Sense I have been trying to get photos of butterfly knives on the internet for the last two years, I can add my 2 cents worth.
I started out using a $100 Kodak video conferance camera, that takes fairly good still photos, for the price you pay for them. It is very good in the 9 to 36 inches range. I tried out a Intel video conferance camera and it does real good in the 3 to 8 foot range and does a lot better of a job of taking photos of people. Neither one of these cameras are top of the line, but I think you get good results with them for the money you pay.
Next, I spent a lot of time, trying to find a good digital camera. I ended up with the olympus in the 400 series. They make a very good camera and if your short of money, you can get a 1.3 megapixel, or you can try to get a deal on the 2.1 megapixel. The more megapixels you have the larger the photo is going to be, or the more you can zoom in on your photo to "blow up" a detail. I have seen the 1.3 sell for as low as $250, I got a real good deal on my 2.1 at $350 because usually they sell for about $450.
If you want to be tempted to order a camera off of the internet, be very careful who you do business with. There are little camera stores on just about every street corner, and many of them sell on the internet. They advertise very low prices to get people to buy from them, but there is very little chance they will actually sell the item to you at the low advertised price. Often what they do, is add on a lot of extras, that you may or may not need at a higher than market price for them. Trying to return the extra items and getting a credit on your credit card is usually way more trouble than it's worth. Eventually, you can get a credit, but you have to fill out a lot of paper work, and it takes five to six months. And the little rip off stores know that most people will not bother with all of that.
A really good place to buy is a electonics store like Best Buy or CompUSA. It use to be you could buy it and if you did not like it, they would take it back. They still do allow returns, but now they have a 15% restocking fee. Usually, they will waver the restocking fee if you exchange the item for something else. If you complain a lot by telling them how worthless the item is. You have to be careful buying a open box item from Best. The price is not that much better, and usually they are returned items so there could be something wrong with them.
As for the photos themselves, there are a lot of places on the internet that will teach you how to take a good photo. They say you have to know the rules and you can not break any of them, if you want a good photo. The main thing to remember is that you are photographing light. The camera records the light as it bounces off of the item. Different colors reflect or absorb lite at a different rate. That is the problem with taking a photo of a knife. Usually the handle and the blade reflect lite at a totally different rate. So you can get a good photo of the blade or you can get a good photo of the knife body, but it's very difficult to get both of them good at the same time. Digital camera are much easier to take photos with, because they can work off of a much lower light level.
If you have a 1.3 megapixel camera, that means the camera breaks down your photo into over one million little squares. It then will record a value for them for color and brightness. The information is stored electronicly in memory or written to a disk. A 35 mm or video camera actually etches the photo onto the film and can store more information, but the color quality is not as good as the digital camera. For landscapes or any photo over 12 feet from the camera, the 35 mm are better. Under 12 feet digitals in many ways are better, but the photo is not quite as sharp. Still, for me, you pick up so much color quality, I think digital is better. Also, the advantage to digital is you do not have to pay for a photo, unless you decide to print it out. You can take photos all day long and share them with your friends on the internet. Sense you do not have to pay, you can experment around and take photos you never would take with a camera that you were going to have to pay to have the photos developed. For me, I have had a lot of expermental photos come out very good. Even if two or three in a hundred turn out real good, I am happy. Because it does not cost me a thing to take 100 or even 1000 photos. I can take them tell the camera wears out and not pay a penny. Not tell I decide to print them out.
If you have any questions, let me know, thanks, JohnR7
www.BalisongKnife.com
