Tech illustration?

Straight_Man

Let me preface this by saying that I am not a professional photographer and probably will never be able to afford to be one. Nor do I travel a lot to need a landscape type photo camera.

But I am starting to do a little photo illustration of tech stuff to go with articles I am writing for my blog and tech knowledge site. You can find a link to my site in my profile.

So, I need to blow up big, with quality, pics of increasingly small stuff. And my budget for a good tool for this is about $250.00 shipped with accessories due to extreme budget constraints.

I have an 8 MP with 3X optical zoom camera. Point-and-shoot. I wanted something that would be in the 14-16 MP range, higher quality optical glass lense, optical zoom of 10X or greater. For retail, this is an impossible task. Such a camera costs 3-4 hundred dollars shipped or more.

However, Nikon was changing to new models of camera. So I started looking at reviews on Amazon and Newegg. Finally Amazon dropped the price of a Nikon Coolpix S8200 to about 270.00 and I started watching the price closely. When Amazon got the price down to 207.99 with free slow shipping and had 15 left, I bought what 300+ people had given an average of a 4 star review rating.

I wonder if I could have done better for the price range , some, and would like to see what other folks use for magnified blowups that are optical zoomed by the camera. I know Kwitko has a hugely photophile's camera and will probably frown at using less than the best, but I cannot afford the best or close to it.

This was long, but I had to explain and Prime did not want a review, suggested a thread instead, so here is one.

PirateNinja

If you need blown up pictures of small things here is what you do not need:

--Any sort of zooming capability at all--
--High megapixels--

You just need an average point and shoot digital camera.

Case and point, here is a picture I took over 10 years ago with a then $179 Pentax digital camera that was probably 4.1 MP at most.



Just take your current 8MP camera and play with the macro setting and close up objects. Macro setting looks like a flower.

Straight_Man

Well, I wanted enough quality to read the writing on a chip. And no Macro mode on my 8MP. The S8200 has a macro lense and zoom. I paid about $200.00 for my 8 MP camera.

PirateNinja

If you do not have macro mode on your current camera, then you do need a new one for this task.

http://www.amazon.com/Fujifilm-FinePix-S4200-Digital-Camera/dp/B006T7QWGO

That one will do you fine at $100 under budget, it gives you room to toss in a case and a nice sd card. Downside is it uses AA batteries, but that also leaves enough in budget to pick up some rechargeable batteries and a charger.

Straight_Man

Um, it goes this way-- I bought the Coolpix S8200, it is mine. I have a camera that is somewhat future-proof. the retail was $349.99 and I got it for $207.99 shipped. I will look at the Finepix S4200, and see if it has a macro glass lense set. Will compare specs and post back, as maybe I should have gotten a Finepix series camera.

I did forget to mention the motion blur auto-dampening/auto-correction on the Coolpix in OP, which is something I like with a blowup as blurring detail makes it hard to read. Also. the Coolpix comes with a 2100Mah Li-Ion battery you can charge from an outlet or my laptop (will charge via USB or with included adapter from wall outlet). I got a second battery for about 8-9 dollars as part of an accessory kit-- with case also, etc. My old camera takes about 4 hours to charge battery, again Li-Ion.

Straight_Man

Let's see.... Finepix S2400. Had I this decision to make over, I might have chosen the Finepix-- but I can't find real good full reviews of it yet. The 24X Zoom is nice, but at 24X the 14 MP CCD might not have the sharpness I want. I wonder if it would even at 20X.

I wonder about the AA batteries, are there fast-charge Li-Ion AA batteries available in AA size economically yet? Or are they really economical in that size at Ni-Cad type only? lessee, have not checked that yet.

Ni-Cads, I know, charge slower than Li-ions and need to because they heat up more than Li-Ions when force-charged. Over-heat them repeatedly, and they die also(killed 12 Ni-Cads over 3 years time that exact way). The Li-ions are more heat-stable, which is a Higher-temp climate related advantage in part also I know-- but I live in Florida.

PirateNinja

I had to read your whole first post again. I didn't realize you already bought something. Ok, so cool the s8200 is fine. It has a nice macro capability.

Straight_Man

I basicly like the Finepix also, thank you for the idea.