Beginner, Middle, Expert, & Commander Of Sun -Advice Request

As Dave mentioned, at that price point you won't be able to get a DSLR with detachable lenses unless it is well used / older. Even then, that's difficult. With that said, let me just briefly give my experiences with Point and shoot cameras and coin photography.

I own and have used successfully three different Canon point and shoot models. Namely, I used the SD1300IS for about a year, and then purchased the SD1400IS as an upgrade in megapixels. I also own the A3300IS Canon point and shoot. All three of these cameras are completely capable of taking nice coin photographs, and they can all be had for around the $150-$200 price point. I tried out one of the Panasonic Lumix cameras, and ended up returning it as I didn't like the quality. Canon quality is just hard to beat.

If you go the route of a point and shoot, the additional $$$ can be spent on a decent copy stand (I got mine for around $60 on ebay), and some decent lights (I use the LED Jansjos from IKEA).

My favorite of the three Canon point and shoots is the SD1400IS. It is very compact, has good sharpness and 14MP, and you can even zoom a little while in Macro Mode and still get it to focus. I has macro mode, custom white balance, a timer (for avoiding hand shake), and is intuitive to use. You can see example images I shot with this point and shoot here: http://sites.google.com/site/brg5658/. On an odd but important note, if you got with a Point and Shoot camera, try to stick with a black camera, as that will avoid reflection on proof coins or on plastic slabs for certified coins.

Disclaimer: In the past few months, with a lot of help from Dave and Ray, I have moved to a DSLR set-up with a bellows system and the APO-Rodagon-D 75/4 lens. The camera body was around $1000, the bellows around $100, and the lens around $300...I have heard really good things about the Canon T3i which is a less expensive Canon EOS Body with removable lenses, and if I didn't already have my Canon 50D body, I would have probably gone that route.

Thanks!

Yes, this will be a dedicated oblisk documentor (coin photos).

Any other suggestions?

Wow, I just looked on Amazon....I didn't realize the T2i had come down to around the $500 range. At that price point, it might be a useful 2nd camera body. Thanks for the little hint Dave.

Acloco, I'm continuing the off-topic derail for a moment, but more for you at the bottom of my post.

- Does it come with the Camera?
Yes

- Does the PC recognize the Camera when it is plugged in to USB?
Yes, XP and Win7 confirmed

- How big is the Live View screen on the PC monitor (pixels)?
Very nearly fullscreen

- When in Manual mode, does the tethering software give a live update on exposure level?
Visual only, and not so hot with the ARD as it doesn't pass aperture info; I artificially open the ISO by 2 or 3 increments to get a bright enough image to focus and stop it back down for the shot. A live histogram may be available, but I don't use one.

- Can you zoom in to 100% / 1:1 for fine focusing?
Yes, there's a zoom function to 1:1; that's where I focus, too.

- Is there a choice to auto-download the image to viewing/editing software?
Yes (to viewing software), but I save directly to HD using my own file management and postprocess later since I shoot a lot of iterations of each coin.

- Does the viewing/editing software come with camera?
Yes, although I don't know how rudimentary the editing capability is. It's the Gimp or nothing for me.

- Does the viewing/editing software handle RAW processing?
No; another enclosed piece of the software package does RAW processing. Comes w/camera.

- Did I forget to ask anything important?
With the bellows setup, I find white balance best set with the lens zoomed in pretty tight (helps fill the frame with the brightest area of light) and then zoomed back out for the shot.

You will *really* appreciate a second monitor for this process. I do all Live View and editing on a 24" Dell U2410, an IPS panel which has been color-calibrated by a friend. I'm not recommending that you go out and throw $500 into a monitor, but the newer Dell U2412 has fewer whistles and bells than mine, yet the same lovely IPS panel for $329. The equally-nice S-IPS HP ZR24w is $350 with free shipping at Newegg. Both are 1920x1200, and the extra vertical pixels are highly recommended.

Now that we've derailed this thread completely....

Acloco, A few general thoughts for you. If you stick to the "major" brands, which for this post I'll call Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, Panasonic and Samsung, and spend over $250, you won't go wrong. Anything in this category will require some concessions to the camera - closer shooting distances being the most important - but whatever you buy will have the ability to shoot nice coin images.

You'll also find them all to be shockingly good cameras when you take them outside. And I wish you'd take it outside. It would be silly to own a camera of this quality and use it exclusively for coin photography; you best believe my Canon doesn't spend its' whole life on the bellows.

If I had your budget, and I had to choose one_single_camera to do with, I think I'd choose the Panasonic FZ47. To me, for $306.25 at Amazon with free shipping, it's just stupid value for the money. 24x zoom, f/2.8 lens, full manual control, and it has filter threads for you to later consider adding a macro add-on lens down the road, like these:

http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DMC...79304&sr=1-9

http://www.amazon.com/Raynox-DCR250...79532&sr=1-3

If you first learn to maximize the camera itself with coins, and then add the macro lens, you will find yourself capable of equaling the quality of anything the more serious photographers post here. You won't reach 100% of the quality we do with full-size images, but nobody uses full-size images anyway. You can't fit them on the screen.

But you'll easily reach 90% of it, and only an expert would know the difference.