EcoBasic Selfie Light for Better Precious Metals Pictures

For the longest time, I struggled to take good pictures of my gold and silver. I don't have a high-end camera and don't want to spend that kind of money. That leaves me with the phone on my camera. The camera is decent, but the positioning of it is what makes the photos challenging.

I have the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G. I pulled up a picture of the phone using a Google search.

As you can see from the location of the lenses and the flash, to get a good, in-focus shot of a coin, bar, round, etc., means the flash is going to be directly over top of it. Since gold and silver are highly reflective metals, the details of most are lost in the glare reflected back at the camera. To mitigate this, I can move the lens further away from the object so the flash is further away, but that makes it harder for the camera lens to focus. I can move the lens further left so not as much light spills onto the object, but again, the lens can't focus as well. This means there's no glare problem, but the details aren't nearly as crisp as they could be.

This is where the EcoBasic selfie light comes into play.

I picked it up on Amazon during a "Lightning Deal" and ended up paying $12.71 with tax. The light rotates 360 degrees and can be clipped to any part of my phone that I want.

It charges via USB-C and is supposed to take two hours to charge and last a little over two hours if left on. You'll notice a few buttons on the back for controls. The "+" and "-" control the brightness. The button directly to the right of the USB-C port allows you to switch between "natural" light, "warm" light, and white light.

I experimented with this and found it works best if I hold my phone horizontally and clip the light to the edge of my phone case, just to the right of the phone's power button. Doing so frees me to allow the phone's camera lens to focus directly on the coin, round, etc. It also places the light from the EcoBasic selfie light far enough away that the glare is minimal and mainly on the edge of the air tite, which doesn't affect the details of the coin, round, etc.

Just to do a comparison, I took a picture of one of my latest pick-ups using just my camera's flash, using the method I mentioned earlier. I then took the same picture using the EcoBasic selfie light, using the white light setting.

With camera flash

With EcoBasic selfie light

To me, there's no question that the EcoBasic light allows the camera lens to focus and pick up smaller details, like the mouth. Other objects, such as the rocket with gold bars strapped to it, are much clearer in the second picture than the first. You'll also notice that the silver in the first picture looks off-colored compared to the second picture and looks much more vibrant in the second photo.

In my opinion, the light is worth the cost, seeing how good the pictures look now compared to before. It's funny how a $12 selfie light and change in technique can affect picture quality so much. If you're encountering the same issues I just described, I'd give this method a try.

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