Best Nikon lens for photographing coins?

I want to get my boyfriend a good lens for photographing his coins. He has a Nikon and uses the basic lens that came with the camera. My price range is about $150-300. Any suggestions?

Also, if any of you have experience photographing coins, do you have any other suggestions for creating the best photo? The photos are mainly used to post online so he may sell or price his coins.

The best would be the 105mm macro lens which is $900

for $300, look at the 40mm macro lens from Nikon

For photographing products.lighting and stability are the most important worries. A "macro" lens would be the best thing, but will exceed your budget.

I use 3- 500w work lights (from the hardware store) along with 1/2" PVC pipe and white "ripstop" nylon fabric (from the fabric store) to build a light tent (google "DIY light tent"). All of that came to about $30.

I would suggest a good tripod and ball head along with a shutter release cable. A tripod is the one thing you should not skimp on as you rely on it to hold the camera, BUT it is a personal preference to the photographer. I tried several different tripods and different heads in my budget to find the setup that I liked best. I would suggest you get him a gift card to a local camera shop (not bestbuy/walmart).

I use a Manfrotto 055B tripod with a Vanguard Series 200 head. It was about $250 for the tripod/head and $15 for the cable.

Get a small light tent or a table top kit. A couple of lights, a tripod and a raynox dcr 250 and you will have just about spent your budget

You should get a macro lens that would help him to take good quality close-up shots of the coins. The one i'd suggest according to your budget is Nikon 40mm f/2.8G. It will give nice detail to the photos as it has a very good focus. I suggest you read this review to aid in your decision:

http://www.amazon.com/...JF972ULTM/

This is the best price you can get for it, there are some great discounts for it on here:

http://www.amazon.com/...005C50H2Y/

Get a lens reverse mount adaptor.

http://www.ebay.com/...0629266760

If he's using the 18-55mm kit lens, he really doesn't need anything more. It close focuses to 11 inches as measured from the sensor plane (roughly, the back of the camera) to the subject and gives a magnification factor around 0.3 which is fine for most coins.

If he has the 18-105mm kit lens, this only gives a magnification factor of 0.2 which is borderline for close photography.

If you want to do this right, the Nikon 105mm micro is the way to go, but is way out of your price range. The only thing in your price range is the 40mm micro, but will be problematic since there's little room between the lens and subject.

Tripod and lighting techniques are the most important. Also, knowing how to use manual settings helps. Some useful articles for coin photography:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/020809.htm
http://www.sigma-2.com/camerajim/cjgcoins.htm

Buy him a gallon of milk so he can use the container as a diffuser.

For your price range, your only option is the Nikon 40mm Micro (Macro). They are about $275.

But for extreme closeups you will also want to think about lighting, so you may want to look into an off-camera flash. The camera will be simply too close for the built-in flash to keep from casting a shadow off the lens.

But what the hey, if you buy him the lens, he can buy his own flash equipment.