I have no pretensions of being a great coin photographer. Right now I’d settle for “adequate”. Here are two sets of cellphone pix of the same coin, shot in the same place under similar conditions (i.e., natural light, outdoors, on an cloudy day). The “crusty” toning on this coin makes it a slightly challenging subject. I do think the new pix are clearly better than the old, though how much of that is attributable to the phone and how much to the fact that the light might have just been a tad better for the new photos is debatable. Old phone (a base model Samsung, ca. 2017) New phone (brand new iPhone XR)
I think the new phone's pictures are a tad sharper. I wonder about the lighting though. New phone is much brighter. Is that from the lighting or the phone? IDK.
If I remember correctly, there was no post-process editing done on either of these, aside from cropping the images down to a square.
I’ve noticed the newer iphones take better pics when you use some zoom. I think it activates the other lenses or something. I also take a pic with the “live” setting. But then edit that pic and hand select one of the frames as a “key photo”. I think that live setting blurs them all into a composite. edit: oh, and I like the iphone pics better above. I think those pics look pretty darm good.
