green18

Welcome to the forum NumisPam, and take stock in what these guys are sayin'.....

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Vess1

I take photos of coins on a white sheet of paper under one of these:

http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/prod...sor-light.html

With one of these:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/CanonS3IS/page2.asp

It's a Canon S3 IS and I attach a cheap macro lens onto the front of it for close ups. It works great. Under that light, you can set the custom white balance to the piece of paper. Then it's just a matter of using the manual focus (button on the left side of the lens, adjust with scroll pad on the back). You can also physically move the camera forward and back to get it to focus. You can adjust the brightness by tapping the directional pad on the back left or right.

I just took a pic of this MS66 38-D/S buffalo nickel last week. It is in an NGC slab. These shots were without a tripod and taken at a slight angle so I didn't block the light. IS stands for Image Stability so you can get away with it (without the tri-pod) reasonably well. I admit they are a bit out of focus though. :

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ahearn

Do a search on "axial lighting for coin photos" which is a technique that produces incredible images, especially for proof coins, which are some of the hardest to photograph. I haven't tried it yet, but plan to.

desertgem

Hi NumisPam and welcome to the forum!

I use a Canon 590IS. The necessary things are a Macro function ( usually a flower), a tripod screw receptacle ( to use a tripod, or you can get similar threaded bolts and nuts from a hardware store to jury rig all sorts of camera holders), color balance function, and a nice focusing function.

and Although other books are important, non are as important as your camera manual. Read it and keep it around.

Looking forward to seeing some photos.

Jim

DoK U Mint

WoW\ I was trying to think of how to say that.

We used to call it RTFM. (The 1st "R" means READ & the last "M" stood for Manual).

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MorganMan

Illini420, could I also get a link to that template. Thanks, I would love to use that on some of my Morgans. Awesome photos!!!!

illini420

Thanks

http://forums.collectors.com/message...hreadid=705846

The link to the tutorial and downloads in the the 5th or 6th post in that thread. BECOKA over there is the same as CrustyCoins here and he's the one that wrote up the tutorial, so be sure to thank him if you find the tutorial helpful. Hope that helps, let me know if you have trouble finding the download.

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The Penny Lady

I cheat - I use Todd Pollock at www.bluccphotos.com! He is very reasonable, extremely nice and honest. And his photos are absolutely amazing, crisp, colorful, and very detailed. I've been posting several coins photographed by Todd in the past few days, but here are a couple to give you an example of his most excellent work:

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NumisPam

Thanks so much for all the wonderful replies!! Unfortunatly I forgot my password to this site and just remembered it, so I was delighted to see so many of you had replied to my question. I will try my best to remember my pw and come back here more often! lol now I am going to have to practice my picture taking! I only have a Kodak Easy Share at this time, but, could always upgrade if I get good enough at it. Thanks again everyone! NumisPam

jwwahly1

thanks for all the info, since i am now in the search for a camera and good photo editing software thats easy to manage and beautiful coins and pics

Phil Ham

Wow, you guys take some awesome photos of coins. Cudos to you all!!!