When I was looking at cameras, I'm sure I checked out this model that Mr. Broadwell's wife is selling. (or the later version). It has everything you would want to do this type of up close photography, and she is throwing in a card (64k) and and adapter (a must..)... those alone are worth 125.00 or so. 285.00 is more than fairly priced. Anyone interested could go to dpreview.com. and read the specs and reviews. This is a great site that Murray White gave me when I was shopping for a camera. They also have a forum like ours here that you can get tips and suggestions from.
I wanted to pass on a mistake I made last time I was taking some pictures..I was using a large piece of brown to gold art paper as a background, and decided to change to something else. I normally remove the background when I change, but got lazy this time, and just put a new piece of mat board in on top of it. The new piece was much smaller... Well, all my pictures from that point on had a gold tint to them...I'm sure you can figure out what happened. The brown to gold paper was giving it's shade off against the white inside of the light tent. Moral...only have one color or backdrop in your tent. If you change to a larger piece, and it covers up the previous one completely, no problem. The reverse is not true...Just a rookie mistake, but it ruined a couple of good shots, and I don't get that many "keepers" to begin with, so it hurt a little..Regards, Rich