Photography Experiment With Axial Setup, Indirect And Direct Sunlight.

I like the bottom one the best.
John1

Same, well done.

Yes, last image by a nose. Nice work!

I agree as well.

I believe it is about as good as you can get.

Grading from photos will never compare to having the coin in hand, which is why I seldom offer an opinion in the grading forums.

Unfortunately, some people are always going to complain. Prime example—TrueView photos are great for technical grading, but everyone hates their representation for eye appeal. Which I have to admit is more important to me for me than the technical grade.

What I tend to see in photos is a tradeoff. One can optimize the photo to represent eye appeal only to lose technical details, and vice versa. Picking the right balance is going to be subjective, I think.

A good choice.


It is my understanding that the lighting required for obtaining accurate details at that resolution results in a photo that does not represent typical in-hand eye appeal (be it good or bad).

My current inclination is towards a cheap setup. My mini-box is LEGO, and my macro lens cost $9. My light source is sunlight or a $7 daylight bulb from the hardware store.

If I continue wandering down the path towards a little sole proprietor coin shop, then maybe the cost of a more impressive setup would be justified. All things considered, I would probably purchase a solid microscope first, to show all the coin details.

Jbuck, I would agree that TrueView seems to produce a very washed out effect compared to the coins in-hand. It has, however, helped me to steer clear of a few coins with tiny verdigris spots on ebay. And I really do value the full coin images of varieties, since the catalogs tend to zoom in so far that you can't get a sense of feature size or what the coin would look like when cherry-picking.

I'm not surprised folks complain about axial lighting for grading. Axial produces very little shadow detail except on the sides of the device features. It also produces no luster, which is a huge factor in a coin's grade. Axial lighting is good for showing a coin's design very clearly, which is why it is favored for ancient coins with lots of interesting features, high relief medals, etc. Grade is secondary to showing the design in these cases.

For grading US coins, where grade is so dependent on luster, lighting from a lower angle, and specific directions, is needed. The lower angle excites the luster, while the directions define where the luster is presented.

Lighting for varieties is similar to grading except the specific direction of the light is varied in order to cast shadows that make the variety details more visible.