Any advice? I have an older (5 years old) digital camera and no matter what setting I use, I can not get it to focus on a close up of a coin. Any suggestions for something to try? Is it just a matter of fiddling with it till I accidentally come across the right set up? It has a couple of "close up" settings, but I can't get anything close to the amazing quality and extremely tight close up shots I am seeing here. It is an autofocus and there is no way to disable that. Id that what is killing my efforts? Do I just need to get a newer camera (please someone suggest this so I can go to my wife with that recommendation)?
If your camera doesn't have a macro setting , it is probably not going to take the kind of pics you are hoping for. One thing you can try though is shooting through a loupe or other magnifier...this is what I did before I could afford a new camera. Not fantastic, but it worked..Try using the search function on the top right of your screen, there are numerous threads about taking pics for you to look through. good luck
Thanks! Search! I honestly hadn't even seen that up there. Looked for it but didn't see the word "search" so I didn't notice it. I tried taking a pic through a magnifier, but that was pointless. The autofocus would only focus on the magnifier, not the coin. I've tried the macro as well, but it just won't get as close as I want. I'll do some searching here, though.
Does your camera have a fixed lens with zoom capability? Or, can you interchange lenses? If it is a fixed lens with zoom capability, about the best you can hope for is to use the super macro setting and, possibly, a loupe in front of the lens. The drawback to this is that oftentimes the photos will come out blurry or poorly illuminated because you have to place the lens fairly close to the subject for the loupe to be of any use. If you can interchange lenses, then you would want to use a dedicated macro lens and possibly extension tubes or magnification rings. Some others, myself included, prefer to use a stereomicroscope for super close-ups, but this can get a little pricey. There are a lot of stereomicroscopes available on the internet, but the cheaper ones are either limited in performance or cheaply made in China. The photos below were taken with a USB-compatible stereomicroscope with zoom capability and a flexcam attached to one of the eyepieces. Chris
To be able to take good photos of coins you must have two things: 1) The proper equipment. 2) The skills needed to use that equipment. A good place to start is the book 'Numismatic Photography' by Mark Goodman. In it he goes over the necessary equipment and photography skills as well as several tricks of the trade. Good luck.
