Re: Taking pics of beadwork: Advice Needed

You can still (allegedly) get them at compusa.com - about $250. It amazes me that virtually no other digital camera has an optical zoom with that range - most do at best 3x. And Sony's had it out for about 6 years! Val

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "VManes" :

]You can still (allegedly) get them at compusa.com - about $250. It amazes ]me that virtually no other digital camera has an optical zoom with that ]range - most do at best 3x. And Sony's had it out for about 6 years!

hmmm - mine was $500 . . . that was 1/2 price, because it was used. puts the pictures on a floppy. maybe we're talking about different versions?

but i agree. most are poor!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

's not what you take, when you leave this world behind you;it's what you leave behind you when you go. -- Randy Travis

I remember selling the orginal version at Office Max for probably $600+ in '97 or '98. The one offered now is the 2x disk speed, looks a little more refined. But as an older model, prices fall over time. If this is something you find interesting, better snap them up quick. However, as an older model, it has much lower resolution that even lesser priced current models. Val

I love my Olympus Camedia - the macro function is very nice for beadwork. I try to take my photos outside at high noon for the least amount of shadows, etc. Eventually I want to make a setup like the one shown here:

FWIW, we have NOT been able to use the digicam to take any kind of decent jewelry pictures. The problem is the lack of manual focus, and the autofocus simply doesn't do the job. (Yes, we've tried putting something non-reflective in the middle of the picture for it to focus on. That didn't work either.)

We use a good-quality *film* camera with tripod to take jewelry photos; then we take them to Sam's or Costco to get them developed with the CD duplication option. The CD pix can then be loaded into any good photoshop program and massaged until you get what you want.

Celine (p&e)

Forget digital cameras or scanning pictures. ;-) Just lay the beads or jewelry directly on the scanner like I do.

I use Photoshop to edit.

For small items, the scanner itself, (I use an Astra scanner) takes better pictures than any camera ever dreamed of doing! Maven taught me this. :-)

Go here to see some scans of small items:

is my entire index. Please forgive the "joke" jpegs. I prefer sending links instead of attachments so use the index page forother things as well. Katra

There are several digicams out there with manual focus... mine has it, which is good because otherwise there are som colors it can't "see" well enough to focus on.

Barbara sent link to

-- PöRRö

*********************************** polyclay art at book reviews at webpages at

Glad to have helped!

With all due respect, Katra, your pics aren't bad, but some of the things are really hard to see in detail. Your rosaries are hard to see because of the backgrounds. Scanning is a good way to do pics if you use a white background, imo. But digital cameras take the best, most detailed, easiest to see pictures that I personally have seen. The digital camera must have a macro, though, or you will not be able to get close enough. And it takes a lot of practice.

-- Kandice Seeber Air & Earth Designs

I have an old Nikon CoolPix 750. I really love it. does everything I need. Barbara Dream Master

"We've got two lives, one we're given, the other one we make." Mary Chapin Carpenter

macro, of course. Thoughts? There is/was a 995 that looked good, but it's been discontinued.<

I believe that the 995 is just like mine (the 880) only it had one more feature (can't remember what it was, LOL). Mine has an incredible macro lens (which is why we got this model).

Carol in SLC eBay auctions:

(click on "view seller's other Items")

I'm crazy about my Nikon Coolpix 4500 (the successor to the 995), but I hear that the 4300 is excellent as well... however, it lacks the split-body feature, which I find incredibly useful for photographing beads. I actually bought mine after they were discontinued, on eBay, but it was new in box with warranty, not a refurb.