Info on taking pics of coins

I would think there would be a lot less glare if it was not in a holder,and that would show the coin much better.IMHO.
John1

If you are shooting pics with a DSLR or SLR camera you could put on a polarizing filter to get rid of most of the glare. I agree with the others that taking them out is still the best method though.

Most of the time the reflections off a slab or holder are at a high angle, and thus the light does not polarize off the reflecting surface. In these cases polarizing filters won't help.

My input on inventorying is just take the picture of the entire holder, making sure it has the denomination, date, mm, grade, any varieties, etc noted. If you can't see much of the coin details, it won't really matter much, as long as you can see enough to basically support what's written on the holder. An insurance adjuster is not going to look at the coin and decide what grade it is, so if you don't have that info showing in the photo you will be hosed. If you absolutely MUST have the best photo you can of each coin, then write the info on a slip of paper for each coin, set the coin on the paper, and snap the photo. Any coins of particularly high value may need more documentation, and preferably be TPG certified, in which case you need just to take an overall photo of the slab.

Ray

Okay, here is what I think anyway, is a much better picture. And how I was able to do it is going to probably scare a few people, but read below if you dare.

First the coin picture



Now for how I got the picture



Believe it or not, I kind of stumbled upon this by accident, LOL

What happened is I wanted to take a picture of the coin and send it to my sister for her to see. So I used my phone to take a quick shot and text it to her. Well it turned out pretty good and I thought it looked better than the shots I was taking with my point and shoot.

Well after some trial and error as holding the phone the same distance each shot so that the relative size of the coin in the frame stayed the same I got it all worked out.

What you see in the pictured is my HTC EVO Android Phone sitting on a stack of flips. Its attached to the PC via the USB cable to provide some stability to the phone so it wouldnt tilt over, and to also charge it as I was getting low on battery power.

Taped to the screen is the sticky end of a couple of post-it notes so that I could have a reference to keep the coin in the same spot on the screen when I placed it.

And for the final hick touch, I put a piece of printer paper over my desk lamp to diffuse the light.

Now, if done some back woods engineering in my day as I grew up raising cattle, growing some of our food and picking it and putting it up by hand and so on, but I left home and went straight into the realm of technology, namely computers, electronics and communications. So I do pretty good in combining the two sometimes, but this has got to take the cake.

Do I win any prizes for the most creative set up, LOL.

Thank you. That photo, by the way, is untouched other than a levels adjustment. And all I did in that was set the black point, which is why I used the black background, so I would have that reference. Now that I know I can do that, I may use a white background instead and save on having to print that out at least.

Thank you sir. Guess I 'stumbled' upon something that seems to work pretty good then. I guess I'll have to stick with it.

Thank you. I printed out a copy of the image after using it in my inventory form and I could tell better then that it is a little dark. I went looking for some LED lamp stands yesterday, but they want and arm and a leg for those things. I even found a light that had a large magnifying glass surrounded by one of those circular florescent lights. Kinda like a macro lens flash. I almost got that one but wasnt sure if I could use it for taking pictures.

At any rate, thanks for your input. I will work on the lighting and see if I can get it a bit brighter.

I saw someone else was using those and would love to get my hands on a couple of them. But unfortunately I live in podunk Oklahoma and have no Ikea. We do have a Staples and I checked there but they are pricey to say the least.