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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;SuperDave, post: 2545984, member: 1892&quot;]I suppose the best answer depends on your definition of &quot;a fortune,&quot; and how close you want to come to the best images on this site. My setup is similar to Stork&#039;s (you&#039;re going to see those specs repeated often among those who shoot the better coin images). Cheap dSLR camera (mine cost me $84 used from Adorama), bellows, duplicating lens. A stand to throw it on, and this is the result:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]546456[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s half-size, by the way. </p><p><br /></p><p>You can bring as much magnification to bear as any USB microscope, or shoot images including the slab. All from mouse and keyboard, without ever touching the camera after the initial setup. You can use it for roll-searching without eyestrain, because you&#039;re looking at the image in real time on your computer&#039;s monitor, not the camera&#039;s viewfinder.</p><p><br /></p><p>If $200+ is beyond the budget, as has been mentioned there are a number of smartphones capable of creating images plenty good enough for grading purposes. Almost any iPhone is that good, as are a number of Android phones. They don&#039;t create images as large as dSLR efforts, nor can they accomplish the same magnification, but for posting images online they&#039;re excellent. </p><p><br /></p><p>Same goes for more than a few point-and-shoot cameras. </p><p><br /></p><p>Just be warned, though: If you want to duplicate the efforts of the best photographers here, you&#039;re going to have to learn photography. I can make (relatively) cheap equipment produce images like that IHC because I understand the relationships between aperture, exposure and ISO intimately, and where and how to apply lighting to best effect for any given coin. It didn&#039;t come without a <b>ton</b> of work. There are people here who can and will teach you, saving a bunch of that work (I&#039;m one of them), but there&#039;s still a steep learning curve required. You get from it what you put into it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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