What's the best camera/lens for medical photography?

1 It is difficult to tell without more info from you about the technical requirements for your photos (like how large you want the final prints to be, how close you want to focus, how much magnification you need, how large a depth of field, how much light is available, etc. ) But I would imagine any DSLR will work for you. Canon's Rebel line (the T1i, the XSi, and the coming T2i) are popular entry-level DSLRs for which there are lots of lens available. Because the lens will make a much bigger difference for you than the camera body.

Here is a good macro lens that will fit a Rebel. dpreview.com/lensreviews/canon_100_2p8_i... is a prime, i.e. , it isn't a zoom, but it will give 1:1 macro, i.e.

, the image on the sensor will be the same size as the actual thing. Minimum focusing distance is about one foot, i.e. , about 5 inches from the end of the lens.

It is also relatively fast, at F2.8. Since I imagine the camera will be hand-held and not mounted on a tripod, the new image stabilization system will be handy.It is about $1000. You can get it without image stabilization for quite a bit less, but then it would become even more important to have proper lighting (because more light would mean you could have shorter exposures, meaning less chance for camera shake to blur things up. ) Be aware that image magnification can be more important that close focusing.

Zooming way in (or using a prime with plenty of magnification) will give you a similar image to the one you would get by using a less powerful lens and moving in closer, but there will be less parallax distortion, where the center of the image looks like it is bulging closer to the camera. You can see the same effect if you get a camera too close to a person's face; their nose will look too big. Also, if you get in too close to the subject, your body and the camera itself can block the available light, so then you have to use something like a ring flash.

Speaking of which, I would think carefully about what kind of lighting you will use. The camera flash will work at those distances, but it will give very sharp shadows and flatten out the three-dimensionality of the image, because the flash is essentially a pinpoint of light. You might want a more diffuse lighting source to give a more natural look and a greater sense of depth.

Ordinarily you would bounce the flash off the ceiling, but that would be tough if you are aiming downwards and taking pictures at a variety of angles. You may want to augment the room lighting with some good floodlights or flashes with diffusers attached.

2 Thanks for the info! I really need something that gives me excellent detail. I've been looking into the ring flash for my light source too.

Basically we are looking to start using photos more to keep with case files for teaching purposes and sometime legal cases.

3 See, "excellent detail" still doesn't really say enough. Any typical lens will give you excellent detail. That 100mm macro lens I mention will give you more detail than the camera sensor is capable of.Is that enough?

Maybe, maybe not. (If it isn't, you need a full-frame camera or even a medium-format camera.)The ring flash is convenient, because you it will give you a small rig that gives consistent results. But you should look at photos that use a ring flash.

They essentially eliminate shadows, so again, they flatten out the image so you lose any sense of three-dimensionality. That might be important for you.

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