First Attempt At Axial Lighting

The highest overall transmission you can get with a single glass sheet is 25%, using 50% glass. Less reflection means less light to the coin, so extraneous sources are more intrusive. The extraneous sources also transmit more from coin to sensor, a double-whammy!. Less reflection also means more light passing to the back of the setup that has to be dealt with.

All that said, regular glass can work fine as long as it's fairly high quality.

A huge caveat here...all the times I've set up axial lighting, I've tried for the "most axial" I could achieve, and have every time been disappointed. "Pure" axial lighting creates very high contrast and extreme shadowing on any surfaces that are not reflecting back to the sensor. Here is a Cent photo I took with an axial setup, compared with a 2-source 75-deg setup:




Notice the 75-deg setup doesn't present much luster, but the axial setup produces virtually none. This is because the "luster" we're used to seeing is a contrast between direct reflection and absorption off the local metal surfaces, and needs to be localized to normal to us. Luster is actually present in these images, but is spread fairly evenly over the 75-deg setup, and perfectly evenly over the axial setup, so it doesn't look like luster.

Also notice that the axial setup "hides" a lot of surface finish detail. It takes side-lighting to create the shadows that delineate surface details, and axial by definition does not provide this.

Most folks who are successful with axial lighting are actually not doing axial lighting! They have axial setups, but use large or multiple lights to create a variable lighting system that includes axial content to bring out the color presentation only axial can produce as a part of the overall image.

You, sir, are hooked! Welcome to the club...Ray

Here is my very first attempt at axial lighting. I am using regular glass I stole from one of the pictures on my wall
Tell me what you think please!!

You got me. Yes there was other lighting involved...the room lighting was on

Here I was so proud of myself

For the Cent, the lighting DOES look biased from the right. I guess that the additional ambient room lighting is responsible.
Whatever the case, the result is a good one.

For the Morgan, there seems to be a slight bias in the lighting from above. I guess additional ambient room lighting again.
Another very good result that brings out the rainbow toning. The colour temperature is right.

I have my set up in my office in the basement, its not a bright room and has no window. I did try a comparison shot with the room light off and it did not seem to make a difference in the picture so I just left them on. I used a desk lamp for the main light shinning horizontally toward the glass and finally I used one jansjo light from above that is heavily diffused. I understand now that this isn't true axial lighting but I love the out come. I have struggled to find the right lighting for pennies and until now I have pretty much failed. I've taken several photos now using this method not just of pennies but nickels, quarters etc and have found it to be my favorite. Especially for pennies, this seems to have provided me with the best rendition and trueness...with a little twikking, I think this will be my go to lighting method for most of my pictures. PLUS I have found you can go from one coin to another with little or no lighting adjustment and other than cropping, little to no editing, the coins I posted have no editing.

Again, not true axial lighting but thanks to you guys and this thread, I stumbled onto a great lighting method.

Thanks SD...that means a lot coming from you

I love how it can really show the "grain" of a coin




Sorry...don't mean to hi jack the thread...just thought Id share