Need new Camera and Tripod

Hi, I am looking to purchase a camera for work and am allowed a 500.00 budget. I must also have a Tripod, need to have a camera that will give good up close photos that does not rely on auto focus. Manual Focus.

Any suggestions ?

Just pick, Olympus, Canon or Nikon. They are all great cameras. The lens is what you need to be right. Are you going to be shooting portraits?

Camera will be used to shoot pictures of Bowling Machines Equipment and lots of close ups of circuit boards and parts associated with the equipment. Photos will need to be clear in black and white and color with very good up close detail at times.

You'll probably need to go with a little more budget than $500.00 for new equipment, you might want to look at used stuff.

As Greg said, you'll want to look at Nikon, Canon, and Olympus For the lens, you might want to look at a dedicated Macro Lens.

Just make sure the lens will do mirco-photos. That is it will focus close-up. And to do close-up you do need the manual focus option and aperture control. Auto shutter speed is not a problem if you are using a tripod.

All the DSLR will give you most of what you are asking, and there are a few others which also will work, but finding a camera in your $500 budget will be a problem, unless you get a used camera.

Another thing is the resolution of the camera. If the largest printed image is never going to be over 8 x10 then you don't real need any more resolution over 6mega pixel, to do the job. More resolution is nice but would not be need by the printer (litho).

You could probably get a used Olympus 510 for around 300 and the 14-54mm used for around 300 as well. That would get the job done.