A Phone, A Light, Some Books, And A Bottle Cap For Good Coin Pictures

I don't drink milk anymore. . I know, poor excuse, but am keeping my eye out for anything like it that crosses the threshold into the house.

Thanks, mestephil.

Same here, mestephil - not for decades. But gallon water jugs are also opaque, and you can get one for about a buck and it comes with a free gallon of water.

Please do keep us updated, I like your results. I still cannot get over how good that £2 coin came out in the pics. Even though I prefer his mother, the picture you took almost makes me want one of those!

When using the ring light how do you deal with external light sources, such as the ceiling light in the room you are in?

When photographing coins I can never get rid of glare, especially on proof coins.

Good advice from John1.

Also, I have taken some kleenex or paper towel and made a ring of it that attaches to the bottom of the ring light. A ring cut from milk carton would likely work as well (maybe better). That way the LED's are diffused. And yes, turn off the light in the room!

Another thing I have found works well is when the sun is high in the sky, use light coming in the window. The light comes in and hits my kitchen sink area in the morning. The original photo shown at the start of this thread is sitting on my kitchen sink countertop. That is what I like about this setup as well. It can be anywhere and takes so little to set it up. It was overcast fo that picture, but sometimes I just use the sun hitting the countertop.

As far as proofs go...I have not done enough to have a set method, but the ones I have done were taken by just fiddling around with diffusing light etc. with the setup shown at the start. Get creative

I picked up an inexpensive foldable LED ring light studio box.
Shot from above, on my back deck, under a canopy

Shot from above, in the LED box:

I didn't do any editing via the phone or pixlr before uploading the medal to the CCF.
The difference was all in the lighting