Today I felt like I had to make a portable coin camera for my phone. I made this cheap (free) and my phone works great, well in my opinion. Below I inserted both pictures I took, and please give me some feed back and if someone wants me to give a tutorial I will. The second part is the coin I show. I was wondering what the grade is the back looks F in front and VF on back. The coin is an 1875-S 20 cent piece, so please give me some feed back on both subjects, all help is appreciated.
Well unfortunately your pics make that coin look like copper. No way to really give you an opinion on the grade. You want to have as much light as possible on the coin. Either natural sun light or a couple of desk lamps with 9-13 watt CFL bulbs positioned at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. If that lighting position doesn't work just keep moving the lights to a place that does work. Good luck!
Taking the coin out of the holder before photographing will work wonders and improve the clearness of the image. Having multiple light sources is also a must. Other than that, sweet toning on your coin. I love the black old age toning. Keep it like that, it would be a shame to do anything to that rich old toning. Cell phone cameras work really well for coin pictures these days. Just use the steps above and go from there. Eventually you way want to learn to add backgrounds to make your coin image pop further. Just to show you what's possible with cell phones, this one was taken with my Samsung Note 5 camera.
Most American coins have been dipped at some point, which is why they seldom look that toned. However, I've seen ancient silver coins that have accumulated centuries of tarnish and look just like that one...almost indistinguishable from bronze with a dark patina. I would suggest attempting to clean a tiny spot with lemon juice and see if she shines up...just a very tiny discrete spot should do (somewhere on the edge). If the little spot brightens and you can see the silver, leave the rest of the coin as is with that dark toning.
Actually the coin is that color, and I will add a white background that is a brown cardboard. Also thank you for the multiple light sources, that is a small LED.
I would'NT even do that with the lemon juice. Just leave as is. I wouldn't expect a silver coin here, more of a gun metal gray patina is what should be showing, maybe some darker browns and grays, but the photo certainly doesn't have enough light to show it off. FWIW, this color and condition is my favorite for coins this age.
Please note that I made a typo above...I would'NT do any cleaning or touching up...I fixed the typo, but just wanted to make sure you don't start cleaning the coin.
In that photo it looks like you have the light at 12 and 6 o'clock, judging by the shadows. That doesn't look good in my opinion. I think you need to change the light position and zoom in a little more. If you can't zoom in further while maintaining sharp focus then set your camera to highest resolution, get as close as you can with sharp focus, and then crop out the blank space around the coin.
A Samsung galaxy light http://www.cell2get.com/samsung-gal...0hgH3v4U2choCI1jO4Kg4yoaAqw-8P8HAQ#googlebase Sorry I'm not good with phones and stuff like that.
