Close up or Macro or add on lens?? Help for small objects!

[Guinness]

All of this camera terminology is too confusing.. I need a digital camera for small objects.. The smallest objects are about the size of small bees or medium sized flies, about 12mm in length. I need to pick up as much detail as possible on them, and the other end of the spectrum is the larger items I need to capture.. they are 75mm X 75mm X 300mm, approximately. Even though it's old, I am still satisfied with my Kodak Easyshare camera and phone for most social functions, so it's OK if the lens is permanently affixed. Ideally, I'll be able to change it later down the road, but, well, I'll take what I can get. The biggest problem is finding this in my price range, which is under $250 US dollars.. I know there's not a chance I'll find what I need new, so I'm hoping the greater community will have actual knowledge for what I may be able to acquire used. The US dollar is pretty close to the Euro right now, $100US = $94 Euro dollars.
As for enlarging, if I can get a 25mm object to 100-150mm and still be crystal clear with no pixilation, I am happy, and the same is true for the larger objects, I want to be able to enlarge the 300mm length to 1200-1500mm.. If any of you are familiar with model trains, I basically need crystal clear bolt details on a OO scale steam locomotive so I can re-make it as an O scale locomotive. If I can use photos twice the size of my intended model, I'll be sure to have every nut and bolt where it's supposed to be on my model.. Can anyone point me in the right direction for an affordable digital camera or camera & lens combination that will capture the detail I need to?

[rpcrowe]

I think you might not be able to get a DSLR plus a macro lens at your price range (although an older DSLR and an older used macro lens is a possibility.

I have a Canon SX-50HS which I purchased last year from Canon for about $250 which I expect could fill your requirements quite well. I have been impressed with its close-up and macro capabilities...

[Guinness]

I just checked the sold listings on Ebay, and these are selling for $120 to $250.. I have a question about yours.. It says 1080 video recording. How long are the segments, assuming you have a clean memory card? And, if it's capable of being a webcam, at what resolution and zoom?

[jcuknz]

Although I spent 26 years of my life covering the transition of NZ TV from film to digital I am largely ignorant of modern still and movie [video] cameras. Ideally one has two cameras, aa still camera and a video camera and 'I have read of problems' with basically still cameras not recording to the capacity of their storage medium the way a dedicated video camera wil.

On the other hand while I have recorded political speeches on my Hi_8 and wedding ceremonys on D8 cameras I would normally having started with film shoot relatively short shots and put them together in editing [ my basic job with TV, though 'having camera gear' I did quite a bit of shooting for TV in its early days here in NZ c.1963-64] .... so shortness of 'take' would unlikely bother me and has not with the occasional movie sequence. The 1080 you write about is the image recorded not the 'take' duration.

Thanks for the model railway connection and awhile back I shot a shot or two to illustrate what a guy might do with his Canon lens from yesteryear, obselete now except for tight frame work.

A scratch-built self tipping wagon for a layout I built On2
Richard's SX-50HS is a Canon version of what I suggest from Panasonic but since going to Amazon I would strongly suggest you you start with MFT which has its bigger sensor 17mm x 13mm against 6.17 x 4.55 mm. You will have a short reach with the G1 kit lens 84mm vis 108mm, a bit less than your existing camera, but will have the advantage of being able to use extension tube to focus closer.
See my next post aas I need to start again

[jcuknz]

As I looked at this shot



It struck me you do not need a camera which because of the way a lens works introduces errors and really you need to take you HO loco etc to a photocopying centre where they will scan the loco and view it square on, unlike a camera where unless you have a long lens and keep well back will unfortunately give you an inaccurate copy.
How serious the error is I cannot tell you because I do not know what your next stage is. [I have a suspicion it could be computer printing ]

I have a computer printer myself ... I await your reply

[Saorsa]

I've had some fun with a Nikon Coolpix P7100 with a Raynox achromat for closeup work.

I wrote it up in a couple of blog posts at

https://birdsnbugs.wordpress.com/201...essory-lenses/

and

https://birdsnbugs.wordpress.com/201...50-macro-lens/





They might be worth looking at for your application. In fact, the Raynox or an old Leitz ELPRO might work for you on your easyshare.

[jcuknz]

As I have said elsewhere the use of a close-up lens, whatever it is called by its maker is relatively useless on a short lens.

Let us assume that the camera lens will focus to 5cm or 50mm. That can be describes as 1000/50 or 20 dioptre.
Assume for image quality reasons you limit yourself to a 2 dioptre CU lens, they make much more powerful versions but even a 4 dioptre is drack compared to the 2D ... I know I wasted money on a quality version from B&W

Add the 2D to 20D and you have 22D 1000/22=45.45mm.
Play with the camera and move it in from 50 to 45mm and you will see just how little magnification you have achieved ... IMO better to enlarge in editing with the degradation of extra glass being used.

To make the most of the Easyshare one needs to know how close it will focus and then divide 1000 by that figure. The 50mm above was a generous estimate Bearing in mind that as you zoom out [35mm end] you loose tightness in framing even if you can focus closer.

The solution is to use a long lens as any bridge user will tell you.

But better, as I have found out since getting my ILCs is to use extension tubes ... but even there you will get working advantages from using the longer lens.

Between postings I took a shot of one of my OO scale ... similar to the HO locos our OP has written about which shows the distortion of working close with a wider angle lens ... and shooting with the 280mm end of the zoom didn't improve it much.


EDIT and since I have a scanner, just a cheap Canon thingie, I tried that but it doesn't have much DoF

[jcuknz]

A close-up lens in an 'add-on' and only really works with longer lens.
A macro lens is a modern convienience tool and good as it is rather expensive and for static subjects quite unnecessary.

Missing from the question is extension tubes and to use them the camera needs to be ILC 'Interchangable lens camera'.

One of CiC's better close-up workers uses/used extension tubes with an old macro len from what he has written

Perhaps I am reading the thread title too literally ... sorry

[Saorsa]

EDIT and since I have a scanner, just a cheap Canon thingie, I tried that but it doesn't have much DoF

The lenses on scanners and other reproduction systems are designed for very, very flat field of view. DOF can be a problem but the reality is that they are designed for very low distortion in a very shallow plane with very even illumiination and DOF is not something condidered.

Most compact zooms have a decent zoom range for their sensor sizes. This one was taken at 110mm on a NIkon V1 with a Leitz ELPRO VIa achromat.



The V1 is clearly out of the price range indicated but the ELPRO is not and a decent compact zoom would work very well. The Nikon P7100 I mentioned has a 35mm equivalent FL of 28-200 and would work fine.

The ants above were an experiment with the P7100. I don't usually use it for Macro at all but like to try odd combinations since I have the gear.

[rpcrowe]

I just checked the sold listings on Ebay, and these are selling for $120 to $250.. I have a question about yours.. It says 1080 video recording. How long are the segments, assuming you have a clean memory card? And, if it's capable of being a webcam, at what resolution and zoom?

I have never used the SX-50 HS for video. I tend to shoot video with a dedicated video camera a (Panasonic). The SX-50 HS manual is available at: http://www.canon.co.uk/support/consu...x?type=manuals