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 Replies: 20 / Views: 4,651 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
Finding the "sweet spot" is alot harder than you guys make it look like;   |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
627 Posts |
What's your camera setup again? The white balance seems a little off. If you have a custom WB setting on your camera try using a white piece of paper with the Jansjos as lighting to set that. After that, retake the photo and see if the color is a bit better. Also, are you using 3 of the lights? Try just using two positioned at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. That will help add a bit more shadows to the coin and give you some contrast.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9792 Posts |
Yep right on about the white balance. looks a bit off, as I'm sure that 20¢ piece is a lot nicer in hand the the photos make it out to be!
"Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector. See my want page: http://goccf.com/t/140440 |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
7840 Posts |
I am using two of the lamps at 10 and 2 o'clock, about six inches away. The camera is probably my weakness; Samsung Digimax S500, AUTO setting, Macro enabled, flash off, 5m size image (2560 x 1920), normal (instead of fine or super fine (pixel or grain size?)) quality.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4038 Posts |
You mention only 2 of the 3 dimensions of light positions. They are:
Clock position. This describes the angle relative to the coin face. You are doing OK at 10 and 2, though ultimately this may need fine tuning to minimize glare and optimize shadow detail
Distance from coin. This describes the effective "size" of the source and relative brightness. Again, you're doing OK here, though I'd personally prefer 4-5" instead of 6" for 20c.
Angle of incidence. This describes the angle the light makes with the surface of the coin. You don't mention this but it's here that I think you have room to improve. Your lights are coming in "too low". I make this conclusion because the edges of devices are lit up rather than the surfaces. You need to bring the lights up higher, closer to the lens. Best results are when the lights are as high as you can get them.
How far is the front of your Digimax lens from the coin for these shots?
Did you crop these or down-size them for publishing?
Why would you use anything other than the highest jpeg quality settings for your pictures? Don't you care to get best quality you can get from your camera?
Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
(trying to answer these questions from work without the camera in front of me) - I have the camera on "AUTO" I am not sure on the distance from the coin surface other than that is the closest it will "focus" on the coin. I will look into that. - Angle of the light would be approx 45 degrees, a couple of inches away from the lens (can be moved closer in). - Yes, I do crop the images down from larger images to enlarge the area (size is normally around 400 to 500) - I will max out the quality to super fine. I used to load these images directly to CCF using their image resizer to keep them under 100K, now I use photobucket, file size should not be an issue. Thanks for the pointers! My lighting is my greatest weakness! Here is the same Twenty Cent Piece using the overhead lighting (low-tech ceiling fan lighing (pre-Jansjo)) to my back and over the shoulder, which I think look a whole lot better;   I have three (one going back to GSC and one going up for sale) Twenty Cent Pieces and this on is my hands down favorite; Dropped Digit in Denticles, S over S Mint Mark, rotated die, and the overall color & condition. Edited by oih82w8
02/08/2012 10:09 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
In your first post you said the light was 6" from coin, but in 2nd post you said it's just a couple inches away and at 45 degrees. From the look of the first shots, I think the couple inches sounds right, and 45 deg is too low. Try moving it up to 4-5 inches away, and as high an angle as you can get...Ray
Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
I am going on memory from work ( objects are closer than they appear). I will work on the distance/angle technique, along with the other mentioned items alter tonight when I get home.  Edited by oih82w8
02/08/2012 1:42 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8516 Posts |
Wow, that doesn't even look like the same coin. I love these types of threads, good stuff.
Oregon coin geek.....*** GO BEAVS ! ! ! ***
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
14454 Posts |
I have never gotten good results with automatic WB, it always looks better with a custom wb setting. That is the one flaw I had with the sony camera I tried to use, it only had some factory settings and none of them really worked well for coins with my setup
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
I get excellent results using the "Tungsten A1" setting on my Nikon to balance the Jansjos. If I do a careful custom WB, then toggle between the custom vs TN-A1, I can hardly tell the difference...Ray
Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
I tried the Jansjo closer to the (different) coin and Super Fine resolution;  I tried the Jansjo closer to the lens and Super Fine resolution;  I don't know if I can adjust the WB (white balance?) on my camera, but it is getting frustrating. Patience (with my screen name?) is the key to achieve "balance". The same coin with the ceiling fan light behind and over my shoulder (which I may revert back to);  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
627 Posts |
Your camera manual says it has custom white balance. You can find the manual here: http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/c...S600_ENG.pdfLook on pages 29 and 30 of the manual and it will tell you how to set the custom WB. You will need a sheet of white paper. You set the mode to Custom WB and the use the white piece of paper and the SAME lights as what you are using to shoot your coins (with other lights in the room off). This will set your white balance to a specific value to your Jansjo lights. THEN, mount your camera on a copy stand or tripod. Adjust the jansjo lamps to be close to the lens and high. That 2nd picture you took above with the lights closer to the lens and with superfine resolution looks pretty good to my eye, but the lights looked diffused. Are you diffusing them or just shining them directly on the coin? Please don't go back to your ceiling fan lights!  Keep trying...you're steadily improving. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
Thanks for "schooling" brg5658. Gotta turn the ceiling fan lights off when using the Jansjos. No diffusing (I saw a thread with some "homemade" diffusers). More homework to do! Thanks! Edited by oih82w8
02/09/2012 12:07 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
Moving back to the Twenty Cent Piece, after White Balance adjustment (thanks brg5658 for the link)  (overhead ceiling fan light & Jansjo);     I am about ready to kick these Jansjo lamps to the curb  This may be one of those "good enough" type things I keep hearing about. Edited by oih82w8
02/10/2012 10:39 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
Your lights are too close to the coin and at too low an angle. The overhead ceiling light you are referring to is (I assume) many feet away and at a high angle to the coin. If that's the look you're going for (and it looks pretty good), you should try to approximate this with the Jansjo's as much as possible.
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Replies: 20 / Views: 4,651 |
Posted 02/08/2012 02:41 am
