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  • Photo closeups.

    Ive been selling coins on ebay lately, doing very well! I can take decent pictures of Morgans and peace dollars but today I took about 40 pictures of a 31-s cent and a 1912-s nickle..couldnt get a decent set of pictures to list either one. My question is...is there something to use for extreme closeups? I cant afford an expensive new camera. Pullinrock (Jon) had one but cant remember what it was called? These two coins are worth $300-350 so if I cant get good closeups Im surly not gonna list them!

  • #2
    I take pictures in bright sunlight, this helps.
    Jack

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    • #3
      In the past it worked and now it does not? Or are you just looking for advise because of a smaller coin profile? I know Olympus has a camera with a super macro and I do pretty good with it. Mine is a OlympusVR320 150 mbucks at staples about three months ago.

      Just shot this a minute ago I use a desk top tripod and set the cam for two second time and take my fingers off once I hit the shutter. Not perfect but it does a pretty good job. This is indoor lighting too so maybe if you use jacks method of out door lighting you may get better results.

      I noticed in the first picture I must have gotten to close to the coin and you can see some distortion at the bottom of the pictures went back to the drawing board and this one should do it. They may have an older model on Amazon or another site that has the Super Macro. it works good but you have to play around with it a bit.  You would probably be better off making some kind of a stand for the coins and have a set distance. That way you can do reverse and obverse and they will be the same size. Makes it easier to stitch photos.
      TN formerly CT Visit our store http://stores.arrowheads.com/store.p...m-Trading-Post

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      • #4
        Thats better than I got Matt! Karly has been dinking around with it, seemed to take better pics before. Cant seem to get it to focus on macro. Plus the smaller coins may have something to do with it! I will have to try the tripod, timer thing. Thanks Matt!

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        • #5
          It does not take much to accidentally touch the lens check for finger prints. If it was working before she used it and quit now its worth a look. check on lne for trouble shooting on that cam.
          TN formerly CT Visit our store http://stores.arrowheads.com/store.p...m-Trading-Post

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          • #6
            It did have a smudge on it Matt! I shoulda thoughta dat! Thanks! :blush:

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            • #7
              Mark
              You don’t say what camera you are currently using, but I assume it’s an autofocus compact with a built-in flash. There are several potential problems in getting extreme close-ups with these, but there are some solutions too.
              Somewhere in your instruction book (if you still have it… if not, try googling) or maybe on the lens itself, it should tell you what the closest focusing distance is for your camera when set on macro. You may be pushing or exceeding that limit in an effort to get the largest possible image on the viewing screen. Step back a bit and crop the picture afterwards.
              The depth of field (the area in front of and behind the subject which is in focus) is going to be narrow. That’s OK for something flat like a coin but it’s crucial to get the plane of the subject parallel with the plane of the camera lens. You don’t want them tilted relative to one another. Although it’s easier to achieve this with the camera in normal upright orientation, this gives you the problem of supporting the subject in an upright position. It’s better to have the camera pointing directly downwards and the subject underneath. You just need a mini tripod with a 90 degree “pan-and-tilt” head that allows this orientation. A mini spirit level will also help and some tripods have this built into the head.
              If you are using flash, the more light you can get onto the subject then the more the aperture on the camera will automatically close down… and the sharper the results will be. You can improve the flash intensity by using reflectors. I use sheets of white art paper, folded down the middle to form a ‘tent’ and place these either side of the camera. Sometimes I use three or even four. You can also tape a wide strip of paper to make a ring around the subject. It needs to have a diameter bigger than the width of the camera and should be almost as high as the camera position.
              Reflectors will also soften the light, helping to reduce glare, reduce or eliminate shadows and help compensate for the fact that at very close distances the flash is no longer pointing directly at the subject. If you still get glare, a square cut from a paper tissue or a white cotton handkerchief taped over the flash will help.
              Although preventing camera-shake is crucial, it doesn’t really matter with flash. The shutter opens long enough to synchronise with the flash but the effective shutter speed is just the duration of the flash itself. That’s way too short for camera-shake to register on the image sensor. We’re just talking milliseconds.
              If you are using daylight illumination you can still use reflectors but these will not improve the light intensity as much as they do with flash. You have to live with what is available. This normally means you need to force the camera to use a small aperture and consequently a much longer shutter speed to get decent results. We may be talking tenths of a second or even several seconds in lower light levels. If your camera has manual settings you want “aperture priority”, the smallest possible aperture (which is in fact the biggest possible “f-stop” number) and accept whatever shutter speed the camera then selects to make this possible. This also means you need a decent tripod and you should use this in combination with the delay timer on the camera to reduce vibration to a minimum.
              Finally, there is focusing to consider. Autofocus cameras normally need contrasting areas of depth of relief to achieve focus. Sometimes the sensors are “centre-bottom-weighted” and that means they can struggle to find something to focus on. A mint condition coin with sharp relief shouldn’t be a problem, but one that’s been in circulation a while may have lost this. If your camera has a “live-view” screen (ie you can see the image before you take the picture) and a manual focus option, then you may get better results this way.
              Some cameras have a “focus-hold”… where you can focus on the sharp edge of the coin by positioning this in the centre of the image and hold this setting (normally by lightly depressing the shutter button) as you pan across to compose the picture how you actually want it. If you have this option it’s better to move the coin while you hold the focus rather than move the camera.
              You shouldn’t need to buy a new camera, but if you do there is some advice in this thread:

              Good luck.
              Roger
              I keep six honest serving-men (they taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.

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              • #8
                Thanks for the advise Roger and Matt. I will try some of those tricks Roger But I did play around and you can make a coin look better by lighting at different angles. Sounds dumb but I dont want to alter the look of the coin....Thats a good way to get bad feedback! I think she dinked with the settings too. OH..Its a cheap Kodak C195 Roger.

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