Pictures Vs Scans

Thank you Bobby for the information related to equipment you use in your image making. I understand all of what you say except I can't figure out the purpose of the back lighting. What difference does this make, and how do you obtain the best effect? Source of light directly behind coin, to one side or defused and spread out? I'm not sure I'm even asking the right questions, so kindly fill it is so it makes sense.
Thank you.

Although you can get decent results from a scanner with a little tweaking:



...there's no way you can make a scanner do this:



or this:

Thanks Bobby for the info,

I've never managed to take good pics with a camera and all the scans I tried have yielded bad results.
When I need to take a pic of my coins, I take them to a friend of mine, he has a DSLR camera with 8 MP and we try to get nice pics.

He usually works with view images so we both use trial-error model:)

On gold coins the only problem I have with my photoscanner is that it does not like coins without contrast like eg it cannot scan a 2005 uncirculated "normal" gold sovereign
Same mouldfinish allover
On the other hand it really sees as good as a 12 X loupe all inperfections
I got this Korean coin I bought on a photograde on a photo to find out the photo had hidden the microscratch

I found that putting my loupe over the lense of my 3Mp camera helps me get in close on certain details that I was unable to get to show up any other way 9scanner/camera by itself) I always turn the flash off like what was mentioned before and I just use a 60 watt desk lamp for illumination and I find it does pretty good for what I am trying to do. Hope this will help some of the people trying to get into thos minute details that a scanner or digital camera just wont get like you want

I had used the loupe trick occasionally with my old 2 mega pixel camera. You can get pretty tight if you have a steady hand.




Since then I have a QX3 microscope but I don'tuse it much.

Mostly, it is as Bobby said. I can get what I need to see from my camera alone. Just took this a second ago...

Definitely use a digital camera, (advantages of a digital? you can take many pictures and it doesn't cost you squat). I use the methods mentioned here on the cheap. Since I am not a dealer, and sell rarely. When I do sell I include a pic. I use a 3-4 year old Sony DFC-F55 Cybershot "2.1" mega pixels and it still does a great job. I use the tripod, macro, and the real final trick is to use the "timer" on the camera. Try using the shutter in macro mode and the camera WILL move--trust me. I finally found a real good, cheap light to use which does give pretty accurate colors. I use the blue bulbs from either GE which are called reveals, and I have seen the philips blue bulbs..I use the 60 watter. I'll try and take a pic or 2 and post them--O yea, I also found that doing it at night--whereas the daylight/sun doesn't add its light make great wonderful pics--

Cameras are undoubtedly better. However, I have neither the space, money, time nor patience to get a camera, try to master it or set it up. I'm lazy and a scanner is so much easier. Stick it on, slide the brightness/contrast buttons to something appropriate, scan, crop, save, finshed.

But hey I'm not interested in fantastic pictures of my coins as long as the picture is reasonably seeable and can be used to illustrate a point to back up a posting or something then it's alright in my book.