Are Cheap ($20 Or Less) USB Microscopes Any Good For Photographing Coins?

@rpmpsrpms on stand half way up those where taking at 3mp not the 5mp setting I find the 3 mp setting on pennies are better 5mp for dime and quarters.@John1 yeah was quick ones I took last night just wanted to show basics off how well it did at a basic fast lvl.

John1.... does it also take photos of certain parts of the coin? Or do I need to buy two cameras, one for whole coin and one for certain areas of the coin?

My Celestron 44302 can take full coin pic of a silver dollar coin,I have to put the scope on top of a stack of books to do it though. Generally I use a digital camera for full coin shots and a usb scope for close ups.
John1

If it was me, I would buy them and not print my own.
John1

What makes the cheap scope so bad, is the use of plastic lens on the magnifier. If you can find one with a glass lens, you will get a lot better images. The plastic ones give of a tint of blue on the images. Also noticed is a cloudy look that is not clear. Thus the glass lens are worth the extra money. IMOHO

Edited the above image to show he just need some software. Seems I can use part of his name.

My Celestron is the 44300 a really old model, only trouble is it has a quite hard to turn (very stiff) focus barrel. They fixed that issue in all of them since Mine is a 2003-2005 era if I recall. I was a reseller and my buddy that worked for me is now their VP of US Sales at Celestron. They do make great products, I have a big telescope from them as well. I find getting the model from the year previous can save you a lot like 70% off or more. I've always heard good things about the AmScopes as well.

To get that edited look if you use Photoshop at least, try to get the basics down and then you can save the settings as a droplet or action and apply it to all the same types of photos at once for color temp/tint and contrast corrections. I have separate settings for copper, silver and gold. Super easy to apply to a bunch of images and go grab a coffee while it works it's magic in the background, plus the color is consistent that way from image to image.

Richard and Ray both hit the key points to getting the best edits you can. I, like Ray, also start with lowered contrast and exposure to start with in my photos USB and DSLR.