Cell Phone Photos

I take moderately bad photos, and have no real desire to spend a lot of time and money in getting better photos. That being said, I want to post representative and clear photos of my coins. With that in mind, this is what I have been using recently. The suction cup holder is available from many places cheaply and will hold the phone still. The slanted front is a Kindle in a holder, the surface is matte black, but white paper could be placed under the coin and any slanting surface would suffice.



After taking the picture, I mail it to myself (with or without cropping on the phone). Copy and paste and get on with it. If you need editing, PhotoScape works great.

 

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Not a bad system. I use a pint mason jar as a stand for my phone and shoot on to a strip of velvet I bought from the fabric store. I use a program called Manual for taking the pictures on my phone and the picture program to crop them. I upload to my onedrive account for storage when done. In the end its not as Macguyvered looking as your's but it does get the job done.

 

1. The image of a coin should be shot straight on, not at an angle.
2. Both sides should be imaged.
3. The image should be cropped reasonable close to the rim.
4. The image should be a sufficient size, i.e., at least 4" on the screen.
5. The image should be lighted in such a manner that it's not dark.
6. The image should be lighted in such a manner that there are no overexposed areas.
7. Closeups of significant features are addition images.
8. All images need to be in sharp focus.

I'm sure someone will come along and mention other factors that I missed.

 

I like bacon!!!

 

I can't really tell you if it is good without seeing the picture that you took. the problem with cell phone pictures is often that they are shaky. You seem to have solved that problem.

 

Sorry, I haven't been on here in a while and so when I saw bacon, I just couldn't control myself.

Seriously though, what "kanga" said is very true. It needs to be straight on, it needs enough light, and it needs detail, detail, DETAIL. Your iPhone has a 12 megapixel camera, which is quite good, but its image sensor is tiny, so you photos will never be a good as they can be. If you have $60-100 to spare, you can get a decent second hand used camera and a cheap tripod (doesn't need to be made of Kevlar from the ladder that was walked on by Neil Armstrong {AKA No need to pay too much}) and some IKEA lights.

My setup consists of a very cheap and very unstable to perfectly sufficing plastic tripod, a Sony DSC H300 (20 megapixels) for $70 instead of $300 brand new price, and three large extendable IKEA lights on which I replaced the bulbs to brighter and whiter bulbs.

Otherwise for a true "budget" build, it's a valid system.

 

That's similar to my set up. And BACON!

 

My Woodie

 

Download GIMP, and you'll be able to edit, crop, etc. A bit of a learning curve but it's free!

 

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Those photos look great to me.

 

Picked up at big box for 11 bucks. Has a cell phone holder perfect for taking straight overhead shots with no shaking on a table or desktop.

 

Almost all my images of coins now are taken with a cell phone. I just hold it far enough back that shadows are non existing.
No bad for someone that's 75
Then I use Photoscape ( It's FREE) to crop and combine.

 

My cell photos (and cell phone) could suck start a Harley-Davidson. I'm going to try my luck with a $22 digital Vivitar camera as soon as I get the memory card for it.

 

Nah, I'm too lazy

 

Go figure.

 

@Kentucky I think your set up is awesome. I love good old fashioned ingenuity. I take all my photos with a cell phone. Usually I take 10-12 then delete the shaky ones because I can't hold my phone still. I happen to know one of these cell phone holder hickeys is collecting dust in my garage right now. I will be implementing your set up if you don't mind.

 

Awesome, then this post was worth it!

 

To solve the "shaky cam" problem I always set the timer for 5 seconds. I rest my phone on two pill bottles of the same height also.

 

For cell phone pics, those second ones are pretty darn good. I'd be happy with that! The first are overlit, but the second ones seem just right.