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 Replies: 91 / Views: 14,611 |
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
That's an extremely good point you make, dougsmit, and something occurs to me that I've never mentioned: You've all heard me talk about using my tripod more often than my copystand for imaging; what I haven't mentioned is that I leave the camera static on the tripod at its' lowest point, and bring the coin to the camera. Raising a tripod shaft with the camera pointed straight down makes for a rather spindly mount, more sensitive to vibration. A stack of CD, on the other hand, makes for a nice solid base for a coin.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
Sidekick-CA...please post the link to Dougsmit's website so we can all visit...Ray
Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
648 Posts |
 nice link  |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2838 Posts |
Quote:
placing the coin on top of a vertical dowel rod set in a block of wood I tried this today and it worked surprisingly well and I had much better photos than I have managed to achieve in the past. I dont know if it would suit all cameras, mine is one of the better compacts that does have a macro feature but I'm far from happy with it. The camera spends most of its time trying to take over and adjust all its settings to how it thinks (wrongly) they should be. If you have a fancy camera and are knowledgeable about set ups it might not be for you but if your an amateur like me with a compact, a bit of blue-tak and a pencil its great . Hope its not against the rules to link to Dougs site as I've done it a lot in the past, his ancient site that is dont know much about his other sites. |
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
The important thing when buying a coin camera is not zoom or megapixels.
Look for good optics and a good macro.
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
Quote:
You throw up an image of 425x425, my monitor shows 1900x1280 pixels, I'm only going to see a 4" wide coin on my monitor. Only if you display at 96dpi. If you display at 72dpi, closer to 5*5. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1549 Posts |
I'm going to ask the moderators to delete the link posted to my site. That is an old one that I really had forgotten to update deleting the link to my old coin site. My current site has all those old pages and a few new ones including the one covering coin photography and showing the plans for that wood stand which is what made me post to this thread in the first place. Obviously a lot of people here have good photo skills but I have been trying to make the point that you do not have to have several thousand dollars worth of equipment to take a decent photo of a denarius. I really can't say much about modern coins since I collect ancients and medievals. My current photo series starts at the link below which your rules forbid me to post. All I ask is that you delete that link posted by Sidekick-CA. Delete this one, too, if you must, but I want no links to my out of date pages. http://www.forumancientcoins.com/do...o2011ez.htmlI might also mention that many of my photos are too large to upload here (600 pixel limit?) and I am not inclined to make a lower quality version for use only on this site. It is hard to find a camera (at least one not part of a phone) that can not make a photo that small with quality sufficient for asking ID help. Better cameras will allow images that allow 'microscopic' examination of coins but most people really only want images to use selling on some auction site so it is great overkill to buy cameras like I prefer to use (dSLR's). My current favorite coin rig is shown on page three of that link series I gave above (ones set for white backgrounds and once set for black). You might need something like that if you want 20x30" prints but how many of you actually print photos of coins that large? |
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
Quote:
All it's ever been for me was, "throw it on the tripod, lock the rings and go shooting." SuperDave- Sometimes patience for a soft focus is rewarded:  |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3076 Posts |
BIGGFREDD, I understand your meaning, yet...most cameras are say point and shoot or big money for "SPECIFIC" designations...While an 8 MEGPIXLE camera with the right expensive lens will definately do the job, Most here are just trying to display there coin and get some advice as to what they have, and it means not so in focused coins for grading and such.... I could be wrong in my general assumption, "THE WHOLE POINT" is to stabilize the camera for the shot, so there is NO shake or portions out of focus, even from the camera shutter functions....which can happen... I have come to know the ratio of the camera lens wether 1:1 best, and convention cameras very to 1:3, Is all about the money for the best quality for macro photography...cameras and most importantly the LENSES.... This is good info but it can be on the high side of money for the average person...The lens is most likely the very important I agree...they will be expensive...to us point and shooters....I guess it depends on how far one wants to go into the field.... Still even with the "best of equipment" I see it's quite so point and shoot.... or we all would not still be experimenting so much....Still I love the reads and the results...and thank you for all you opinions...  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
You don't have to spend a lot to get good macro results. If you buy a dedicated "macro" or "micro" lens you will indeed spend $$. But I've shown some good results on this forum using much more modest lenses. With a cheap bellows (small Pentax, Spiratone or Vivitar) and a 50-105mm enlarging lens (Vivitar 50/75/80/105, etc) you can achieve excellent results, certainly ones where the lens is not the limiting factor in the setup. The bellows may set you back $25-$40, and lens $15-$35, though you will need to keep an eye out on ebay for a little while to get best prices. Excellent bellows like this are occasionally available: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Macro-Bello...em41486ae513Lower quality but serviceable bellows like this are always available, and for most camera mounts: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vivitar-Bel...em4aaec58315A Vivitar Lens like this one will give you superb macro images: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vivitar-Ana...em2c5ec9af62You may need to buy adapters to mate the lens to bellows. I recommend buying the bellows to match your camera, then adapt the lens to bellows. Most of the enlarger lenses are M39 thread, and adapters are available for various camera makes. Here's an example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/M39-Screw-L...em336c0feedbAn advantage to this type of system is you can leave it attached to your copy stand or tripod, set up for whatever coin size you tend to photograph, and remove the camera from it for other purposes. When you come back, just mount the camera and shoot. Another nice thing about the bellows setup is you can get a much higher magnification than from almost any dedicated macro lens. There are some dedicated macros, such as the Canon MPE-65, that go up to 5:1, but they cost $900 or so. Buy a bellows and two lenses, a 50mm and 105mm, and you can cover from 5:1 to 1:4 for less than $100. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1549 Posts |
I agreed with everything rmpsrpms had to say above until he mentioned the Canon MPE-65 lens which is an absolutely great lens for what it does but many people fail to realize it has a huge limitation when it comes to coins. The 65 is a super macro giving (without accessories) 1:1 to 5:1 reproductions. Used on a full sensor Canon 5D body that means it can full the frame with a coin between about 24mm and 5mm diameter. On most Canons (including all the consumer models) the sensor is only 14.9mm across so the range of coins that fits falls to 14mm to a bit under 3mm. My smallest coin is 5mm diameter so the lens would be great for it but most of us will be limited to shooting parts or details with this lens. $900 is a lot for a lens that will not shoot 90% of the coins in a collection. More normal Canon macros (I have the 100mm) may still be overkill but at least allow the option of shooting a whole coin. The same thing comes into play when you use a bellows. Lenses like the 75mm linked above will be able to fill the frame with a normal coin but shorter lenses can need less extension than available on some bellows unless you (like me) do collect super small Greek silver coins.  Bellows are wonderful for what they do but don't assume they are what you want for your silver dollar images. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
Nice image of those small silver ancients! What equipment did you use?
I agree with your point about the MPE65. The 1:1 limitation makes it unworkable for full-range coin photography. But bellows are not so limited as you describe. It's true that if you choose a short lens, 50mm or shorter, you will generally not be able to shoot dollars. But if your lens is long enough that the minimum bellows extension allows low enough magnification, then dollars can be imaged full-field on APS-C sensors. A 75mm lens is generally long enough to image dollars for most bellows I've tried, yet short enough to do dimes or smaller. If you want to do Crown size coins or medals, you will probably want a 105mm or even a 120mm or 135mm for really big medals. My suggestion to get two lenses, short and long, was to allow full range coverage.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1549 Posts |
That image and most of my images was taken with a Canon 300D and a 100mm Canon macro lens. My series of web pages on coin photography show a progression of equipment choices but I reshot the whole collecting a couple years ago so most of the old images have been deleted (except those used to illustrate the pages or that got posted to one of the online groups I frequent). While I agree that simple equipment can make good images for a lot less money, once you own a good lens you may as well use it and it is a lot easier to shoot with a lens that has full diaphragm automation and autofocus. For smaller coins, I add extension tubes to the 100mm and have even tried a few with a 1.4x extender which allows being a bit farther back allowing greater freedom in arranging lighting. IMHO many problems people have with coin photos can be traced to having to be too close to the coin and lighting to avoid a shadow from the camera hitting the coin. While it is true that you can get good photos with cheap equipment properly used, you can get still better with better equipment properly used. You will never see any difference when using the small files allowed by coincommunity.com but the difference shows up if you are making poster sized prints so it is easiest to shoot everything at full quality and make reductions for whatever uses you wish. I don't have a full size image on my site from my current rig but there is one with a small section of the face at full size attached to a reduction: http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/image/129530665When I want a very small section of a coin I have used the bellows and an old 50mm lens but discover it really adds little to the quality I get just cropping from an image as close as I can get using the 100mm on tubes. I also (rarely) shoot through a 1920's vintage microscope but am not terribly sure that is worth the effort either: http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/image/132290945What I showed on that last photo was that it is not always easy to find a cent with VDB in the new location that is sharp enough to photograph. I made that image for a slide show on coin photography for a group that did not collect ancients so I made some images using US coins. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
I've written before about how coin shots from Canons are often so "easy to look at", and your "little ancients" image falls into that camp. While my Nikon shots look good, Canon seems to give such a crispness to the image that I am often jealous. SuperDave thinks it may just be a superior jpg engine in the Canons, and I think it may also be the EFSC shutter operation. Maybe someday I'll buy or rent one and see if I get that same crispness with my shots. I'm actually waiting for the rumored mirror-less / interchangeable lens Nikons to arrive. They were supposed to be released Aug 24 but apparently the rumors were incorrect... I fully agree that better equipment will give better results with good technique. My last year has been an odyssey of lens testing to find the best coin lens for shooting Lincoln Cents, my collecting passion. I've tried virtually everything I could find that would fit or that I could adapt to fit onto Nikon, including many exotics: Micro-Nikkor; Macro-Nikkor; Zeiss S-Planar; Repro-Nikkor; Printing-Nikkor; Apo Rodagon D; Apo EL-Nikkor; Apo Componon HM; etc. In the end, I found that only Apochromatic lenses gave me enough detail at 1:1 to be able to take a single image of a Lincoln Cent and trust that I could look into the small details later and have a satisfactory identification of varieties, surfaces, and color. But most of the folks on this forum (or anywhere!) will be hard to convince to spend $2500 on an Apo EL-Nikkor or Printing-Nikkor in order to take coin photos. They will also be hard to convince to spend $500+ on a Canon 100mm Macro. But in all the testing I've done, I've found that once you learn how to use them properly, the actual difference between a 105mm Printing-Nikkor and, say a 105mm Vivitar LU is pretty small. The Canon 100mm lies somewhere between the two, but again it's hard to tell the difference with proper setups and technique... and the Vivitar will set you back less than 1/50 the Apo lenses, and 1/10 the Canon! |
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Replies: 91 / Views: 14,611 |
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Posted 09/13/2011 2:58 pm
