New At Photography, Request Guidance....

This is a great thread! Lots of fun and interesting stuff.

My RSD setup is really just a pair of Jansjo LED lights with what I call Directors: a combination of diffusers and reflectors. These Directors create a "strip" of light about 1-1/2" long and 1/4" wide, sort of like a very small fluorescent bulb. The directors are reflective everywhere inside their (taped-together) structure except where the light exits (exit aperture), where they have a piece of translucent, thick vellum. On the surface that faces the coin, they have a piece of flat black paper to keep any stray light from hitting the lens and causing flare. The "wall" of this black paper is vertical so that I can get the lights as close as possible to vertical from the coin with the exit aperture. They are glued together, then taped in place on the LED head.

Here are some pictures from different angles, plus a picture of both in action. Note the angle of approx 10:00 and 2:00, but in this case the lights are distributed over a much wider clock angle of 12:00 to 4:00 and 12:00 to 8:00 but at different angles to the coin. This seems to make a very pleasing combo of direct and diffuse lighting, and elimination of hotspots.

I got to thinking that my RSD Directors would be hard to reproduce, so I figured out a way to make them that is much easier and gives an excellent result. Here are the instructions:

Raw Materials
- White index card
- Thick artist vellum stock
- Black card stock
- Scissors, glue, toothpick, scotch tape

Instructions:
- Roll index card into tube so that it fits snugly around the Jansjo LED; tape the seams
- Cut vellum into a strip 2" long and 5/8" wide
- Bend vellum strip into a "U" shape with 1/4" sides and 1/8" bottom
- Squeeze card tube on one end and press-fit vellum you into end of tube
- Use toothpick to apply glue between vellum and index card and glue both sides into place
- Cut black card stock to 2"x3"
- Glue 2" edge of black card stock to end of tube where it joins the vellum
- Tape side edges of black card stock to the tube
- Install onto Jansjo LED head

Here is a picture of the finished Director:



And here are two of them configured to photograph my 57-D Toned Lincoln Cent:



The Director really creates a diffused light source 2" long and 1/8" wide out of the Jansjo LED. Its shape, and the black paper "blocker" allow you to position it at as high an angle as possible without actually blocking the view of the coin. The shape then distributes the angle of incidence over a fairly wide range, and this eliminates hotspots.

Here's the resulting picture of the 57-D Toned Lincoln Cent:



You can see a small amount of vignetting due to the Directors being positioned within the field of view of the coin.

This was taken with a 75mm f/4.0 Rodenstock Apo-Rodagon D M=1 Macro Bellows Lens ("75ARD") with no post-processing. There is plenty of distance between the lens and coin for these "creative" lighting arrangements!

Yes, the 75ARD is crazy sharp.

Here's the same image but at 50% reduction instead of 25%:

Yes, it is there but outside the area taken up by a coin. I'm a bit freaked out about cleaning it myself. I'll probably take it in to have it cleaned. Camera actually has quite a few specs in there and they don't come off with a blower or ultrasonic. I think they are bits of oil and that makes me very worried about cleaning them. I have no issue cleaning lenses but the camera filter glass is another story.

I want to attempt to construct your RSD Directors, rmpsrmps. Under the instructions line 4, is there a misprint? "and press-fit vellum you into end of tube". Should that read "you cut into end of tube"? And where did you get your supplies, specifically the vellum? Thanks.

I have my supplies ready. If you wouldn't mind, could you show some pictures of the Director from some other angles? I think that would help in the assembly. Thanks.

Is there a gap because the vellum does not go all the way into the hole, or is the gap on the ends between the vellum and the card? It's pretty critical that the vellum pieces be just the right length to fit into the hole with a nice press-fit. You will probably either need to cut the vellum down or make new pieces that are a bit larger if you want a perfect fit. I also found it helpful to press the vellum into place, and then remove it and make creases in the card stock where the vellum hits the tube. In the end, any gap you can't get rid of can be closed-off with small pieces of black card stock glued into place.