Need Basic Setup Advice, Please.

Hi phdezra,

I am in the same boat as you, however, I do have a suggestion as to the arm. I am going to try a weighted microscope with cantilever arm It adjusts up down and swings left and right. I collect cameras and microscopes and choose to use the little kodak DX4530 for my learning experience in photographing coins. If I need high quality I may go to a film camera with micro lens.

I also need to know what the basic setup is that produces the best results. Lighting, angles etc.

As for the swing arm microscope base, I see them on ebay listed as just that, microscope base. Bausch Lomb stereo zoom bases are very good as long as it comes with a rack and pinion vertical adjustment. For camera use, you will have to ad an adapter for the mounting.

I will be monitoring your replies to see what has been offered. Good luck, goldon

TableTop Studio

I emailed the owner of the site and asked him




He replied

Here is a simple setup I made from items I used in the past. The metal blocks are machinist's 1-2-3 setup blocks. They are bolted together. I bought an inexpensive tripod at Walmart and took the head off and tossed the rest. I believe it took a metric bolt to adapt the tripod head to the block. The flash lights I purchased from WW Grainger. They have a magnetic base and stick really well to the blocks. The orange pad is for pennies. It cost me $50,000.00 so far(one of my kids old T shirts). Just staple to a piece of cardboard. Different colors for different type coins. Height is adjusted by shimming the coin up to fill the view. I use digital macro and the camera is a Canon SD790 1S.






See if any of these ideas may spark up the light bulb. Hope this helps you out. nlp

Superdave--great setup.... which dSLR? Canon or Nikon? Both of those have excellent macro lenses that would definitely beat most scrappy point-n-shoots.

The camera in that picture is a Canon Rebel XT (8MP), with a Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro. I also have a "crappy point-and-shoot," a Canon A720IS. Here's an example of what it can do:



The original image is 1000px in size; the Forum Gallery software downsizes to 800px automatically. Mind you, I had to have the A720 about 100mm from the coin to achieve that size; this would not be appropriate for very lustrous coinage due to the need to keep the lighting closer to vertical over the coin.

Late last year I suffered a divorce-related financial Armageddon, and during that period my beloved Canon rig had to go. However, that corner has been turned, and I've another dSLR rig in the works which will be significantly more capable than the XT was. Watch this space.

Sorry about that, phdezra. I get combative when anyone even remotely casts aspersions on a Canon product.

Me? Canon fanboi? Never!

I must admit, though, Kurt does pretty well with his Nikon kit, and Learjet achieves superb results with a flashlight and a pinhole cam.

Not sure which body he uses, but this isKurt's macro lens

I myself am an Olympus fan. Strictly for point and shoot. For me, they have been bulletproof, and are pretty good on full auto. I have not checked out their DSLR's yet, but I will be in the market eventually. Nikon and Canon have the optics for sure, and this is where the money is in cameras really. Below is a full auto shot with nothing but a tripod with my Olympus point and shoot. If you click on it, it gets nice and big. Eventually I will work on lighting and such and dial in everything. Just waitng on Dave's tutorial to be complete to see if I can copy the setting over.

It is just as important to make allowances for the unyielding accuracy of a high-resolution shot as it is for a poor photo or a scan. As you say, grading involves the trained eye and use of no more than a 5x loupe, and many of us post pics which greatly exceed that resolution. Case in point:



Would you grade that coin MS65? NGC did. To be completely honest, I reduce the picture size of slabbed coins I sell on ebay, for that specific reason.

Just for the record, I lit that shot with a circular fluorescent lamp completely surrounding the lens. That's why the luster and shadows are funny.