Photographing coins and stamps without glare

Guides · 5 September 2026

Every bad coin photograph has the same cause: a single small bright light placed directly above the coin, so the metal mirrors it straight back into the lens. Fix the lighting and an ordinary phone produces a usable image. Three things do almost all the work – where the light comes from, how diffuse it is, and whether the camera is square to the object.

Why glare happens

A coin is a curved mirror. A small, hard light source – a bare bulb, a phone flash, a spotlight – produces a small, hard reflection, and if the light sits between the camera and the coin, that reflection lands in the lens. Softening the light spreads the reflection out until it stops being a hotspot; moving the light to the side moves the reflection off the lens axis entirely. Both fixes are free.

Lighting that works

1. Use daylight from a window, not a lamp. An overcast sky is the best free softbox there is. Place the object near the window with the light coming from one side.
2. Never use the phone flash. It is the smallest, hardest light you own and it sits right beside the lens – the worst possible position.
3. Diffuse anything artificial. A sheet of baking paper or a white plastic bag between lamp and object turns a hotspot into a soft sheen.
4. Light from about ten o'clock, low. A light coming in from the side at a shallow angle makes relief readable: raised areas catch light, recesses stay dark, and the design gains depth.
5. Bounce, do not add. A piece of white card on the opposite side fills the shadows without introducing a second reflection.

Camera position

• Square to the object. Any tilt distorts a round coin into an oval and makes a stamp's margins look uneven. Line the phone up parallel to the surface.
• Do not go too close. Phone lenses distort at minimum focus distance. Step back slightly and crop afterwards – the result is straighter and sharper.
• Steady it. Prop the phone on books or a small stand. Handheld shots at close range blur in exactly the detail you are trying to show.
• Tap to focus on the detail, not the field. Then lock exposure so the bright metal does not fool the meter into underexposing.

Backgrounds and surfaces

Use plain matt backgrounds: mid-grey or black for bright metal, white or light grey for dark objects and paper. Avoid glossy surfaces, which throw a second reflection up into the object, and avoid coloured cloth, which tints the whole image. For stamps and banknotes, a black surface also serves a second purpose – it is the same setup used for reading a watermark, described in the guide to seeing a watermark.

Object-specific notes

• Coins. Shoot both sides, in the same light, at the same angle. A pair of images tells far more than one, and comparison is how condition and varieties are read at all.
• Stamps. Include the full perforation on all four sides – it is part of the identification, as covered in the guide to identifying an old stamp.
• Banknotes. Photograph flat, without pressing, and add one raking-light shot: folds show under side light and vanish under flat light.
• Badges and metal objects. Enamel behaves like glass – expect a bright patch and move the light rather than the camera.

What not to do

• Do not clean or polish anything to photograph better. The image is not worth the damage, as explained in the guide to cleaning old coins.
• Do not shoot through the sleeve or capsule if you can avoid it – plastic adds haze and its own reflections.
• Do not over-sharpen or boost contrast afterwards: it invents detail that is not there and misleads anyone comparing your image with a reference.
• Do not crop off the edges. Margins, rims and perforation carry information.

Why this matters for a collection

Photographs are how a collection is compared, recorded and shared. The open archive works exactly this way: 855 Soviet coins and 635 banknotes, most shown from both sides, alongside 80,472 stamp images from 271 countries. Consistent images of your own pieces let you put them next to those and see the difference – which is the whole method behind identification, condition and varieties.

Open the sections: coins and banknotes, stamps.