Need some camera advice

[ali4390]

I am asking this on behalf of my girlfriend's grandfather and hoping someone can help. He has a passion for insects and would like to get a camera that will take decent up-close shots of insects he sees which he can show at his meetings and lectures he attends.

Now I would have thought an SLR camera would have been best for this (that's the extent of my camera knowledge), however he does want something that bulky so are there any cameras which offer the same sort of zoom but in a smaller size (I presume that's what he needs?!) but are slightly slimmer than an SLR? Would something such as http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5... suffice?

Any help will be hugely appreciated.

[Murph7355]

Macro photograpy's what you're after.

A lot of compacts have the feature. None will be as accomplished as an SLR with a suitable macro lens, but most will do the job.

If you Google, there are plenty of places with tips etc...

[Eggman]

A friend of mine faced exactly the same problem (wanted to take closeups of insects with something less bulky than a SLR) and after much research bought one of the Panasonic Lumix compacts with the 12x zoom. It's a little bit bulky but does a remarkably good job - well worth a look.

ETA: His is from the same range as this one.
I wouldn't be too sure about the one you've linked to on Argos for this application - whilst it's a lovely camera, that system was only introduced fairly recently and the choice of kit still seems rather limited. A quick Google reveals that they have released a macro lens for it, but it's £600 on top of the price of the camera.

Edited by Eggman on Tuesday 23 November 23:15

[htmlbloke]

How close does he expect to get, 1:1 > 5:1? What's his budget?

If you want a "true" macro camera/lens, I feel DSLR is the only way to go. So many options, especially with Canon's MPE-65mm..

[Simpo Two]

Remember that subject distance and magnification are different things. Magnification is what counts.

'Focuses to 3cm' etc means very little other than you be block out the light and the insect will have flown off.

[RobDickinson]

It depends on how far down the rabbit hole he wants to go...



Now compacts for macro work are quite good in some ways because they have small sensors so can get quite a lot of magnification , the trouble is control and light, good macro needs a lot of light and you often dont have it.

Any slr will be a good buy and you can do macro quite cheap , but a proper macro lens does help an awfull lot, as does a flash.

[Simpo Two]

Pah.

[14-7]

Taken with a Canon IXUS compact


Preying Manits by 14-7, on Flickr

Taken with a DSLR, dedicated macro lens and flash


Fly head-on by 14-7, on Flickr


At the end of the day the compact cost me about £180. The DSLR setup has cost me around £2800 (just the DSLR, lens and flash never mind all the other lenses and stuff you end up buying).