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Pillar of the Community
United States
2254 Posts |
quote:
You have special equipment I take? Need to find a newbie's guide to coin photography.
Madmartigan, yes, Dave has some serious equipment when it comes to the camera itself, so comparing his pics at maximum pixels to someones basic digital camera would be tough. But, and this is a BIG BUT, you can absolutely take quality photos with an relatively inexpensive digital camera. Most cameras have the capability, it's a matter of finding the perfect lighting, distance from the coin, manual settings is offered etc. In my honest opinion it is more an effort of time/experimentation than it is equipment for 75% of the cases. Have a look at the coin photography forum and peruse the subjects. Keep in mind some topics pass by quickly so you may have to go back a few pages to even see topics from a week ago. Then take some pics and post and we will help for sure!! |
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Moderator
  United States
23522 Posts |
quote:
There must have been quite a response to your offer of handling this grading submission.
24 coins, evenly mixed between copper, circulated and lustrous silver. Each requiring their own specific lighting. I feel like I have a corner on the Two Cent market.  When I add up the setup time, shooting pics, and then time in the graphics software, I'll have more than an hour in each coin. Most of that is in the Gimp. I take the best two shots of each face and crop away the extra background. Then I sharpen and color-correct each (my white balance settings aren't as perfect as I'd like), saving intermediate copies along the way. Each of these has to be done with the coin at hand, so I can compare the screen results with reality. For some of them, there are detail shots to highlight die cracks or repunches, each requiring their own processing. Then I create posting images of each, downsized and downsampled to be Internet-friendly. The originals for each coin run 2200+ pixels in diameter, and over 3MB. I spent most of one evening just with the quarter, and I'm nowheres near satisfied with my results. |
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Member
United States
703 Posts |
Dave, and you are charging how much per coin for the photography? Hours of and hours of WORK.
oh yea. photographers are artists and shouldn't be paid.
errrorrorrrr
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
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Dave, and you are charging how much per coin for the photography?
These are a grading submission; the pics are part of the deal. On a commission basis, I would probably handle things on a case-by-case basis depending on the relative difficulty of the job and the value of the coin. |
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Member
United States
703 Posts |
"These are a grading submission; the pics are part of the deal"
15 man hours at what per hour got you how much?
My point is that What you are doing is giving an extremely great service for not very much compensation is what I'm guessing. I know you are doing as a service, and I know you love doing it. But what you are doing is very specialized, you spend lots of money on photo gear and the computer. You have a skill and you should be paid well for that. As a Master photographer, I think I get about 50 cents an Hour. Get it!
errrror
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1267 Posts |
Beautiful photography. Did you use PhotoShop or some other type of photo manipulative software?
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
quote:
Beautiful photography. Did you use PhotoShop or some other type of photo manipulative software?
I've abandoned Photoshop in favor of the Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program), a free image editing program. It's very powerful software, and is (in my opinion) far more subtle and controllable than Photoshop in the areas of sharpening and levels/contrast. Part of the excessive time spent with this project has been due to my learning curve with the new software. http://www.gimp.org/Errorcoins, in reply (as well as for the information for anyone else reading), this is not something I'd do for free under any circumstances but this one. I fully intend to take these skills public once they're better-developed (no pun intended), and it won't be free by any stretch. Consider, as I do, that what I'm doing now is the formation of my online resume. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1267 Posts |
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Member
United States
703 Posts |
Dave, Understood and good luck with it. Your skill certainly has value. Dave in the future. you could also get "property rights" releases signed, shoot high rez files and build a stock of editorial content. High Rez is the key on that one.
Anyway, as you know great photography takes quite a bit of "time".
All the best, error
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Member
United States
703 Posts |
Dave, I only use Photoshop, a very powerful tool. I almost never sharpen any of my files as my clients prefer to do that themselves. Sharpening can destroy an image.
I do use Aperture for importing and cataloging. Sometimes I make minor adjustments in Aperture before importing them into Photoshop.
Enjoy, errrorrrr
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Errorcoins, sharpening was one of the reasons why I abandoned Photoshop. Just for the heck of it, download the Gimp and see what its' sharpening filter can do. The Gimp Sharpen at 50% is more subtle than Photoshop at 10%, and I haven't even played with its' Unsharp Mask yet. Haven't needed to. A consideration, though, must be the size of the images I'm working with. At 2000+dpi (which I can achieve with the 100mm Macro), a one-pixel adjustment is pretty subtle. Even so, the Gimp's Sharpen filter is an order of magnitude better than Photoshop's with images of this size. |
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Member
United States
703 Posts |
Dave, when I do sharpen for printing, I only use the unsharp mask. It works great for printing or Internet viewing. But when you go down to the pixel level, you really can see some destruction. As you know, my files are huge about 48 megs, a ton of information there and I don't want to hurt it. My clients can do with the image whatever they want. I offer them a perfect high rez unsharpened image that actual appears sharp without any sharpening.
I have never tried Gimp so I can't comment on that product. I know your end users here need a shrpen product so use whatever works best for you.
errrror
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
I forgot about the size of your pics. Heck, I bet one of your images would bring my rig to its' knees. |
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Member
United States
703 Posts |
Dave, I shot with a 4x5 view camera and 4x5 film and only 4x5 film for about 30 years. When I finally went "digital", I had to have the "Best" for my subject matter and clients, thus the 1dsMII.
I have had it for a little over a year now and have shot about 30,000 images. I have not shot any film in about a year and a half.
Wild times.
errrror
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2443 Posts |
Wow, GREAT pics Dave (as always).
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Replies: 21 / Views: 2,413 |
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Posted 08/18/2007 08:02 am
