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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jaelus, post: 2119807, member: 46237&quot;]Great comments from everyone so far.</p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t exclusively want a DSLR, I just figured that was the best option for what I want to do. If there&#039;s another option that will get me to the type of photo quality that I want I&#039;m all for looking into that too.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>A lot. I really like toned coins, and my photography is not adequately picking up many of the aspects I enjoy most about the coins. I also enjoy die cracks, repunched devices, overdates and the like, and want to be able to take pictures in a high enough resolution to see some of the finer details clearly.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here are a few pics of coins I have picked up over the last year that I thought had very decent photos. These are the types of photos I want to be able to take. Well lit and clear.</p><p><img src="http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc338/Mangoreej/Coins/SLQ_1917T1_OBV.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><img src="http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc338/Mangoreej/Coins/1939D_MD_OBV_sm.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><img src="http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc338/Mangoreej/Coins/Morgan_1879S_OBV_sm.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>In addition to wanting to photograph well the coins in my collection, I have also many coins that I intend to sell. The importance of having a great photo when selling a coin can never be overstated. I know I bid higher for the above coins than I would have if the pictures weren&#039;t this good, and with a poor enough photo, the coin wouldn&#039;t have even caught my attention in the first place.</p><p><br /></p><p>As I still have the desire for good quality photos of my coins whether I take them myself or not, taking my own photos will also save me the fees of having the coins photographed by the TPGs when I send them out for grading. I think a good photography set up would pay for itself over time for these reasons.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think my photos right now are maybe 60% of the way there. I think getting to 100% may be prohibitively expensive, but I&#039;d be very satisfied with getting to 85% for a few hundred bucks.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>My phone has a decent camera for a phone, but it&#039;s really a phablet. The thing is huge. With how short my lamps are, it really blocks the light. I find I can take a high resolution image that is poorly lit, or I can take a lower resolution image with better lighting. With a slab I can&#039;t really get in close due to the glare.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s one I took on my phone with a smaller focal distance. I like the level of detail, though the focus could be sharper. This coin just has toning in shades of grey though, with colors in the mix they appear completely washed out taken like this.</p><p><img src="http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc338/Mangoreej/1832_B2_OBV.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>I do use Gimp to make color adjustments, but it&#039;s more that certain regions of the coin are just not lit enough and some colors aren&#039;t coming through. I don&#039;t want to enhance the picture to create something fake over taking a better photo. Of course scaling and cropping is an option to get the obverse and reverse the same size. It bothers me though that there is so much variance in my focal distance due to my setup, and also the phone not being level distorts the shape of the coin.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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