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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Beefer518, post: 2883512, member: 87737&quot;]This is where a high megapixel camera, and a quality lens comes into play. It&#039;s also about the only time it does - enlarging.</p><p><br /></p><p>****This was done quickly, and I missed focus by a hair, not to mention it was shot through a slab****</p><p><br /></p><p>Attached are two images taken with my lowly 15-Megapixel Canon 50D with a Canon 100mm Macro (non-L). Both photos were brought into Photoshop, and zoomed to 100% (actual pixel size), cropped, and saved full size. This is called a 100% crop; a crop that shows the image at pixel level. If you go larger then a 100% crop (150%, 200%, etc.) is when you start seeing the blocky pixels. Anything at 100% or lower will not get blocky.</p><p><br /></p><p>The first image is at full resolution (15MP), and the second is at the smallest resolution (3.7 MP). Essentially, there is a 5x difference in view between the first and second, so you can get (almost) 5x &#039;closer&#039; at full resolution. If you have a 30MP camera, you can get twice as close as I can (with the same lens).</p><p><br /></p><p>100% crop @ 15MP:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]691552[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>100% crop @ 3.7MP:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]691553[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>If you enlarged either of these from the sizes they are, your image quality will go downhill rapidly.</p><p><br /></p><p>In both, you can easily see the die polish lines, and just about anything else you wanted to see, but the greater the MP, the greater you can enlarge (zoom in) without loosing image quality. And if this coin wasn&#039;t slabbed, the image quality would be there. (Which brings up another point I&#039;ll get to later)</p><p><br /></p><p>Now to get macro photos of coins, it&#039;s pretty difficult to do without a tripod, and without proper lighting. Your depth of field (range of acceptable focus) at 1:1 macro levels (which this is really close to) is fractions of a millimeter, depending on your f-stop. Without enough light, you may end up shooting at f/2.8, which would most likely result (in this case) the cat&#039;s snout being in focus, but the fields not being in focus, or vice verse. These were shot at f/16, so there was enough dof to capture both. I also use the self timer to avoid any shake (you could also use a remote shutter trigger).</p><p><br /></p><p>So to address [USER=86795]@SilverWilliesCoinsdotcom[/USER] &#039;s question, I prefer the digital camera setup for at home, and a Lighthouse LED 10x loupe &#039;on the road&#039;. The advantage of the loupe is I can easily rotate the coin or the loupe so the light hits the coin from a different direction, and it&#039;s quick. I thought about a microscope, but decided in the end against it, because with a decent amount of megapixels, you can exceed the magnification of most scopes. Looking at the above images on my screen (15&quot; laptop), I&#039;d estimate the enlargement to be close to 200x from the actual coin. If I was looking through a scope at 200x, I&#039;d have to sit looking into the scope until I was done, which I believe would just be annoying to my eyes after a few minutes. I can also take multiple 1:1 images, and stitch them in Photoshop, and get the full coin in view, and zoom in and out as I wanted to, which I think is easier then moving a coin around under a scope. The downside to the camera setup (in general) is it&#039;s relatively time consuming. It takes about 3-5 minutes to do both sides of a coin (never actually timed it), and then I have to move the images onto the computer. Huge advantage is that once I&#039;ve done it, I never have to do it again, whereas with a scope, if you put that coin away, you have to do it all over again to see it under the scope.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think (and I really don&#039;t know, as I don&#039;t own a scope, but used them in school), you may not be able to use the scope on a slabbed coin. Scopes have very little &#039;working room&#039; between the subject and end of the objective that you may not be able to get close enough on a slabbed coin. I may be wrong on that, and I&#039;d like to hear if I am. If I&#039;m correct on that, that is a huge drawback to a scope.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also. with most consumer grade scopes with digital capabilities, the image quality (IMO) is mediocre at best. Yes, some of you scope owners have produced some spectacular images, but for the most part, they seem to be lacking.</p><p><br /></p><p>And just for S&amp;G&#039;s, can anyone tell me what coin I used above?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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