If the want/need is out there, I will do a short series of journals to help out...

Greetings Collectors,

This Fall will be a year ago when I posted a "plea" that I needed help in learning how to take "basic" coin photos. Ones that were good enough to post here at the Collectors Society in journals and also to have photos of my many coin sets that I am so proud of. I am fairly certain there are those of you that post journals from time to time that would love to share a picture with the rest of us here. I know that I don't just speak for myself when I say that all of you that post "tid-bits" of various collecting experiances, and tell all of us about this coin and that set, I/we would love to see a "pic" of that particular coin. I can speak from 1st hand experiance that before I learned to take basic coin pics, it had gotten to the point that I just about did not want to post another journal if I could not have a photo to attach with it. That old saying "A picture is worth a thousand words" is oh so true!

Anyway I asked for help and there were those of you that came to my aid and now looking back, I can't believe just how easy it would have been all along to shoot some fairly decent shots. I will say this, in that after several thousand photographs, I have just made it to the point where I feel "somewhat" comfortable. There is still not a day that goes by that after taking a dozen or so shots, I don't learn a little something new. Or I am able to do that which use to take 20-30 minutes, now I can do in 2-3 minutes.

If I do this I will "turn you on" to the basics and get you to the point where you can actually set your coins up in position to take the shot, as in lighting and distance and settings on your camera and once your shot has been taken, inform you of some really good (and easy to understand) software where you can then edit your pics and get them to the size where the site here will accept them. (this is a free download) (this editing process was the most difficult for me but if I could do it, well I am sure that any of you can) I thought then and still think now, that the "fear of the unknown" and getting beyond that was the hardest.

I am going to share in this 1st posting on the subject, what you will need to make all of this you are about to learn, easier. Once you get the basics down you can then experiment around and find what works best for you. But without going into fancy lighting and outdoors/natural light and setting the camera to different shutter speeds etc. this is all you need to get started.

(1) Just a half way decent digital camera that has a "Macro setting". (a must)

(2) An inexpensive tri-pod. (this also is a must) You can buy a pretty decent one at Walmart for around $15 and it fits all digital cameras of the last 5-10 years.

(3) Two small-medium table lamps with those "new-fangle" curly "Q" flouresant 60W bulbs. (another must)

(4) Then you will need a few medium size books so that you can adjust the height of what you are shooting in relation to the distance from your tri-pod mounted camera to the surface you are using to place your coin/coins on. (my camera is a middle of the road "Sanyo" that has 8.1 megapixles and has "MACRO".

(5) And lastly but very importantly, a couple sheets of "brite white" printer paper, maybe even folded in half depending on the size of the books you have stacked up about 2 or 3 high. (your coin slab or "raw" coin will show up much better on the "finished product" if they are lain on top of a white sheet of paper. (remember that once your paper starts to get dirty, change it. If you don't, the high quality of your shots will show all the dirt/smudges on that white paper (unless of course you "crop" that out).

Anyway, that's it. Once you have those items you are ready to start "taking your best shot". Some of my pics in my sets are better than others but with well over 400 slabs that have been shot, the ones that could be improved on, may never get re-done. The picture you see here is what you can expect, "quality wise" with the equipment I have just mentioned. If this "baby buffalo" looks good enough, well then you are all set.

This will be some work on my end to do all of this as with each posting, I will include a photo pertaining to that step. What I would like is to get some feedback and see if there are enough of you that are interested in something like I just mentioned. I sure don't want to do it if no-one is interested. So just LMK (let me know). ALL THAT ARE INTERESTED, MESSAGE ME HERE AND IF THE INTEREST IS THERE, WELL, I'M THERE!

Happy Collecting & picture taking!

WKF