Best I Can Get On A $400 Budget? Help

Been playing again

Has anyone had success shooting full coin shots of large coins, like dollars and half dollars? Also is the setup capable of full slab shots or is it mainly just for smaller sized objects?

Thanks for any help in advance,
Jesse

Any lens with a focal length of 100mm or less should easily shoot a Dollar-sized coin; it's only a question of whether the lens is capable of focusing at a short-enough distance to successfully focus. Not all cameras are lucky enough to be equipped with such lenses.

This is why we build bespoke rigs like the one in this thread - they offer everything from the ability to shoot a whole Morgan, to the ability to shoot at magnifications equal to USB microscopes, at a quality level the USB equipment can't hope to match.

I don't like it for this application. Too much unnecessary angular adjustment ability which (IMO) would lead to an insufficiently-solid mount for the camera, not to mention a bunch of effort trying to get the whole thing square. Much better to have simple vertical adjustment and a non-ball head for the camera.

In addition, it looks to be barely tall enough. A 100mm lens will require a camera mount roughly 18" above the taking surface, and this one manages 15"

Also, weight capacity at 600g is very, very borderline - a small dSLR weighs that much without a lens.

While I'm complaining about this one, consider it's not compatible with a bellows setup.

Your highest priority is a solid mounting which will allow for vertical adjustability and is easy to make square with the taking surface, and that's easiest to accomplish if the whole rig is square to begin with. The camera, bellows and lens will be all one unit - the bellows should have its' own rail - and all that together will mount to the stand. A tripod really can't do this easily.

On page 7 of this thread, I posted a picture of a slide rail I installed to my copy stand...it works great and around $20. It can be mounted to a homemade stand.

I also have the same little tripod that you were asking about...Dave is right, not a great stand at all for this.