I sold some gold coins from my father-in-law's estate on E-bay and needed good close up shots. My Epson 750z digicam, while having a macro mode, would not focus close enough to really do the job I needed. I have a little stand with a magnifying glass attached which I use for soldering small electronic projects. Placing the coin on a colored background, lighting it with my desk lamp, and shooting through the magnifying glass yielded pictures which filled the frame and showed all details nicely. The 750z has only automatic white balance so I adjusted the hue of the pictures in my photo editor to give a natural gold color. The coins sold quickly and brought good prices. As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words", especially a good picture.
I've used a flatbed scanner to successfully scan coins. It's much easier than using a camera and gives very good results.
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Originally Posted by Puck M
I sold some gold coins from my father-in-law's estate on E-bay and needed good close up shots. My Epson 750z digicam, while having a macro mode, would not focus close enough to really do the job I needed. I have a little stand with a magnifying glass attached which I use for soldering small electronic projects. Placing the coin on a colored background, lighting it with my desk lamp, and shooting through the magnifying glass yielded pictures which filled the frame and showed all details nicely. The 750z has only automatic white balance so I adjusted the hue of the pictures in my photo editor to give a natural gold color. The coins sold quickly and brought good prices. As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words", especially a good picture.
Just last summer I saw the results of a kid who was in Africa with some small, basic camera. He put the lense up against the eyepiece of a binocular and got some real decent telehoto shots. Out of curiosity, I tried a small monocular with a Coolpix and was fairly impressed. Granted, not something for everyday use but a smart idea for an otherwise impossible situation.
