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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Stork, post: 2546231, member: 71642&quot;]I&#039;m very new to it and just taking the baby steps to learning &#039;real photography&#039;.&nbsp; There is a book by Mark Goodman that is coin specific and I&#039;m trying to read up on close up and macrophotography.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Of course &#039;spending a fortune&#039; means different things to different people, at different times in their lives.&nbsp; I was a bit spendier as I went bigger and had help doing it.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Given that I am a novice, and impatient, and learn by doing more than just reading, I bought a &#039;system&#039; that has an appropriate camera (used Canon Rebel XS, ~10 Megapixels), a used lens, bellows and a stand that was custom modified from a piece of lab equipment.&nbsp; I also have the Jansjo lights (using 1,2 or 3 depending on what I&#039;m doing) as shown and the software is the Canon stuff downloaded from the manufacturer&#039;s site (had to do in steps to get up to speed from an old camera to a newer Mac OS).&nbsp; For editing I use PicMonkey which I call &#039;photo-editing for dummies&#039;.&nbsp; It&#039;s functional and easy and has a free version.</p><p><br /></p><p>A dedicated person could figure out how to do this all less expensively than I did and there are a lot of coin photography threads here and on other forums (google is your friend).&nbsp; It all basically boiled down to some variations of the above set up.&nbsp; Decent camera, better lens, a way to steady it, tether to a computer to make the shots, and excellent lighting.&nbsp; I found PicMonkey on my own and it so far works for me.&nbsp; Given my too-much-data-inertia it was worth it TO ME to buy the set up.</p><p><br /></p><p>My interests are coins ranging from very small (and the occasional variety shot) up to medals over 10 cm.&nbsp; It is not easy for a one stop set up and I turned to a much more skilled person than me to get me a set up.&nbsp; It lets me get very small details and with a bit of maneuvering up to about 75mm medals.</p><p><br /></p><p>My cell phone would NOT get a good picture of anything much smaller than a dime (and that dime size was iffy and usually involved me outside).&nbsp; (My phone being an iPhone 6s).&nbsp; If I wasn&#039;t outside I used various lights and even a small lightbox and rested my phone on an upturned cup to steady it (it&#039;s not plugged in, but there is a light in there, about $40 from eBay)</p><p><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/Darksidegold/public%20photos/stuff%20to%20share/IMG_6047_zpscummztda.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This is what I&#039;ve graduated to:</p><p><br /></p><p>Purchase picture (that is my set up in the actual photo...and I am EXTREMELY happy with Ray who did this...highly recommended!!)</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/Darksidegold/public%20photos/stuff%20to%20share/Screen%20Shot%202016-09-28%20at%2016.47.50_zpswlwuqlfk.png" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>vs. the Real Life set up (I have the stage removed as I was shooting a medal):</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/Darksidegold/public%20photos/stuff%20to%20share/IMG_6044_zpsqbs2frcw.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/Darksidegold/public%20photos/stuff%20to%20share/IMG_6042_zpsognq8nh8.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/Darksidegold/public%20photos/stuff%20to%20share/IMG_6041_zpsvssswyfu.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>and the lights ($9.99 from Ikea in black, even with shipping was cheaper than Amazon with free shipping).</p><p><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/Darksidegold/public%20photos/stuff%20to%20share/IMG_6045_zpsra92vcqa.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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