Best Digital Camera For The Buck For Coins

I settled on the Canon for much more than just the superior macro. My wife and I are NASCAR fans; we attend the Dover race every year, and we need a good long-zoom camera for race photography. The Canon has a 12x optical zoom and image stabilization, which helps settle the shot at telephoto range.

Now, we're not rich, so I had to have something which was equally-capable at both ends of the focus range. The Canon is as good at telephoto as anything remotely near its' price, and its' been common knowledge that they're great macro cameras. The S2 IS is the first digicam I've ever seen that advertises a 0" macro focal length.

My preliminary results seem to indicate that it's a pretty decent macro camera.

Dan, another consideration for posting pics on the Internet is post-processing. Your images are going to come out huge by Internet standards - the pics you're seeing me post are in excess of 2000 pixels wide at full size (imagine how much space the whole coin from the detail above would take on your monitor screen), and they're over 1MB in disk size. You'll want to be able to resize your pictures down to 500px or so (that's my size goal for posting here), and maybe save them in lesser detail to make the file size smaller. I own Adobe Photoshop, but that's a sizable financial investment for someone who just wants to post quick pics. If I were you, I'd ask around for cheaper and simpler postprocessing solutions - all you really need is size adjustment and the ability to correct white balance (the tendacy of artificial lighting to cast a certain tone on a picture, for instance incandescent lights make pics yellow). Most cameras have white balance adjustment build in, but for me I just come close with the camera and do the rest in Photoshop.

I honestly wouldn't know what to recommend for a less-expensive processing software. My Canon came with a comprehensive software package including a very promising utility called Zoom Browser which appears to meet your needs, plus it'll let you hook the camera up to the computer and operate it from the keyboard, saving the images directly to the harddrive. This will remove any possibility of messing up the focus because you're shaking more than the image stabilizer can handle. I'm going to have to play with this.

Margaret, I haven't loaded any software from Canon yet. I have a card reader, and I'm just pulling the card from the camera after each batch of shots. As I just mentioned, the software looks pretty promising. Right now I have two customer computers in-house (I'm a freelance PC tech on the side), so my time is divided. I'll get back to you about the software once I've found time to play with it. I can't address user-friendliness very easily, because I don't know your level of expertise, but if you're comfortable with the standard adjustments of a digicam, the Canon will present no problems. I will say that there are more single-function buttons than my Minolta has, which I like better.

Here's my SuperSekrit Photography Studio:



On the left is a little table lamp with a 50w GE Reveal R20 flood. Hanging is a clamp light with a 120w GE Reveal R40 flood. That's my hint for lighting type. The clamp light, as you may notice, is wired with a dimmer which really hasn't helped as much as I thought it would because at lower levels the color temperature of the Reveal changes. I'm going to try a 3-way bulb in it to see how that works.

I freely admit that bobby131313 is my daddy when it comes to coin photography. That's partly skill, and partly his superior lighting technology. I'm working on both aspects.

Thank you gentlemen! You have all been a big help and now I have some catching up to do, and pictures to take (hopefully).

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Originally posted by ndgoflo

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Originally posted by Morgan Fred

What cameras have people found do NOT work for coins? My example for one which doesn't work on coins: Kodak DX3500 2.2 mpx.

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I don't know what the difference between a 3500 and a 3600, but here is a shot taken with my Kodak DX3600 2.2 megapixel. Keep in mind that it is also taken through a slab.

I think it takes rather goods pics, but I am in the market for an upgrade.

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ndgoflo, I don't know the difference either between the DX3500 and DX3600. It's obvious the 3600 is a superior camera. My 3500 on the "macro" setting and high resolution will not focus any closer than about 12" which makes a coin look more like a small blob in the middle of a frame. I have to process the image and by the time I get it cropped and adjusted to usable size for, say, ebay or for this forum, it has pixelated and has lost any quality, p;articularly of luster. I have tried a hundred different ways to make a decent photo image from this DX3500 and have concluded that it can't be done with this camera. I hope to sell some coins this fall and have decided I need a new camera. Right now, the Canon S2 IS seems to be the front runner in my mind, but I have some time to be influenced. Another factor I have to look at is that I will be taking more than just coin pictures; I still take wildlife and natural history photos despite my retirement from that profession. I only wish I could convert my Nikon F/FTn to digital.

Fred

For those who, like me are doing some serious digital camera shopping, here's the Canon Powershot S2 IS for $344:
http://www.beachcamera.com/shop/pro...x?sku=CNPSS2 .

I've only just begun a search, so the price may be even lower in other online shops. I also have not yet checked out other brands suggested on this thread.

Found out today the 3S IS is coming out next month
Should we wait?

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Originally posted by rggoodie

Found out today the 3S IS is coming out next month
Should we wait?

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The improvements included with the S3 IS aren't really relevant to coin photography, indeed for all but a few enthusiasts it doesn't seem like a great improvement. The only major change is the jump to 6MP.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0602/0...anons3is.asp

I just checked Circuit City, their price was $339.99

Margaret

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Originally posted by rggoodie

I have checke out 5 shops and not one person could get the super micro setting to work.
as I am not a professional photographer- how hard is this camera to operate?

If the dealers can not demonstrate it, I am afraid to purchase one for myself.

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That does not speak well for your local dealers.

The Macro button is on the left of the lens barrel (as you hold the camera), the bottommost of two buttons. Push it once, and it gives you normal Macro. Push and hold it down for a second or two, and it gives you Super Macro.