soon taking the plunge:recommended camera and scanner?

1907Quarter

for my 5 year old computer/windows XP, 663Mhz, 384 meg ram. Intel Celeron. How big's the learning curve?

Aethelred

Look at Nikon before you buy something! I took these with my Nikon Coolpix:

JrGMan2004

Nikon's are quite expensive though....... but if you have the money, Nikon's have the best Macro features. Me, with not having that much money... I'm going for the camera that Russ is using... and he says he's bought a couple off EBay for around $50... it's like 6 years old... but you've all seen how good his pics are... need I say more?

Aethelred

A lot depends on what you want to use the camera for. There are some good Nikon cameras out there for under $500.

JrGMan2004

And a big consideration... you can find older cameras that will take spectacular coin pictures, it's all in the macro. MegaPixel numbers mean diddilly when all you are doing is taking pictures for the internet. Consider... a 5 MegaPixel camera takes photos at, correct me if I'm wrong but I think I'm right, 5 million dots per inch... the average computer monitor displays 75 DPI... so, the MegaPixels are only a big deal, if you plan on printing out quality pictures...

ibzman350

Nikon 4300















No scanner needed

Herb

cosmicdebris

No scanner needed just get a Olympus C5050

jhar

Nikon 2500

JrGMan2004

I'm looking at the CoolPix 2000 and 2100... looks inside my price range...

mgoodm3

<< <i>And a big consideration... you can find older cameras that will take spectacular coin pictures, it's all in the macro. MegaPixel numbers mean diddilly when all you are doing is taking pictures for the internet. Consider... a 5 MegaPixel camera takes photos at, correct me if I'm wrong but I think I'm right, 5 million dots per inch... the average computer monitor displays 75 DPI... so, the MegaPixels are only a big deal, if you plan on printing out quality pictures... >>



The megapixel numbers mean number of individual dots on a picture. 5 Mp is roughly 2500 X 2000 image, roughly twice the resolution of a typical computer screen. The nice thing about having more dots is that you can fill a small part of the screen with a coin and still have a decent image. It also allows you to take pics of very small details without having to get as close. More versatile.

GTOster

I was the same as you last week I ask and everyone had the answer I picked up a Nikon 5400 today and it is a nice one the price was right and I looked at alot of camaras before I got this one playing with lighting right now when I get it right I'll post some pic's
Paul

JrGMan2004

I've asked, and I have gotten 1 definitive answer on a low-end camera... seems everyone here who has a camera, besides Russ, has plenty of money available to them... or have a run in with a good sized bit of money and can afford to buy a good camera... me... I'm an unemployed High School Senior, who gets $140 for the month. From that money, I have to pay for my lunch, gas for the car when I go out, other expenses of going out with friends, plus my coin collection, and I also get a small income from EBay auctions thx to some great friends... so it's not like I can easilly raise $300 or $400 or more for a camera... it'd take at least 3 or 4 months of not spending any money to get there... and that's hard to do...

Askari

It seems hard to go wrong, given all the advice; probably the best advice is to go to a camera shop and see what you like best that meets at least your minimum technical requirements.

1907Quarter

Thanks everyone for all the posts!
can I assume the cameras mentioned above are manual focus/aperture-exposure. Are these digital cameras and do they need to be wired directly to the computer?

mgoodm3

I would presume they are all digicams. the more expensive ones have manual exposure modes like aperture priority or shutter priority and full manual. I'm not sure at what price point these features start to show up.

Focus is generally auto. Mine has some manual focus capability (worthless for mine), but I wouldn't count on it being any good. That is unless you get a digital SLR body and separate lens'.

1907Quarter

so how does one get a close up picture on one of these?

mgoodm3

Shift 'em to macro mode, get close and shoot. Some do hand-held, some use small tripods or copystands.

shylock

All of the images on this site were taken with a Nikon 995, which you can find used or refurbished on Ebay for a reasonable price.

EagleEye

Shylock gets the best pictures I've seen. His secret is the lighting. The coolpix 995 is the best deal. You can get then for under $400 on ebay now. I think the newer coolpics are basically the same with extra features. Although you can get more megapixels nowadays, it's kind of overkill.

All my images are with a cool pix as well.