Laptop photography

[KyoteSam]

So, I wanted to enquire from this community some recommendations for photographic equipment, preferably a budget-concious one.

I am an archaeologist and will need to photograph some artifacts for my thesis research that are contained at another university. I don't think I would be allowed to access their photographic equipment because I am not a student there. What I am wondering about is if anyone has used any new photographic equipment that can be connected via usb to a laptop? I was thinking there has to be a good quality camera/web cam of sorts that would allow for easy setup and placement. I was wondering about the quality of such images when used for papers...

If anything I think this would be a good way for me to keep my advisor up-to-date or send him a photo if I had a question as he will be over 140 miles away while I do this. If all else fails I feel like my school would let me borrow one of their slr cameras (I hope).

 

[rayjay86]

SLR is the way to go. I'm a grad student (biosci though) and took thesis photos with my SLR.

It's better to take large, hi res images that you can later reduce/crop/whatever than to take smaller low res images that you are stuck with. HD Webcams have come a long way but for something as important as your thesis why take the chance?

For less than $200 the point and shoot cameras like Nikon Coolpix take fantastic photos for your purpose and you easily upload them to your laptop via usb and send them to your prof at home.

Finally...and I have done this once for a presentation...iPhone. Yes I used an iPhone photo of a tissue sample once. Hey, 5MP is plenty for a photo