From your responses above it does not seem you are looking for constructive criticism, but here goes anyway...
Having primary light sources come from the lower half of the coin (between 3:00 and 9:00 but especially 5:00-7:00) is very unnatural. I understand the desire to ensure even illumination on the lower half of the coin, but any light from the bottom half should be "fill" only, reduced in intensity and more heavily diffused.
You defend the sharpness/focus of the image but for sure it is showing some softness. This can be due to several reasons:
- Camera movement during exposure - Mirror Slap or Shutter Shake - Lack of critical focus on middle-height features - Aperture too small (too large an aperture number) - Insufficient post-processing to optimize final image sharpness
I am not saying the image is bad, but there is always room for improvement. If you're open to suggestions there are several folks, including myself, who would enjoy working with you on making your photos even better.
Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com
The limiting factor is my equipment for sharpeness I need to finally upgrade my lens set up haven't wanted to upgrade till I finally found the limits. This lens isn't a dedicated macro. Also my physical placement in relation to the coin is becoming a big issue I need to back my camera up like an inch or 2 and I'd be much better off. I do appreciate the criticism let's me know what others think. The light at 5-7 could be blended better or changed overall I don't disagree, however for now I will keep it till I find a better way to accomplish what's needed. I think you may be right on shutter shake, in time looking into an slr would probably be a good Idea for me I think. On bu cent I do agree aperture was an issue I'm trying to work that out better. With better equipment I do believe sharper can be more easily accomplished. As for my needs right now it will kind of have to do unfortunately.
So pulled out my bellows to give that one more try (it gave me such a headache in the past) figured out what my issue with It was and finally got it working good enough to improve the sharpness issues I was having before. Also did what I could to tune down the hotspots. I'm quite satisfied with the results. Now I'm thinking finally hit the limits of my equipment. I'm thinking the last of my hotspot/ sharpness issue could be fixed if I had aperture control. My bellows has no electrical connects so been shooting at wide open or f5.6 not the most fun but worth it for the results.
Random decent looking 62 I had laying around Lightly circulated 72 DDO-002 V.V. doubling shows best on R in TRUST Decent luster 68 S 68 D had nicest obv. luster and had decent eye appeal in hand
The '62 is the best overall of those new pics and is a marked improvement over the first BU cent in this thread. However, the reverse of the '62 is a bit dark, particularly in the TED area. Did you use the same light setup for obverse and reverse pics?
In Memory of Crazyb0 12-26-1951 to 7-27-2020 In Memory of Tootallious 3-31-1964 to 4-15-2020 In Memory of T-BOP 10-12-1949 to 1-19-2024
Yes it was the same lighting setup for those shots. Just flipped and picked a consistent rotation between coins for the obverse and reverse. I went back and changed things up a tad more to try and get more brightness and will be posting those images later. So far this method of lighting is doing what I want. I'm curious to know if others would be interested in learning how I choose to do my lighting. I've Been half tempted to make a little YouTube video or do a write up to explain it all. Because it's seems to be more concept based than anything. It could probably be done with what most have on hand.
Yes, please document your lighting setup here. There are many folks who are looking for more info on lighting techniques who may benefit from your experience.
Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com
Instead of having a massive block of text and photos I figured it may just be easier to record video to show how I like shooting my coins. I posted the video to YouTube just now. Here is the link
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Posted 10/01/2024 2:44 pm
Lighting is the least obvious aspect of coin photography, partly because it has to be tailored to the coin being photographed.
