Advice on which Camera to use.

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Robert
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As retirement gets ever closer I am after some advice on a camera to use for the following:

I intend to take up a new hobby of model engineering when I retire and to set up a website chronicalling my journey from selecting equipment to making projects.

I don't want photography to be a 'main part' of this hobby but as everybody knows a picture (or video) makes the website look good and saves a thousand words!

So i am after a smallish simple camera that is good with both stills and video, hopefully no editing required or comes with its own simple software for editing video/jpeg stills for upload to the web.

Hopefully someone here will be using something they can reccomend?

I have a Nikon D4 but this is far to big and complex for a simple task and is probably not the best for simple video.

I have heard Panasonic is good for something like this?

Thanks,

Bob.
 
I don't do video but I would recommend Panasonic Micro Four Thirds as long as you go for one of the later cameras with the redesigned shutter mechanism, so that's anything after the G7 and GX7.

I prefer the RF style ones with the evf in the corner but the mini SLR ones have the swivel screens that many people like.

One nice thing about this system is that any Micro Four Thirds lenses will work on it so you don't need to stick to Panasonic. There are some nice lenses available and most of mine were bought used. You can also use cheap film era lenses via cheap adapters.
 
Thanks Alan (y)
 
woof woof said:
I don't do video but I would recommend Panasonic Micro Four Thirds as long as you go for one of the later cameras with the redesigned shutter mechanism, so that's anything after the G7 and GX7.

I prefer the RF style ones with the evf in the corner but the mini SLR ones have the swivel screens that many people like.

One nice thing about this system is that any Micro Four Thirds lenses will work on it so you don't need to stick to Panasonic. There are some nice lenses available and most of mine were bought used. You can also use cheap film era lenses via cheap adapters.
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As above, it makes perfect sense, largely because of the much greater DOF that results from the small sensor.
But it isn't all about the camera, the lighting will be at least as important.
 
Give a thought to the fuji xt20 which is a stunning camera and sells for buttons these days.
 
I came to 'web' from a carer in full scale engineering. (We made bits for Tornado's and the ilk!) through a a couple of extra curricular courses, one a C&G in photo, one in IT with the OU. Doing photo-Resto's of old Lane-Rovers and old motor-bikes sort of tied the threads together.
Anyway.. read a Haynes Manual.. look carefully at the illustrations AND the photo's that go with them.
Ask yourself, "What do I want to Show people here?"
Sometimes you need the 'reality'of a photo... b-u-t, a lot of the time, 'reality' is far too fussy and cluttered, and a simplified technical drawing is far more apropriate... in between is a while realm where photo's might be 'diddled' to show 'a' reality, but, messed with, most obviously annotated with circles around the bits of interest or arrows pointing to them, or less obviously, cloning out unnecessary cables or clutter... some of which you 'may' do 'in-camera', for example using a wide aperture for a very shallow depth of focus to blurr out distracting back-ground, other times youmay 'have' to diddle digitally, say blue-screening a back-ground, and pixel picking your subject to montage into the bigger picture.
This is the art of technical ilustration... as much where you DONT want absolute reality, as much as where you do.
Cameras?
In the grander scheme, probably not top of the list of stuff to be worrying about,
For small scale 'model' engineering subjects, you probably need to treat a lot of the job as a Macro job, andcmall sensor cameras to maximise Depth of Field, make most sense, but setting up your lighting to get that subject of interest will be the more demanding bit of the job.
For larger scale subjects, and exploiting more conventional photo tricks, like shallow DoF a largher sensor camera with wider aperture lens, will probably be more appropriate.
Other times, it may not make much odds.. but its all horses for courses, and its unlikely that you will find a one-size-fits-all solution, or camera.
You mention your DSLR.. do you have a camera-phone or compact?
Start with what you got, and work from there.
But the editing and production will be far more imperative. Lighting and staging also... the camera, is but a tiny TINY bit of the job....
In which you are going to be trying to make an actual 'model' that's going to be the main subject of whatever you produce media wise for the web....
The Camera, REALLY is not worth an awful lot of contemplation in that much wider remit... there's far more and bigger fish to fry.
 
Thanks for the detailed reply @Teflon-Mike (y)

A good friend has the very latest GoPro camera and I have to say I am extremely impressed with the video & stills from it - not only this but it is lovely and small to mount onto the machinery.

It's editing software is extremely simple; remember i want to spend time on my new hobby not photography!
 
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