Digital macro photography may be the way to go if you are planning to get your products on your website.
Digital close-ups will be the quickest and cheapest route to go, but which camera is your best choice for such digital macro photography?
Do you need to look at digital SLR cameras, or will you get good enough results with an appropriate digital macro photography compact or "prosumer" (professional consumer) model?
For close up digital macro photography work, many of the compact or prosumer cameras are considered good enough. For instance, if it is for getting those rings and other jewelry items up there on the web, a 3 Mega Pixel camera will produce adequate images that will still need to be reduced in size.
Because of their small sensor size, the compacts often have better depth of field which could be very good for this task.
For big close-ups, rather than true digital macro photography, you can couple a good prosumer camera with a 2 dioptre Close Up lens.
For example, you can use the KonicaMinolta Z1 with its 10x zoom, which would get you in very close. Or you could use the Nikon 5700 in a similar manner - without having to spend a lot more on a comparable Digital SLR plus lens.
On the other hand, if you want to go the DSLR route, a good example - and if money is a concern! - is the Canon 300D Rebel, which produces excellent close up digital macro photography images.
As your web products are unlikely to be scared off by getting too close, a 50mm macro lens such as the Sigma 50mm f2.8 EX DG MACRO should do the trick!
If you are on a tight budget, and you need to get those products out there on the web without risking too much scarce capital, careful consideration of all the options available for digital macro photography is necessary.
You may decide on the seemingly less expensive DSLR's, only to find that you have to purchase an additional lens at considerable cost, in order to equal the image quality of the better prosumer cameras.
A few general digital macro photography hints to get you started:
1. Jewelry is often tricky because of the reflective surfaces. Use reflectors to create a soft surrounding light.
2. When using window lighting, you can use a paper reflector on the far side to fill in the dark areas.
3. It is easy to make your own reflectors, using cooking foil or white paper.
4. If your camera has a hot-shoe, you can make use of a ring light (eg. the HVLRLA from Sony) for extreme close ups in digital macro photography.
