Which digital camera for a web-based retail business?

[JonRB]

Hi folks

My wife runs a web business. All items of stock she sells need to be photographed in order to be posted up on the website.

Up until now she's been using a SONY Cybershot DSC-9 "happy snappy" type digital camera which has performed adequately. Unfortunately we have recently mislaid it and can't find it anywhere despite thorough searching. Basically I think we've lost it.

Its starting to get critical to her business to get another camera and she's considering getting a Digital SLR on the grounds that the quality will probably be better than the Cybershot but she'll get better depth-of-field on the kind of close-up photography she needs to do photographing the stock.

She's thinking that a Canon EOS 350D would be suitable, but I wonder if one of the older Canons bought used might be better value and still quite adequate - something like the 300D perhaps?

I'd appreciate suggestions from PHers who know more about these things than I though.

I'm not sure what her budget is, but I would imagine that since it is for a fairly narrow set of requirements it will be "as cheap as possible whilst still doing the job".

[craggers]

Nikon D50 is the cheapest of the dSLR, but if she can't be bothered to change lens etc - get Fuji S9500 which seem to be very good priced.

[Gemm]

Yes, 300D should be good enough for this type of photography. I'm not sure how close-up the images have to be, but it may also be worth investing on a macro lens, lighting kit and light tent etc, if she wants this done properly.

EDIT: I just saw the type of products on the website, and I don't think macro lens would be necessary. Just get something that can focus pretty close.

Edited by Gemm on Tuesday 13th June 15:45

[JonRB]

She bought a cheap light tent a while back, but didn't really get on with it was a collapsable pyramid type and all the creases in the material showed up in the photographs.

[dinkel]

I campaign the Olympus E300 at the mo Cheaper than the Canon and so easy to use . . . But I'd go for a standard lens, because of the bigger lens opening = more light in = better image with faster shutter-time Often a macro option for details . . .

Consider.

[JonRB]

We found the DSC-9 in the end, but my wife has finally had enough of it's poor depth-of-field and easily confused auto-focus so the purchase of a new camera is back on again.

The Fuji S9500 mentioned earlier looks like a strong contender - Novatech have it for £281.85 + VAT which is definitely in budget.

[imperialism2024]

How about a Canon S2 IS? It does great macro, and overall image quality is very good. If you could stil scrape up a Sony DCS-V3, that might also be worth a look.

But really for that type of work, I doubt a DSLR will really provide an improvement over a better P&S short of spending thousands of dollars on correct equipement. Personally, for web work I'd probably get an S2 IS and a tripod for it...

[JonRB]

Went for the Fuji in the end as it has all of the ease-of-use of a compact with a lot of D-SLR benefits.

I think for what my wife needs it is the ideal choice - thanks craggers.

[JonRB]

Update: Just taken the Fuji back under Jessop's 30-day money-back guarantee. Just couldn't get on with the digital viewfinder, but the main gripe was the poor AF. The camera just couldn't get a decent lock on full zoom which meant trying to use manual focus on a laggy LCD viewfinder. Useless. And even zoomed out the AF could get easily confused and not quite in focus.

Maybe the camera needs a firmware upgrade or something, but it seemed like a good excuse to change it for a proper DSLR, so have just bought a Canon EOS 350D.