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Message:: [QUOTE="SuperDave, post: 2287037, member: 1892"]Here's the basics: 1) Coin and camera lens plane perfectly parallel and solidly stable. Macro photography involves very shallow depth of field, and if the coin is tilted with reference to the camera you will likely not get the whole surface in focus. Further, angled images subtly distort spatial relationships, and can deceive the viewer on date and feature positioning when you're trying to attribute. This is most easily accomplished with the coin on a flat surface and the camera pointed straight down at it, employing a tripod. In a pinch you can use the corner of a table - it will fit between two legs of the tripod and give you enough overlap to safely place the coin. Here's how you determine alignment: Place a small mirror on the flat surface where the coin will sit. Using the camera's  viewfinder, arrange the camera so you can see the lens reflected/viewed exactly in the center of the viewfinder. When the lens reflects exactly in the center, you are perfectly parallel to the shooting surface. 2) Delayed shutter. Do not trigger the shot with your finger on the button; you can introduce vibrations which will mess up the pic. Use a couple seconds' delay so the camera sits still when the shutter triggers. 3) Lose ambient lighting and nearby reflective surfaces. Extraneous lighting hurts contrast, as does light reflected into the lens which does not come from the coin. You don't have to be completely paranoid, but for instance the silver surface (if it's that color) of a computer next to your imaging rig can reflect enough light into the lens to hurt the shot. So can your monitor. 4) All lighting should be the same color temperature. "Color Temperature" is the "shade" of light - you'll see it described as "Warm White," "Cool White," "Daylight" etc. - and it's measured using the same Kelvin scale as used in astronomy to describe the color of stars. You will hear much advice on what color temperature of lighting to use, and I'm telling you that doesn't matter. Virtually every camera of the last ten years can correct for color temperature, and your Nikon has the ability to do Custom White Balance, meaning you can effectively tell the camera what you want it to call "white" and work from there. But using differing bulbs makes this task much harder on the camera and may in fact keep it from getting your color right. 5) Ideal lighting (in the majority of cases) is two lights at roughly 10:00 and 2:00 to the coin. I am a fan of the Jansjo gooseneck LED lamps available for ~$10 at Ikea; they're a tad weak, but infinitely flexible and very small, which is an advantage I'll explain in a moment. Your Nikon is capable of focusing (in Macro Mode) upon an object 1cm from the lens. Generally speaking, point and shoots are best with coins at the wide end of their zoom. However, zoom lenses are optical compromises which inhibit Macro capability and it's possible that your lens will be happier pushed a little further from the coin and zoomed in slightly. You will need to experiment with this. At its' widest zoom, you will likely have to be within 6" of the coin - maybe 4" - to get a good large image, and this will make lighting more problematic, a factor to consider. If your camera can do nice images while using some zoom, you're better off with the greater distance from the coin. Ideally you want to be at least 8" from the coin to most effectively utilize lighting tricks. That's because another generality is that lighting will be best when closest to the lens, pointing as close to straight down at the lens as possible. This is where those tiny Jansjos come in handy; they create very little heat and can come as close to vertical above the coin as any light source. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule of light placement; lighting is about the only "subjective" part of this whole skillset, everything else in photography being simple math (this amount of Exposure plus this Aperture setting at this ISO makes the coin come out right, hard numbers). Those are terms/techniques you should learn about photography as time goes by, but your L100 does not offer manual control of much of that, so it's learning you can delay while you concentrate on the other stuff I'm talking about here. OK, that's a start. If you would like to work together on it, start a dedicated thread and we'll work with your Nikon step-by-step to dial it in and maximize its' capabilities. I have experience working with folks on this exact camera, and although it's not exactly a dSLR with a dedicated Macro lens, I know it to be capable of producing images good enough to grade from. 19Lyds, my photographic concentration is on Canon equipment. I'll bet I can help you get the T3 straightened out; you're already an excellent photographer and only need product-specific technique, and I've been shooting tethered with Canons for almost ten years.[/QUOTE]

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