Close Up Coin Pictures

Sorry all for not posting sooner. I just took the camera to do some sports photos so took the setup down. Will be putting it back up Monday so will take a pic of it. Basically I attach the camera to tripod but in this instance the tripod is closed and laying horizontal. I took several two by four pieces of lumber and cut them to make a stand so the camera with the tripod is laying flat across the top board. Imagine an upside down you with an I laying over the top. The upside down you are the legs and the I extends out on one side about 6 inches with the camera extending about another 6 inches aiming straight down. Take a flat piece of glass and place it at a 45 with the top of the 45 going away from the camera so the camera is at 11 o'clock, bottom of glass is at 8 o'clock and top of glass would be at 2 o'clock. The camera takes the pic through the glass with the coin laying flat below. You need a strong light source which is placed directly in front of the camera so another analogy would be light at 3, coin at center of dial and stand at 9 with camera above the center. The light reflects off the glass and shines down on the coin. You have to put a small object like a box or something the size of a pack of cigarettes in front of coin between light and coin to stop any shadows. No flash from camera is used.

Talk about a picture is worth a thousand words being correct. I will post a pic of the setup Monday. Just thought I would try to explain in case anyone wanted to try it this weekend. I rested the glass on two external hard drives placed on either side and you can shoot the coin laying on any color surface. I have tried black and white.

Here is a small date 1960 without the object in front of the coin which caused a shadow across the top of it from the rim of the coin itself.

And just for fun and experimenting with light, I took the same setup but then took another light source hand held and aimed it at this Kennedy half from different angles directly at it with the coin under the glass and the light source on from the front of the glass set up so two lights and got this pic. Wanted some reflection off the coin but not the type a flash would make. I thought this looked very cool.

Here's a 1 reale 1735 Potosi cob. It is hard to get the detail.

nice larry I can see a difference already in your pictures keep it up, and another nice coin.

That's a nice setup. Thanks. I have to figure out a simple way to be able to steady my cheap digital camera or my arms when I take the close up pics.

Thats a nice setup thanks for posting it. Good idea. I take it you are a photographer?

A photographer! You got to be kidding.

I just try to take pictures of things and look at what everyone else is doing and copy them. I cannot take credit for that glass setup. Found it on the web and gave it a try. Used the milk carton also a lot of times and now have the white box setup but I find it a pain to use the wax to stand the coin up if shooting a lot of pictures of coins. If only shooting one or two, I would use the white box all the time. I have used the white box for some jewelry pics that turned out great.

Really bought the camera to take pics of my daughter swimming. It has evolved from there. Good luck with whatever way you try and hope you find the one that works best for you.

I still like the paper flips and a shoebox.