How! How Do People Photograph These

If you surf around in the Coin Photography forum, you'll find tons of good information on this topic. There are some members here that take extraordinary photographs and share their knowledge freely.

They also do a much better job of explaining how it's done than I can...

My camera setup is a Canon 30D with a Tamron 90mm macro lens. Macro lenses are specifically made for the purpose of macro (close-up) photography. These photos were taken with this very setup...

bullion-investor13...

You'll generally get the best quality shots using a DSLR. There are folks that can take excellent pics with P&S cameras, but it will take you less work getting everything set up just right if you go the DSLR route. If you want to stick with your P&S, there are folks on this group that can help you get the most from it. If you want to upgrade to DSLR, with macro lens or bellows system, there are folks on this group that can help with that as well.

All we know right now is you've tried to use your camera but have not had much success, and are wondering how others do it. I can tell you that I use a Canon DSLR (both T2i and XS) along with a bellows setup with enlarging/duplicating lens. It is a VERY manual setup, and requires some patience to learn how to use, but the results can be excellent.

Note that lighting is ultimately the thing that limits you with any setup. Getting the lighting right is 90% of the work. This is also the problem with many P&S setups, ie they don't allow you to easily get optimum lighting to the coin due to the very short working distances or other issues. A DSLR allows you to select a lens that will give you enough working distance to get lights where you want them. This is the main reason they can give such good results.

I have a photographic light tent with lights and I use bounce cards sometimes. I have a Canon G12 and I use my camera on manual settings with the iso at 100. I don't use macro. I tweak slightly in photoshop.

canon selphy 600 (4 mega pixels, about 6 years old) on a home made tripod, default settings, natural daylight, filtered to 90% detail using the CCF photo optimizer (these are only 85-90 kb each).

while not "professional" quality it gets the job done VERY nicely without hours of effort, no dedicated space, and almost zero bugget and no learning curve.

if you don't take pictures for a living then decent light and a stable tripod is all you need.

I have a basic Olympus (VG 120) point and shoot. Actually I bought it for my wife. It has a close-up (macro) function, which I use. I shoot in bright daylight, on a neutral background and steady the camera by resting it on a box! I find I need good light or the image is blurred (pixelated) when viewed full size. And of course, a steady hand. I have a tripod in the garage, but I'm too lazy to go get it!

This coin is about the size of a quarter and I think it comes out OK. Obviously the original image is a lot larger, so it may appear slightly different when resized to fit the 100KB limit. For my purposes (as a record of my collection) it's more than adequate. I get the black background by colouring it in afterwards with MS Paint.

what model of easyshare?

how far away are you from the coin? at first I was always trying to get to close, even in macro mode pics came out blurred. I find optimum is about 4" away (on macro).

a tripod also improved my final results 10x or more. even when resting the camera agaisn't something there will be movement when you click the shutter button.

Nikon D3200 Tokina Macro Lens.