WLH Photos - First Attempt At Photographing A Coin

Sorry I haven't had the chance to get back to you yet. Set the 100 at f/8 and leave it there, for starters; the lens is sweet at that aperture. Vary only ISO and exposure to get your desired results. Orient your lighting at 10:00 or 2:00 for one light (single not recommended), 10 and 2 for two lights. Keep them as close to the lens, pointing vertically downaward at the coin, as possible. This is of increasing importance as luster becomes more prominent, and your WLH suffered slightly for lack of the above recommendations. more on that later. Consider getting a third for play purposes; I had some fun a while back with the 10-and-2 lights at a little greater angle than usual and a third light pointing downward at the date (a place which usually suffers from 10 and 2 lighting). I try to use lights as close to a point source as possible; this is best for luster and it's a lot easier to diffuse a point source than it is to collate a dispersed light.

The lowball is a tough proposition for you as a photographer. Little chance at contrast due to the lack of details; large surfaces to catch and reflect light. The technical merits of focus and sharpness are all there, of course, but I think you're a tad overexposed. I think it a candidate (possibly) for a single, diffused light. For coins this worn you might experiment with two lights at a rather lower angle, to enhance contrast by creating a bit of shadow from what devices remain.

Note my frequent recommendations for experimentation. You now have all the technical hardware to shoot images as good as anyone on the forum; you're into territory where your own subjective likes and dislikes of how a coin should look in images has relevance. Whatever you do (within reason) is going to come out a sharply-focused, gradable coin. So amuse yourself as regards final "look," and experiment to see what works for you personally.

The WLH is (to me) a little underexposed. I honestly like your original image from the previous page a little better. This one suffers a bit from the light having been placed at 7:00; it's a tad odd to someone like me used to the near-universal convention of "10 and 2." All the same, a little more exposure is in order, understanding that you have to hold short of washing out the top edge of the wing and eagle's head.

Taken as a pair, pretty good proof that it's difficult to screw up a coin shot with a Canon 100mm Macro.

Ok, after taking your suggestions I shot this one of the 1917 at 100, f8, 1600. I don't know if it is normal but I can only choose film speed of 800 or 1600, nothing in between. I know back in the film days that was the case but I thought with digital you would be able to select something in the middle. It is hard to leave the one at 100 and stay at f8 and only choose between 800 or 1600.

Lighting is still a challenge that I will need to overcome. I think this one looks better but would be interested to know what others think. There is still a little too much light on the wing. I did not edit this photo.



Here is a 1942 that I took as well. The obverse is proving to be a challenge with a lot of detail in both directions. It is tough to get Liberty's face completely lit and not get too much light on the rest. How does this one look? Thanks again for the help.

Are you running the camera in Manual mode? The XSi has a full range of ISO choices - 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600. You should be shooting no faster than 400, although I found the XSi still quite usable up to 1600. 1/100 @ f/8, ISO1600 indicates relatively dim light; with (for instance) two Jansjos, 1/100 @ f/8 would be ISO 400, assuming the coin is an AU retaining some luster.

The images themselves are quite nice, the 1917 especially. Consider hosting elsewhere - Photobucket or the like - as CCF's Optimizer is rendering the images a little smaller than optimal. I generally use an arbitrary 800 pixels as a posting size. Ray (rmpsrpms) is a fan of a geometric downsizing process, going exactly one-half or one-quarter of original size. You should be able to pretty much fill the sensor of an XSI with a WLH, giving you the coin itself a diameter of 2500+ pixels before downsizing.

Settings:

Shooting Mode - Manual
Image Size: L + Fine
Metering Mode: Spot
Picture Style - Neutral

Are you shooting tethered to the computer using Zoom Browser?

Spot will be a dot with a broken, rectangular bracket around it. I think the Picture Style setting is only available in-camera. The only reason for the Picture Style setting is that you want to minimize the processing done in-camera, getting as close to exactly what the camera's sensor sees as output. Whatever postprocessing you might want to do to any given image is going to be of much higher quality done on your computer with bespoke software, a lot more sophisticated than the camera's small CPU and limited software capability.

Once you're comfortable and happy with all this, we'll start talking about shooting RAW.

No, that's White Balance, which I haven't touched on because you seem to have it OK as-is. Like I said, Picture Style is an in-camera adjustment. You won't see it in Zoom Browser.

Ok. New coin and some new settings. I'm going to try this 1939 S WLH. How does this look? I took your advice and converted it to 800 and lowered the quality to 30.