Is This Price Fair?

I have recently bought a Canon T1i and so far been really pleased with it. I have also bought a copy stand and Ott-Lites (2). I have had to experiment in order to get the photos I want and this has become a side hobby of mine. SuperDave has been very helpful and if you go down many, many threads he has taken the time to do a step by step guide to good coin photography. So, I would not want someone else taking photos of my coins unless I had some serious coins that justified the expense of having someone else professionally shoot them.

I've been racking my brain since you posted this thread - I'm almost sure this guy is a member here - but I can't remember who it is. I do remember that he's gone from "just average" to "a lot better than me" in a pretty short time.

And that hurts.

I'm referring to the gentleman whose work is being advertised at the ebay link in the original post. It's safe to assume he's using a dSLR with a dedicated macro lens. Although lesser cameras can be made to produce pictures of that quality, they suffer in that each different coin would require changes as basic as camera placement.

I've got about $1100 in my camera rig, and maybe a total of $50 in various lighting solutions. With that, I can leave the camera in place tethered to the computer and do as many as 30 coins an hour in high resolution (plus postprocessing and burning to disk). You could probably do something similar for $800 with a little judicious shopping.

I have traded up and gotten the T2i Canon and my photos have improved significantly! Still saving for a macro lens! I would also highly recommend Canon cameras!