Diffuse On Axis Lighting Rig: My Latest Iteration

wizzy the 1962 coin is that made of nickel. if it is you are where. I want to be with coin photography. so far nickel is the hardest coins for myself to photograph. I like your images you are doing great. I will follow you. I am getting some material tomorrow. making some changes to my axis lighting. I shall see if I can get to your level. you are doing great have a great one

wanted to try a penny under axis lighting. it came out not to bad. I like it

the 1882 coin is nickel ( Shield nickel to be exact). The 1962 coin is a Franklin half dollar (90% silver). I bought a small piece of 2 way mirrored glass today. nice shots but strange colors have shown up. The glass is tinted, and I'm using a custom white balance to compensate.

I'm a new kid on the Photography Forum block, so forgive me if I talk about some things that are well-known to the regulars.

I've been shooting with what I call tilting glass for a long time (mostly in the bad old film days), but some of austrokiwi's shots are better than anything I achieved. I moved away from the tilting glass some time ago, but now want to get back to it, at least for really brilliant coins.

One of the concerns I always had (and something that doesn't seem to have been emphasized in this thread) was to make sure there was no direct light "splash" from the light source onto the coin. That is, if the tilting glass or beam-splitter were removed, the coin would be dark. Austrokiwi seems to have none at all, while Wizzy1 and particularly rocky have strong evidence of it: highlights from one direction. In my view there might be special cases where splash is desirable, but in general it's better to avoid it. My question here is, austrokiwi, how do you avoid it? Your lights are slightly back from the diffuser, but it looks like there is still a direct line between at least part of the diffuser and the coin. Of course, austrokiwi has an advantage over those of us who don't have a 50-50 beam-splitter in that he can have his light source farther back and still have enough light.

Thanks, rocky, I wasn't sure if your light splash was deliberate or accidental. If it's deliberate and you like it, of course that's fine. Believe me, it's very easy to get accidentally when you don't want it!

Most of my photographic time is spent on toned copper (Google vicky cents and you'll find my online 1859 Canada cent catalog. I'm just getting back into shooting bright Au, Ag. I've been inspired by austrokiwi's setups and will be working on redesigning my old axial setup and building a lens-mounted board for shooting slabs. In the latter regard, I'm going to play with moving the LEDs out a little farther (to avoid any chance of flares off the holder surface and angling the lights slightly inward to compensate for their position farther from center. It doesn't hurt to try. Those strip LEDs are certainly cheap enough! Of course, I'll report back when I've got some useful results. I've been collecting for over 60 years and had my first B&W darkroom in 1965. For most of the time I struggled along with coin photography with the help of no one. It's wonderful that there are now sites where one can get new ideas and share our triumphs (and tragedies) with others....

https://goccf.com/t/254675#2148296
Thanks very much for the info. I have been trying to create a "historical events behind coins" website & also a collecting philosophy. However it's difficult without good pictures.

I take really wretched coin photos. For example the following Argentine sunface 8 Reales I bought many years ago in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Last year when I brought it to a show, people said it was by far the finest "Sunface" they've ever seen. Yet no matter how many times I photograph it, the pictures always come out washed out like this.

Unfortunately I do not have the EXIF data. In fact until tonight I didn't really know that this data was stored with the jpgs. I edit all my photos in Corel Photopaint to combine the obv & reverse & also to resample to lower res.

Camera is a Sony NEX-6. My lens recently broke; well it now gives an electronic signal "Error lens not properly attached" whenever I try to use it. I can find nothing physically wrong with it.

The [defective] lens was a Sony SELP1650: an E-mount power zoom 16-50 E 3.5 - 5.6. filter diam 40.5mm I did not like the F range at all as most of the time I was unable to take pictures without flash.

I'm contemplating a fixed lens with a much better F setting, like a 50mm with F 2.8 or 2.0 if possible? I guess I need another E-mount ?

I did NOT like the power zoom and it makes the lens extend and retract every time you switch the camera on. This may use a lot of battery? I should also add that my coin photo taking goes back at least 25 years: to the days of old print film. Recently, however it's gotten much worse (like coin prices)!

Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. I guess I should get that image splitter thing, a "Smart Series DOAL Illuminator".

Below is another one for you. This is the finest known Ecuadorian 5 francs: in an old NGC-65 holder. It's actually quite attractive in actuality although taking pictures of slabs is always problematic.

Thanks Austrowicki. Actually I really liked your pictures about how you built the DOAL unit and plan to order those things from Edmunds Scientific soon. (I used to go to their store in NJ w/ my Dad when I was small.)

Anyhow I don't think my only problem is F stop. I've used many cameras over the past years and basically varied all the settings. Always the photos are poor. Recently I've found my cell phone takes poor closeups of coins. Below a semi P/L Brazilian 1200 reis 1843.


Since the lens on my NEX-6 broke I have to use my cellphone until I get a new lens. Do you have any recommendations for lenses?