Image Glare

Three things:

1. Don't use the camera's built-in flash; it's not really designed for close-up work on shiny metal objects; it's too bright. Use a separate light source (and there's plenty of threads in this subforum about proper lighting).

2. I agree with John1, it does look out-of-focus. If that's as good as your camera can get, it may not be the best kind of camera for taking closeups of coins.

3. The second picture looks like it was done with a scanner, rather than a camera. Scanners are (or can be) very good at capturing detail and imperfections, but are typically very poor at capturing lustre and colour. I've got a good scanner that works well for coins (not all scanners do), so when I want a nice clear pic of a coin that doesn't have too much lustre left, the scanner is my weapon of choice.

Mine's an old HP Scanjet 3770 scanner. Most of my scan jobs are for printing in my photocopied coin club magazine or posting here on the forum, neither of which usually need more than 300 dpi. I use the default colour mode.

Once scanned, for Magazine pics I usually then tweak up the contrast and brightness so the photocopier pics out the details properly. For forum pics I usually post them undoctored, unless it's a dark copper or zinc coin, in which case I'll also boost contrast and brightness so we can see the details.