Close-up feature is critical, as is the ability to control the flash
(generally called "fill flash") since a lot of your "before" shots are going to
be in
shadowy areas of the engine compartment, under the dash, etc. Best thing to do
is go to a decent photography store and ask them if you can try out the macro
capability by taking a quick photo there in the store and having them print
it out.
Having a manual focus capability would certainly be nice, so that you can
make sure that a dashboard shot, for example, is focusing on the instrument
faces, rather than on the steering wheel boss in the foreground. However, I'm
not
aware of any "point-and-shoot" camera that does offer this. However, they will
all focus and meter with the button halfway down, so you can always (and
should always) use the trick of centering the image screen on the detail you
want
in focus, pushing the button halfway down, then moving the camera to get the
whole image.
Incidentally, since the parallax problem is accentuated when shooting
close-ups and what you see through the viewfinder is not what your camera is
seeing,
you want to look for a camera with a good large vivid image screen. One of the
cameras (like the Nikon Coolpix) with a image screen that rotates is ideal
for shooting detail in corners or under the dash board, for example.
Since you're not going into the spying business, you don't need to spend the
premium to get one of the new ultra-small cameras.
When it all comes down to it, from what I've seen in ratings the past six
months (lots of websites provide ratings and tests of digital cameras,
incidentally), the Nikon Coolpix would be among the top five or so that I would
look at.
If you get up into the $300 range, you should be able to get a 3-4 mb camera,
which can print out great detail up to 8x10 inches, and still give you a good
all-around camera for car meets and races.
Cheers
Gary
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