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 Replies: 16 / Views: 6,762 |
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Valued Member
United States
173 Posts |
I like the PCGS box idea. I made a "stand" that is the perfect height for my iPhone camera to focus on the coin.
Have you played around with the lighting? Is your issue more on focusing or too dark or too bright?
Edited by Ross Son
01/25/2017 1:55 pm
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2784 Posts |
DominikWSP list what you are using to take your photos. upload a couple of pictures. we can go from there.the forum is a great place to get help.
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Moderator
 United States
56855 Posts |
 to CCF. Please let us know what type of camera and lighting you are using. John1  |
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Valued Member
 Belgium
186 Posts |
OK, sure, I will post my pictures tomorrow (right now it is 10:40 pm here in Belgium).
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Pillar of the Community
United States
870 Posts |
Lighting really is everything. This is the setup I recently started using. Black felt background, dowels to raise subject off of the background, black PVC to keep light off of the background field, cheap copy stand, cheap photo lights. I backlight the wall behind for shots of proofs and other highly reflective coins. For many other coins direct lighting works good.  The results are pretty good. Now I just have to re shoot all my older ones LOL!  |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
1273 Posts |
Marti, those shots are good and I like your setup, its similar to mine. Except, how did you make the black PVC tube? Also, do you shine your lights directly down onto the coin ontop of the doweling? Or pointed at the wall do they reflect somehow?
Also, Dominik, taking photos of coins really is about the lighting and the steadiness of the camera. Even if you have the camera on the sturdiest of copy stands, and you manually press the shutter button, it still creates a TINY blur, so its best to hook software up on your computer to manually control the shutter button from your PC, therefore eliminating any minute shakings of the camera. Another tip, to fill up the huge pixel display that cameras now shoot, it is best to have the coin fill up most of the viewfinder, but you have to get quite close without a long lens and therefore the camera will not be able to get much light in and that = bad pictures. If you can get the camera further away, purchase a longer lens 55mm-105mm, then the coin can still fill up the viewfinder with the added zoom of the lens. But, all in all, its ALOT of trial and error :D
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Pillar of the Community
United States
870 Posts |
Toby, in the picture above, the lights are pointed at the wall. It makes a HUGE difference for proofs and other really reflective coins. The settings I programmed for my coin setting will adjust the shutter speed for different light conditions. Also, of course using a shutter timer is key. The black PVC tube was simply purchased at home depot in the plumbing department as is. No modifications. Underneath the felt is a piece of wood with a nail through it that is glued tight, and the dowels have holes drilled in them to slide onto the nail. For other coins, not so reflective like the one below, direct lighting works fine.  Edit: this Galba image has now been replaced with a back lit shot. Edited by MartiVltori
01/29/2017 10:24 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
870 Posts |
The thing I like about the pvc tube is it makes everything around the coin completely black. I dont have to photoshop the field around the coin after. These shots above have had no modification in photoshop at all other than cut/paste and cropping.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
870 Posts |
For me, using direct lighting on proofs always would result in reflections in the field and grainy features on the cameos like below: Compare this photo with the 2016 proof set above. same setup but the only difference is backlighting the wall.  Edit: Guess I can post them side by side here. Below is with backlighting. Edited by MartiVltori
01/29/2017 3:22 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
1273 Posts |
Ah I see, thanks for that. The first photo of the proofs is definitely better. Much clearer. In fact, you can't even see the hair on the top left Quarter Dollar in the second photo. Well I'm going to get me some of that tubing, because your Roman coin photo looks fantastic. I've got tiny little corks that I use to balance coins on, but I'm going to steal your ingenuity if you don't mind, and go look for some doweling :P
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Pillar of the Community
United States
870 Posts |
Nice hope you have good luck with it. the pipe is 4 inches high and the dowel is 2.5 inches high so the subject is below the top of the tube. Seems to work best.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
870 Posts |
I just did some experimenting and shot some non proofs using the back lighting off the wall. I must say I think it works better in almost all circumstances. I re-shot my whole 12 Caesars gallery using that technique instead of direct lighting and they all turned out much better. I think I will be using this lighting for all my shots now. Here is one of them.  Also note that the Galba image I posted above has been replaced with a back-lit shot, so if you are seeing this for the first time or have cleared your browser cache, you are no longer looking at a directly lit image. Edited by MartiVltori
01/29/2017 10:25 pm
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New Member
United States
12 Posts |
Wow, going to try out this technique. what kind of lights are you using?
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Moderator
United States
56855 Posts |
MartiVltori, Are you using the term "backlighting" properly? I think that would be "indirect" or "reflected" lighting? Your photos using the light reflected off the wall make your coin photos look great. John1 |
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Moderator
United States
54283 Posts |
Is the dowel a smaller diameter than the coin?
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Replies: 16 / Views: 6,762 |
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First Page
Posted 01/25/2017 3:43 pm
