Photographing Coins

Cameras on phones and tablets these days provide good quality images. To take a photograph coins:

1. Place the coin on a white background (card or paper is fine)
2. Use natural light – on a window sill is good
3. Fill as much of the frame with the coin as possible, while still keeping the image in focus. With nothing else but the coin in frame the camera will focus better and probably closer to the coin
4. Have the phone or tablet parallel to the surface of the coin
5. If you want to improve the picture by removing the shadow, place the coin on a piece of glass above the white surface. I “borrowed” my piece of glass from a picture frame
6. Remember to take a picture of both sides of the coin
7. Before uploading your photo, please rename the file to something meaningful such as “Shilling Obverse by Peter D Spencer”

You can see below, that I’m using a phone which is several years old to take the photographs. The image on paper is fine for me, the one on glass is better as it makes the edge of the coin clearer.