Which point-and-shoot is good for jewelry photography with white balance and macro control?
Asked 11/11/2010
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A jeweler needs a compact camera for shooting pieces in a lightbox. Their current inexpensive Fuji point-and-shoot gives images a strong blue cast, so manual white balance control is important. They also need good close-focus or macro capability for small subjects like rings and other jewelry. Are there specific point-and-shoot models or features to look for?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
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While the cameras that Alan suggested are good and I particularly like the S95... you can do better for jewelry photography by getting one that lets you get in much closer. Image quality will do in most cases because you should be shooting at a low ISO from a tripod and with white-balance properly set.
Canon has the SX130 and SX30 (as well as its predecessors) can focus to 1cm or 0cm, respectively. Fuji has a few ultra-zooms like the HS10 or S200 EXR which also get in to 1cm. The one thing to be careful is to make sure the lens does not make a shadow over the jewelry by moving your light appropriately.
Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1620
15y ago
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For jewelry work, the key features are manual/custom white balance and very close macro focusing. Since the camera will likely be used on a tripod at low ISO in a lightbox, extreme high-ISO performance matters less than accurate color and close focus.
Good compact options mentioned were Canon’s S95 and G11, both of which offer white balance control and macro capability. If maximum close-focus distance is the priority, some Canon SX-series models such as the SX130 and SX30 were noted for focusing extremely close, and some Fuji ultra-zooms can do similarly.
A practical caution: when shooting very close, the lens can cast a shadow on the jewelry, so lighting position matters.
In general, many point-and-shoot cameras include macro mode and white balance controls, so you’re mainly choosing based on how close they can focus, ease of manual control, and size. One additional suggestion was to consider Canon models supported by CHDK, which can add advanced features such as RAW capture on compatible cameras.
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