I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on taking a picture of a coin ? With my little bit of experience I have found that taking a picture of a coin is not the easiest thing to do. The light changes everything, makes me see marks that are not really there. Would it be best to use a scanner instead of trying to take a picture ? To my surprise the camera on my phone takes a great picture once I stop shaking or support my arms. The best part is I use a free app on my phone and all my pictures upload instantly to my account on the web. Then I can log in and get all my pics and zoom in on etc... This pic was taken with my camera phone.
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/coinphoto2011ez1.html Doug Smith's set up is great. Here are some of my photos using a point and shoot: I'm using simplified version of his rig, see my journey here:http://www.cointalk.com/threads/ancinets-i-built-a-camera-stand-umm-yay.242218/
Those are good pics. I use a scanner most of the time as you can set it for 1200 dpi and 48 bit color, the results vary quite a bit.
You can search for previous threads at CoinTalk (upper right of this screen). Search for words like "coin photography". One thread includes photos that were all taken with member's cell phones.
I don't have a good camera so I take all of my pictures with my iphone 4s. It has a macro lens so I can get pretty decent images, it just starts to get blurry if I try to zoom in close on areas of the coin like the date etc. I'm thinking about purchasing a USB Microscope. Amazon has some nice ones for about 30-40 bucks and they have up to 200x zoom.
I've sold over $200K in high quality numismatics in the last year and a half on ebay using mainly a scanner. I did buy a camera with a macro feature; the top guys in this field have the system down pat and as reasonable as they are in terms of their charges, the profits are less and most buyers want to know what the grade is with a good idea of the picture.
There are some very talented coin photographers here on CoinTalk. Similar to coins I would encourage learning from the pros by investing one specific book by Mark Goodman. It will answer many questions and get you started right.
Don't expect good pictures of coins with a cell phone camera or scanner. You will get out of focus results, and poor imaging. If you want to take pictures of coins, get yourself a decent camera with macro capabilities--it doesn't take a major dollar investment to get a pocket camera with decent resolution, and a good macro setting on it.
Don't forget to purchase a copy of Adobe Photoshop so you can doctor the photos before putting them on eBay. You know, to edit out those annoying imperfections in the pictures.... On a serious note, I use a scanner for my photos because I could never quite get the lighting right w a digital camera. And, being the old fart that I am, can't get my hands to stop shaking when aiming the camera.
