How Do You Photograph Proof Coins?

The best way to ensure the coin is parallel with the sensor is to place a small mirror where the coin goes. Stop down the lens to improve depth of field, and then focus on the camera lens as it appears in the mirror. Now you can adjust the camera so you are looking directly at the center of the camera lens, and the coin will be level.

Good morning Brandmeister!

Have you tried playing with a photo-editing program to tweak the various light levels? That can help a tremendous amount!

I took the liberty of playing with your last photo! Hope you don't mind.
The idea is: the proof field needs to be black so you "lower the blacks", on the contrary you want the face to be bright so you "raise the shadows" and/or "whites". Lastly, you will have some details of the coin that are overexposed (they reflected the light and "blinded" the sensor of the camera) so you try to correct them by "lowering the highlights".
In such black/white type of photos you can also lower saturation (how "colorful" a picture is) and/or play with "white balance" or "hue" to remove the yellow/whatever tint which derives from which light bulbs you used.



The coin seems to be inside a flip so that makes all more difficult and in this case also shows the dust more prominently.

By the way, since the proof will have a lot of black, it's probably best to choose a different color for the background of the photo?

Thanks, Jbuck. Joe, I will give your ideas a try on the next iteration of the box. The coin wasn't in a flip. It was a folder-filler that I bought for a buck. The flip that it came in wasn't exactly sterile, and I handled the coin with gloves (plus there's a lot of dust from sawing cardboard with a steak knife). I didn't want to put a nice coin in the prototype in case I knocked it over making adjustments.