Picture of Coins

Scanner VS Digital Camera

• Although scanning coins are faster, it's probably the only reason why you would choose a scanner over digital camera for taking coin pictures.
  
  
• Pictures of the coins taken with digital Camera show details of the coin much better than the scanned coins see example below:

  Coin Photo

  Coin Scan

• Conclusion: Digital camera is a better choice for taking coin pictures, especially for coins with ramaining mint lustre.

Taking coin pictures with digital camera

• Fix your camera with a tripod and use macro mode or macro lense to take coin pictures
  
  
• Don't even try to use internal flash of the camera, it will reflect from coin surface and you will never get a good coin photo
  
  
• Use LCD monitor when taking coin pictures, you will be able to preview depth of field
  
  
• Cross-lit the coin to bring out details
  
  
• Switch to aperture priority mode and select a small aperture such as f/8 (F8) this will increase depth of field and show details of the coin better.
  (NOTE: Remember smaller the aperture bigger the F number)
  
  
• Use Adobe Photoshop or any other image editing software to resize these photos. You can do it very fast with free Image Resizer by Microsoft.