your camera (however, good macro photo needs huge amount of money...).

Well, I hope that helps .