Was it worth the time? How often and how do you use the database? I have about 50-60 coins I may want to do. What equipment did you use?
I use a camera and save the images on my PC. From there, I can upload the image to this site for others to see. It's really easy once you get the hang of it.
I've got a lot of stuff saved on my computer, and picture files tend to be large, so after awhile I'll transfer everything to flash drives........
It'll be worth it when I retire and get organized. That's at least a decade away. My main goal is to allow others to see my collection without having to hold it. I don't like that collections remain hidden in safes and homes.
Photographing coins is as common as writing about them. That said, you can get more advice about photography than writing. Put "Photography" and "Photograph" in the search box and limit it to "Search by Titles Only." You will find a ton of discussions. I use an iPhone and my Hewlett Packard printer/scanner. But I take pictures mostly to be in the discussions here. I do not rely on the "database" (ahem) in my collecting or writing. ------------------------ What do you mean by "database." To people in information systems (computing, programming), a database is more than just a list. You can have a table (spreadsheet) with the coin's particulars of times and places and rulers and weights and prices and all that and include one or more pictures you took. But that would not be the essential use of a photographic database. But it is interesting...
I also use excel with most of the same things, but I include a generic catalog number and number every coin I own, so I can keep track of which coin I'm looking at when I pick it up. As far as camera setup, I use 2x gooseneck lamps and a 5x and 10x loupe, depending on how large the coin is. Photography is mostly about lighting. I also use photoscape to put the reverse and obverse together, which is free to download from photoscape.org. For camera, I just use my phone camera, which has maybe 8MP. I have simple files that sort all of my coins, such as errors, world coins, US Type Set, etc. Eventually, I would like to combine the two. Here are some older examples of my photos. 1946 Lincoln Cent with gas bubbles 1943 Lincoln Cent clipped planchet (photo taken with coin inside of 2x2, it can be done, and much better than this one!) 1943 Jefferson Nickel with reverse lamination
Well for my token collection I use Excel and I consult my spreadsheet regularly. Mostly to avoid duplicates - this becomes more important when you're dealing with multiple types from different issuing authorities. I suggest you maintain whatever spreadsheet/database of your choice as soon as possible. Nothing worse than trying to sort through a pile of coins trying to get things organized. For your photos same thing - take and save them. It will make posting here more enjoyable because nobody likes reading a description of a coin. I share photos all the time but I didn't keep up with my token collection and now I have hundreds to get through.
Do you catagorize, sort, or array the photographs per se? I would not know how to begin with that. Art museums must use something like that, also. "Artists in the early 20th century produced fine art prints in limited editions so that each individual work would maintain its value over time. In comparison to open edition prints, limited edition prints are numbered and have a limit on the quantity. The artist will typically sign and number the work. The numbering is the edition number, which represents the number of the print in the production run. For example, if the edition number is ‘3/100,’ then that individual print was the third print made in a production of 100 prints." -- Heritage here: https://blog.ha.com/2018/07/a-guide-to-valuing-your-limited-edition-art-print/. So, suppose you owned print numbers 29, 31, and 70. You would want to identify them aside from photographing the signature. That aside, I just thought that perhaps you have some other tools for using a portion of the image itself as the index of a database.
I have all my images stored on an 1TB external hard drive in named folders by denomination and for Morgan Dollars by date.