Having trouble taking pictures

That camera should allow you to take great photos of your coins. As tps said, you will need a macro lens.

I use a Nikon D300 with a Sigma 105mm Macro lens for coin photography. The D300 is a lot more camera (and costs a LOT more) than the D60 but I opted for it because I wanted the extra features. The D60 will be fine for you.

I am slowly assembling my coin photography set-up. I ordered a copy stand and hope to have it in a few days. I suggest that you consider getting a copy stand too because the camera must be kept still when doing macro photography to get good, sharp images. You will also need good lights and software to edit your images. (I recommend Photoshop Elements.)

I also recommend that you get a copy of Numismatic Photography by Mark Goodman. It has a ton of good info for the beginner and intermediate coin photographer. (Do a search of CoinTalk for a book review that I did of this book.)

There are some excellent coin & currency photographers here. (I don't consider myself one - yet - but I'm working on it.) Feel free to ask questions or post some or your photos for critique any time.

 

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I've found you really can't beat taking photos outdoors of anything. For coins you should try to not be in direct sunlight though. Glare. Try taking photos in a shady location on a bright sunny day. What I've found to work well is on a black background that is not reflective like the top of a black B-B-Que grill. Not while it is in use though. If your cameral does not have a macro setting, then you could try finding a magnifier with a stand and take the photos through that.

 

How can you tell he didn't adjust it? He may not have but the white background looks pretty white to me.

It's not a bad picture. It looks just slightly out of focus. And you should be able to get a bit closer than that. To bring out the luster more, you may have to go with multiple artificial lights. In Numismatic Photography, Mark sometimes uses up to 3 lights, occasionally with diffusion, and it brings out the luster really nice.

That said, you also have to realize you're only going to get so much out of the equipment you have. I don't know what you have but the fact is, you just aren't going to get the same quality pics that a $1k camera with an $800 dollar macro lens on it can take, with a $200 point and shoot. Or in my case, a $400 camera with cheap, additional lenses.

I could get a more expensive camera if I wanted to but trying to achieve professional quality pictures to share with my friends on cointalk isn't high on my priority list at this time. It's probably not high on yours either. I'm more than satisfied with what this camera can do at this time.

Your camera is taking decent enough shots to get your point across. Maybe you could try getting a couple inexpensive lights and experimenting. I think you will find even the most basic photo editing software does a great job to fix pictures. Even photobucket has an autofix that works wonders. That's about as basic as you can get.

 

I will bet you that the coin is not green and the background is white.

 

The coin is a brilliant silver and the paper is ultra white I did try to adjust the white I just didn't do a good job. I took it at 10 MP and it wouldn't load so I had to resize it and that is when things went somewhat south. I'll get some sunlight lamps from work tomorrow and a 10X magnifier lamp I have and give it a go. Ice

 

I have used these references to produce good coin photos. Notice I said good not great. Great coin photography is an art I admire but have been unable to attain to my satisfaction.

http://www.mkdigitaldirect.com/tips/coin_photography_tips.html
http://www.coinworld.com/news/011705/bw_0117.asp
http://coinimaging.com/photography.html
http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents/coin_photography.htm

I hope this helps, keep us informed and good luck.