Who can help find the right camera to replacing our office SLR

I have been tasked with replacing the office Sony Digital Mavica. The camera is used mainly for close up shots of mechanical components, usually outdoors, full face ID type pictures, indoors and close up work photographing documents where detail and color are important. The camera will need to be docked with various computers in the office (by USB) and it needs to be simple to operate since many in our office are not current on technical devices.
The budget is around $1000 and the preference is a fixed lens SLR type.

Wow -- excellent specs, James!

The world has changed a lot since those Sony Mavica cameras -- I remember ones that wrote to floppy disks, and then they made ones that write to Cd's. Neat idea, but these days pretty outmoded :-) And the good news is that today you'll probably have to pay only about 1/2 of your $1000 budget to get a good camera.

It sounds to me like you would want something more than a compact model. Almost any of the mid-priced cameras we list on DigitalAdvisor will meet your specifications for detail and color, and almost all will "just work" if you use their USB connection to a computer running Windows XP or recent Mac software.

But I think there's a trade-off between ease of use and the requirement to photograph documents and components. The issue here is lighting: smaller cameras, especially the really small ones tend to have underpowered flashes. Also, having a flash that is a few inches away from the camera lens can help a little, but almost all on-camera flashes result in flat looking photos. You may have noticed that wedding and other pro photographers have flashes mounted off to the side of the camera -- this allow the flash to cast a little shadow which tends to bring out shapes and contours.

The other issue is the close-ups of documents and parts. These need light, and on-camera flashes also tend to be bad in close-up situations because they either over-light and/or light unevenly.

In all these cases, a long zoom lens will help. For the close-up shots, the camera does not have to be so close, which gives the flash a chance to spread out evenly. In these cases, I strongly recommend a tripod which will ensure you get sharp images (and make sure the camera you choose has a tripod mount).

For the lighting issues, a zoom will help a little, as well. But you may find that many problems can be solved by buying an external flash that mount on a "hot shoe" on the camera. Flashes that tilt and swivel can allow you to bounce light off walls, or ceilings, or even a piece of white cardboard to dramatically improve the look of pictures. External flashes are no harder to use than built-in flashes and all cameras have built-in flashes for normal use.

So some suggestions:

• 
  Panasonic DMC FZ30 is well regarded, but maybe not so easy to use. I like this choice because it has nice optics, gets good reviews, and has a hot shoe for mounting a flash if you decide to later.
  


• 
  Kodak EasyShare Z612 is part of Kodak's very well regarded EasyShare line -- they have done a lot of work to make it easy to get good pictures and to get them onto the computer. This camera does not have a hot shoe, but has a pop-up flash which can help with the lighting issues I mentioned. Also consider the just released update to this, the Kodak EasyShare P712 which does have the hot shoe.
  


• 
  The Fuji S5200 is a little less expensive and has a pop-up flash.
  


• 
  And I think I would be remiss to exclude the Canon S3 IS except that people don't seem to be happy with it at all!. The S2 was one of the first long zooms that had image stabilization and got raves -- the S3 is getting panned!
  

I hope these ideas get you headed in the right direction!

Tom

Excellent answers and information. My boss was surprised and pleased with the recommended Kodak Easyshare. Especially with the price, compared to the original cost of the Sony Mavica years ago. Believe it or not, we in the Federal government do not like to overpurchase beyond our needs and my first choice was $1000 Sony, probably too much camera to just grab and shoot. I needed one with good resolution and picture quality for my assignments but one that would not scare the other guys with too many buttons and settings.

I'll be ordering the Z612 with two extra USB card readers and spare batteries. I appreciate the advice on photographing documents also. I had been using natural light and experimenting until I had achieved satisfactory results. I have to be careful with the mostly laminated cards that I photograph. I may try a light tent and different lighting sources that you recommended. Thanks for the tip.

Glad you found the info useful.

One other question I forgot to ask first time -- have you considered a scanner for documents? They are designed for this task, and do all the hard work for you.

Tom

I'm not happy with the results of scanning ID cards, passports and other documents that we deal with. Sometimes I photograph off angle to capture a detail. Color is also important and digital pictures give an accurate image that I can distribute electronically. I can also focus on a certain area of the document and use MS Office to compose my document alerts.

We have no school for this. Most of what I do is though experimentation. I'm always ready to try something new to improve the quality of my work. Thanks.