Opinions On Photo's Please

Hi, the most important factor in numismatic photography is lighting. I use 2 halogen wide angle flood lights. They get pretty hot but are only like $2.50 each. The brighter the light, the more can get to the camera's sensor so the clearer and less noisy your picture will be. You want the lights at about camera level with them as close to the camera as you can get. The higher the angle of the light the better. If some of the parts of the coin turn out pure white, move the lights farther away from the camera but keep them at the same level. And definitely don't use the flash!

LED lights are the worst - even really bright ones - the light is just too white and turns up as red blue and green pixels in the picture. Bright, concentrated natural light bulbs are what you want.

It looks like you have the right kind of camera, a big and bulky point and shoot with a high zoom (like 15x or more) works best (or a dslr of course is better) These pictures were taken with a 7 year old 8 megapixel Canon. The camera should be about a 15 inches away form the coin so the lights can be at high angles with no shadows. Also a white background works better too for the cameras white balance. These are on a white sheet of paper but since the camera is getting all the light from the coin, the paper is looks darker. Hope this helps some!

Well, I use LEDs exclusively so definitely have issues with folks advising against them. But I do have a problem with low angles, and to eliminate the red/blue sparklies you do need to diffuse the LEDs so they are not such a small source. Once you diffuse them a bit, they act just like halogens, only much cooler.

Nice shots Picc

Numisma, these are a pair of WWI medals and the first one it made of silver but it has rich steel blue toning.
It looks like I've been doing it all wrong. First I'm using a florescent light and I used the flash with a black background.
This camera has a 60x zoom and when in macro you can use automatic focus up to about four inches from the subject. Moving in any closer you have to manually focus but it will focus to about 1/4 inch away from the subject when on manual.
Of course these pictures were taken in auto.
Here's the info on the first picture
2383 X 3070 6.2MB
ISO 200
11.6 mm away
f/5.3 aperture?
1/30 shutter speed
white balance and flash on Auto

Do these numbers make any sense or should something be adjusted?

I appreciate all the comments now I've tried it with not using the flash and this is what I've ended up with.

First photo's without the flash and the second photo with the flash...and it looks better and is very close to the actual color.
I've only cropped these pictures and have made no other adjustment.
Do I have some setting wrong, why no color?

Here's the same photo from above after some adjustment in iPhoto and the color is very close to that of the medal in hand.