This may not be your cup of tea, but flatbed scanners do a fabulous job with scanning coins and other flat objects.
Consider this: at 1200dpi you would be able to enlarge it 400% @ 300dpi
And at 2400dpi, you would be able to enlarge it 800% @ 300dpi
You should be aware that the light in the scanner will "light" your subject at approx a 45 deg angle to the plane of focus so you will have to learn which direction the scanner light "falls" on your subject. At the very least, you might want to give it a try. YMMV.
Cheers
J Michael Sullivan
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Tim Corio [mailto:tcorio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2007 05:38 PM
>To: 'List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students'
>Subject: Rochester Resources for macro equipment
>
>Is there a good source in the Rochester, NY area for good used
>photogrpahy/microscopy equipment? Hopefully a place where I can also
>get some selection advice.
>
>I'm photographing coins using a standard macro lens (Canon EF 100mm F2.8
>Macro USM) on a Canon 5D body. This is working great for 1x
>magnifications. I also want to get magnifications from about 4x to 40x.
>I've decided the most flexable way to accomplish this is to mount a
>microscope objective on a bellows.
>
>All the equipment I need is available online. But, since this is all
>new to me I would preffer to handle and inspect the pieces and
>hopefully get some advice before I buy.
>
>Is there a source in the Rochester, NY area for used equipment? The
>things I'll be needing are microscope objectives, a t-mount to RMS
>(microsope abjective lens mount) adapter, bellows, and possibly t-mount
>extension tubes.
>
>I'm in the middle of a project photographing the collection of the
>Rochester Numismatic Association (RNA). Our web site is at
>http://www.the-rna.com.
>
>Thanks,
>Tim Corio
>
>
