It's A Start (And Leaves Infinite Room For Improvement)

I'm so sorry, man - I downloaded one of your images almost immediately, and once I discovered what you're shooting with, was all set to post some serious compliments here. Apparently I forgot to.

Others have asked about the Canon SX130, and I believe you've just proven here that it's as good as any point-and-shoot for imaging coins. Yes, there's room for improvement, but the basic images are right up there.

You want a faster exposure. It's my opinion with a P&S that faster exposure = sharper contrast. That means two lights as opposed to one, somewhere around the typical "10 and 2" that we discuss here. Keep the ISO at 80 or 100 - a P&S will introduce noise far earlier than a dSLR. Open the aperture (lower numerically) as far as you can in the interest of faster exposures - it was my experience with both the Canon A720 and Panasonic LX5 that aperture could be just about wide-open and still have enough depth of field to get the whole coin. Like most lenses, though, you're going to want it one step back from wide-open for better sharpness.

Shoot for exposures faster than 1/200.

I don't know if these are full-size images, or if you've downsized. If you're downsizing, back the camera off a bit so the coin is a little smaller on the sensor. The SX130 can be a tad soft at the corners, and you may be running a little afoul of that with focus.

Of course, the usual: Delayed exposure, and careful lens-coin-parallel placement, right?

You're going to quickly reach the point here where postprocessing skills will come in to play.

For the moment, "No" to all the above except lighting. Now that I see where you are in the frame, down the road in the process we're probably going to be moving you even closer to the coin, not farther away. How far away from the coin is the camera?

But more candlepower first and foremost. Are you in a place where you can reach an Ikea for the Jansjo LED's we're so high on here? One of their real advantages is the infinite configurability because of the gooseneck and their small size. Two of them do not add up to a 100w incandescent, but they spread the available light around much more accurately, and are far more tightly-focused.

Precisely, and to your advantage. The bigger the coin is when you start, the sharper it'll be when you post. No, we're not going to achieve the same 100% crops with an SX130 that can be done with a dSLR and a pro lens, but we will darn well get you posting images that people will happily grade.

http://www.amazon.com/Ikea-Black-Ja...03763&sr=8-1

$9.99 at Ikea, but if you buy two the shipping's free from Amazon. If this will help, it cost me $35 just to go buy them in person.

Keep in mind, it's their versatility in placement which is the improvement, and it'll require a learning curve. our exposures might increase as a result.

Ray,

You're right about the sensor size. I got the 1000 X 1000 size by cropping my original. No downsizing or resizing occurred. I'm sure your advice will come into play in my next session after I get my lighting upgraded, though. :)

Jansjo's came in. I didn't have much time to dig in but I did take a few shots. I'm not too impressed but I'm also pretty worn out from today. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Here's the last set of shots I took before calling it a night: http://imgur.com/a/qDlqI