Digital Camera Advice?

[beetiger]

Does anyone out there know enough about digital cameras to help me figure out what I need? I'm looking for something that can do good print-quality food photography, so

-good easy macro functions
-Can deal with suboptimal lighting conditions
-Not too bulky (carry in large purse)
-Easy to set up picture( need to get right shot within a minute or so)


Budget is probably in the $300 range, though I'm likely somewhat flexible on this. I'm not really a trained photographer, so having the default setup work pretty well is important, though having some flexibility would be good too.

Right now I'm using a $100 Kodak 10.2 megapixel point and shoot, and it's not quite cutting it.

Thoughts?

ETA I ended up with a FinePix 1800, which seems to be doing what I need. Thank you for the help.

Comments

[pyat.livejournal.com]

If you're able to light the food fairly well, I can recommend the Fuji FinePix S-series.
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/s/

They're a "Bridge SLR" camera with decent optics. I've used an old s800 for a couple of years, then bought an s1600 in late 2010. The s1600s and lower are often on sale now for well under $200.

They can take better low light pics than a point and click, though you might need a tripod in a dim restaurant.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1. The marco goes to 3 cm, and it has 8x zoom, which are both wonderful, and it's very easy to use and fits easily in my pocket.

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH20, which is a slightly less capable version of the DMC-ZR1 - you can see them compared here. For your purposes, I'd think either would do a great job - I've been delighted with the FH20. Great macro, handles low light perfectly, tiny, ready to shoot in seconds from off and has an Intelligent Automatic feature that chooses settings instinctively and Just Works.

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

Pretty much any camera you'd consider should have a decent macro function, certainly good enough for food and larger objects; if you're looking to photograph things like, say rings, it gets a bit more complicated.

Your biggest issue is going to be lighting. Bottom line is that without some amount of finagling, you're not going to get a decent flash out of a small camera, so you're stuck finding something that has good high-ISO performance and true image stabilization, as well as a lens with a large aperture, i.e. small F number, you're looking for F3.0 or lower. As far as megapixels, as long as it's at least 8, ignore it. More isn't necessarily better. Also, start with the premise that any salesperson anywhere is going to feed you total bull to make a sale. I can't recall the last time a consumer camera salesperson both knew what they were talking about and were being honest.

My advice, if you want "good print-quality food photography" is that doing it with any sort of device short of an SLR (or the upcoming Fuji X100) is going to be sketchy -- your best bet would be to get a camera that can save the imager data in a raw file, and then let you process it later on a computer. For something like a print-quality 8x10, nothing exists in that price range; for print-quality 4x6 it's entirely doable.

Playing around with RAW files is diametrically opposed to getting the picture out of the camera quickly, though. Also, some amount of manual override so you can force flash off, control aperture, white balance etc. really is very helpful in getting good results. No camera on the market is going to be good at available light food photography on full auto, despite the popularity of the subject.

If you're using available light at a restaurant, say, chances are the light is of some weird color and very warm, and chances are that the automatic color balance, or even manual incandescent modes, are going to produce very brown/red/orange results.

I have a fairly ancient FinePix, and I'm rather fond of it. FinePix isn't the undisputed king of low-light point-and-shoots anymore, though.

Aside from those mentioned, there's the Canon PowerShot S90, SD4XXX IS series, or an older G-series (G11, G10, G9)... Most of the Panasonic Lumix series is also good.

Finally, check any pricing you find against www.bhphoto.com and www.adorama.com. Those tend to be my benchmarks for fair pricing; you can do better, but there's never an excuse to do worse. Quite often I end up buying from them; Amazon works too.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

To add to what varjohaltia said, including echoing recommendations for the Canons, I'd include the purchase of a mini-tripod. Even a cheap one will stabilize your camera well enough to take a crisp image over a long exposure (you want to shoot at 400 iso or lower to avoid the graininess that can occur with higher iso settings).

[tyrc.livejournal.com]

My Canon S90 is tiny, and fabulous for macro and low light shots. There's a newer version, S95, with a few additional features, but they're close enough to identical for the recommendation to carry.

Just.. peek back through my LJ for examples of pictures taken by it, if you want some idea!

[tyrc.livejournal.com]

Such as this nose! http://tyrc.livejournal.com/86523.html