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I've been cursed with a digital camera that may be as old as dirt, and have completely given up on it for macro/miniatures photography. What I need is a little advice on a good camera under $200. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanx bunches!

Christian

Anything with 6 megapixels or more and a macro mode.

Live view is very useful but no-one makes compact cameras with viewfinders anymore so you will get it by default.

A tripod and a large sheet of white card would be good investments. It doesn't need to be an expensive tripod for a small, light, compact digicam.

I got my wife THIS for Christmas last year and it has worked beautifully for taking pictures of my miniatures. At 12mp it takes incredibly detailed shots and has many very nice features. Miniature photography takes some getting used to, so practice often until you get it right.

drmwalkr wrote:I've been cursed with a digital camera that may be as old as dirt, and have completely given up on it for macro/miniatures photography. What I need is a little advice on a good camera under $200. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanx bunches!

Christian

Are you sure it's the camera? A lot of people complain about how bad their cameras suck when the fact of the matter is that they just don't know the ins and outs of photographing miniatures. It'll be a much cheaper and easier fix if it's just a matter of technique and not hardware.

Use daylight to photograph, a white background and a steady camera.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/categoryhotography

Digital cameras need good lighting. If you're not going to wait for good natural light then you need a tripod (even one of those tiny 4" ones will do), set the exposure manually until the image is bright enough and then use the self-timer so you aren't touching the camera (and shaking it) when the picture is taken.

I would suggest this http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Powershot-A1000IS-Stabilized-Grey/dp/B001EQ4C4E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1259010679&sr=8-1

Stabilisation is a good help when handholding, however a tripod or beanbag will do the job better for any static shot.

Samsung LS30. $90 from Target.