Howdy yall. I need to know what's better, my photos or a a scan. I know photos are better than scans, but the only camera I have available ATM sucks. I also have access to a scanner so I was wondering if it's quality would be better. Here is a few of the pics, that I can take with my current camera, which i had to shrink 75% to make them smaller. Would a scanner do a better job?
The first and last were taken outside in natural light, the Ike was taken indoors with a single close light source and normal ambient lighting(overhead, window etc.)
IMO the Ike looks best and sharpest. Does your camera have a Macro button/function for closeups? Its symbol looks like a Tulip most times.
yup, those were taken on macro setting, but I still had to be about a foot away to get them to focus. It's a cheap camera lol
Like most things in life, there are tradeoffs between scans and photos... Scans are easy. They show a coin's surfaces very well. Photos are harder. They show a coin's surfaces AND luster very well.
p.s. that shot of the Ike is very good. Try adding another light and moving the lights to 2 and 10 o'clock on the coin and they will be even better!
Billy - Have you given any thought to using a copy stand for your photos? It may help and make photographing easier, since you say your camera is of the "inexpensive" type. Lots of them on ebay for about $60... I got mine on Amazon... With the stand, the height of your camera can be adjusted so as to increase its distance from the specimen being photographed...
Yup, thinking of buying one of those to get the best out of what I have before I get a better camera, $60 is alot easier to come up with than $500, although I could spend that $60 on coins lol.
After I got mine, it made photographing coins so much more easier. Before, mine looked like crap, and I could never get settings right nor consistent, because every shot was invariably positioned differently towards a coin.
In most cases I, personally, prefer to scan. It's quicker and there's no setting everything up (camera, camera stand, lights). The fact that I'm also a lousy photographer also has some bearing. I'll scan coins at 200ppi but if I require finer detail then it's 1200ppi and then crop for the area wanted to reduce the file size. Okay you miss out on lustre etc. but then I'm not trying to impress anyone for a sale. At the end of the day it's a personal thing like coin storage (album, holder, flip, bag, biscuit tin). Vic
I have a very dark black piece of cardboard that I place the coins on. I then adjust/move the cardboard while it sits on the copy-stand's stage, rather than the coin, while looking through the camera's viewfinder. And when I'm satisfied with the positioning of the coin, I set the camera's timer for a 2 second delay/countdown, and click the shutter-button. The 2 second delay allows for any vibrations caused by me pressing the camera's shutter-button to settle.
Tarnations! those are for biscuits! but seriously, I'm gonna try scanning and see if it's acceptable. But since I am gonna be selling (eventually), I may just go for the photos if the scan quality isn't good enough. I'll be scanning hires then resizing though.
Wow, that sounds tedious! My camera stand just sits on my worktable. It's small enough where it can stay there alongside my stereo microscope, scale, etc. All it takes is 5 seconds to screw the camera into the stand (if it isn't already), and it's ready to go. The stand never needs adjusting, as I've got it positioned in a manner where all coins can be optimally photographed. I just use the camera's macro setting, focus, timer, and voila! 20 seconds and I've got Obverse and Reverse shots done. It takes longer to sneaker-net the camera card from the camera over to the laptop's built-in SIM reader.
I have two, a Sony Cybershot DSC-HX1 and a Fuji A820. The Sony is a superb SLR. However, I use the Fuji A820. It's resolution suffices for this purpose. The Sony is too big and more tedious to use. Though it's a cheaper model and not an SLR, the Fuji is quicker to set-up, has a smaller footprint, and the camera-chip is faster to extract. It's also faster to batch-through a bunch of shots when there are multiple coins to photograph.
