rustywheels

as you can plainly see I am new here and am needing some advice. I an amateur coin collector and need advice on a camera type and how to get the best results when snapping pics of coins. money is an issue so please bear that in mind. thanks one and all.

Ched49 Loc: Pittsburgh, Pa.

How much are you willing to spend? I don't shoot much macro so I'll leave this question up to others who might chime in. Shouldn't be hard to find an answer...Good luck.

jcspics

As a comic book collector I have had the exact same questions and found these items work well for taking excellent photos of comic book covers:

1) photographic copy table (the one I use has two static lights as well as an adjustable arm to mount the DSLR camera on)
https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=photographic+copy+table&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

2) I used a Nikon D3200 with the AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR kit lens
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1433064-REG/nikon_1590_d3500_dslr_camera_with.html

3) This is not a macro lens. What that means is that the minimum focus distance is approx. 10" from the sensor to the coin/subject. If its not then you won't be able to focus.

You'll want to learn how to set the white balance as well so your colors won't be off and if you shoot jpgs you can have the camera auto-correct for barrel distortion.

So for around $500-550 brand new you can get setup however you can find these items used for much less. If you don't know what to check on used equipment it might be worth it to buy a new camera.

Here's an example of what I could do with mine after learning my equipment so I could "get it right in the camera".

Here's a coin I took with that setup as well...

Hope that this helps...
-Jim

rustywheels

thanks

rustywheels

thankyou very helpful.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

You received good advice above. The copy table will be very important to you, because it will hold your camera securely, but more importantly, exactly parallel to the face of the coin. And if you also collect currency, it will allow you to raise the camera high enough to document any notes that you may want to photograph (following the applicable legal restrictions). You will want a true macro lens, because most of your coins are going to be 1.25 inches in diameter or smaller.

You are going to eventually receive a lot of suggestions around which macro lens to select. They will probably all be different. Your choices will be between 40mm or so and 200mm. If you plan to also document currency, I'd suggest a 60mm macro/copy lens. Otherwise your working distances are going to get too large to be convenient. For coins only, either 60mm or 105mm would be OK. The longer lens might be a little bit better, because it will leave you more room between the camera and your subject to manage your lighting. (The longer lens will be more expensive, but it would be my preference.)

Photographing coins will be pretty easy. They are small, flat, and easy to handle, and they don't fly away. You won't have to worry about depth of field and other challenges that macro photographers of other subjects face. But lighting them will not be so easy. They are metallic, which means you will have to manage glare, and especially the more circulated ones will not have much relief, so you will have to learn how to highlight what detail there is for best visibility while maintaining even light levels across the face of the coins. (Best hint is to move the lights back away from the coins.) It isn't impossible, but you will need to be prepared to have some patience. And there are some additional challenges that come with photographing coins that are in holders...managing reflections, for instance. I will be especially interested in how you learn to handle the "third face" of your coins. That doesn't seem to get a lot of attention, and I have not seen good solutions for effectively capturing the edges of coins.

Good luck as you undertake this challenge.

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

Just about any close focusing camera including phones can do this. No need to buy specialized gear. The lighting is what important.

Goggle how to make a light box for simple instructions for a cardboard light box and lights you have available. Its not very hard and doesn't cost.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Coin collectors are a lot like photographers, except even more so. I know. I used to be one until my wife staged an intervention.

They look at and evaluate coins like photographers look at and evaluate prints, except that they wear gloves and use triplet magnifiers. And they are very careful, even with the gloves.

When a coin collector wants to take photographs of his collection, it is for one of two reasons...insurance inventory or condition documentation. An insurance inventory would not require an inquiry here in most cases, so I am making the assumption that rustywheels is wanting to capture good, detailed images of his collection for some more specific purpose.

I agree that really good photographs of coins can be made without spending endless thousands of dollars. But the inquirer is going to want to be able to capture subtleties that many here may not be familiar with. As an example, who knows what "mint luster" is, how to demonstrate it, and how to capture it in an image? Doing so is going to require a purposeful approach and reasonably capable equipment and fixtures.