Trick for taking closeup images with a cellphone

[paulb104]

I just thought I'd share this to help other folks out.

I've got a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. It's got a 16mp camera. It's a darn fine camera.

I have a clip on macro lens, that is very similar to this one. That makes taking pics of small things even better.

But you know what I do to take really good pictures of small things up close?

I hold my loupe up against my phone. That's what I do when I don't want to spend half an hour squinting at an item, hunched over my desk. I take the picture and either zoom in on it on my phone or I look at it on my computer. This sure makes research easier, and much more comfortable!

Even better, once it's in Google Photo's, you can play with the lighting and shadows and possibly bring out details you didn't see before.

The two pics below of the 1913 UCV token with the dime were take with my regular camera. The two pics without the dime were taken with the loupe. I held the loupe smack up against the phone.

I should note that I didn't use a flash and I didn't have the token near a good lamp so the lighting isn't the best. If I were to use the pics for ebay I'd retake the pictures, both with and without the loupe, and include all of them with the auction. More pictures is always better than less. If the token was expensive, I don't yet know if this one is, I'd probably add pictures of the token with and without the flash, too.




I'm pretty good with stuff, so if you have questions, I'd be more than happy to help.

 

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[1320]

I'm gonna copy this link and paste it to every thread that includes a bad micro image I see...lol. Great advice and great images of said advice.

 

[paulb104]

Now if only we can have everyone rotate their images to the correct orientation!!!

Cropping before posting would be awesome, too...

These are free tools available with Google Photo's, either on a phone or on a computer. On the computer though, they're wicked powerful.

 

[coinman123]

I have a Galaxy S4, which takes pretty good photos. I used to use it for my finds, but in the past year switched to using a Nikon D5200 with Macro lens. I am almost sure that my avatar was taken with my phone, phones take good photos in natural lighting in my opinion.

 

[paulb104]

in the past year switched to using a Nikon D5200 with Macro lens.

Well, yeah, that's getting better pictures because it's a real camera with its 24 megapixel, plus the added macro lens.

If I had that I'd add an eyefi card and I'd stop using my phone in a heartbeat!!!

 

[paulb104]

I have a Galaxy S4, which takes pretty good photos.

My wife has the Galaxy S4 Mini. It's notorious for fantastic photos in outdoor settings but has atrocious pictures for indoor and low lights.

 

[coinman123]

My wife has the Galaxy S4 Mini. It's notorious for fantastic photos in outdoor settings but has atrocious pictures for indoor and low lights.

Tell me about it! Indoor photos look better on my old flip phone from 2007, with some natural lighting though, the S4 can produce incredible photos. That's why the photo of my avatar was taken outside.

 

[paulb104]

Tell me about it! Indoor photos look better on my old flip phone from 2007, with some natural lighting though, the S4 can produce incredible photos. That's why the photo of my avatar was taken outside.

I have a desk lamp with a 450 lumen LED bulb that's daylight color. It's really nice, but it's not like being outside. Over my wife's desk is a chandelier with five bulbs. For years it had those dinky pointed bulbs in it and it just was never bright enough but the fixture isn't rated for higher wattage bulbs. Then it occurred to me that my LED bulb use almost no actually wattage so I put five of my LED bulbs in it. Now we call it the Sun. She asks me to turn the Sun on and off.

I wish I had the room for a light box by my desk. We actually have a light box, but no space for it to keep it out all the time.