Using the revived Lumix

 Having successfully revived the Lumix, I thought I'd put it to work to see how it went, using my super cheap Temu lightbox

For this exercise I thought I'd try photographing some coins as in this 1850s English halfpenny

or in this pair of Italian 50 centesimi coins - one from the 1920s with the classic design harking back to the glories of Imperial Rome, and the other from Mussolini's Italy in 1941, with a far more aggressive Fascist design

Photographing coins can be tricky - they are small, fiddly, and getting the contrast right to show detail can be difficult. 

Sometimes, playing with the contrast and exposure settings can help bring out detail as in the tweaked photograph of the Italian coins or this equally tweaked George III half penny

On the whole, the grubby tarnished British coins came out alright after a little fiddling as in this comparison shot of a pre and post 1860 recoinage Queen Victoria penny

(and yes, I will need to reshoot it as I've accidentally cropped the edge of the post 1860 coin) works quite well, but not so much with the more reflective Italian coins (stainless steel and cupronickel respectively)

What I did find is that the Lumix is lighter and easier to use than the Finepix I used to photograph postal covers, it doesn't produce such a high resolution image - good enough for photographing bottles and similar small artefacts but really at its limit with an item like a coin.

and of course there's a question as whether a camera is really required, as in this quick and dirty phone picture of a post and pre 1860 recoinage penny.

However, on balance I feel the revived Lumix is going to be a useful extra tool, being lighter, hand held shots in less than optimal light should be easier, such as in Lakeview, and indeed when photographing things like manufacturers labels on the base of items.