Advice On Taking Pictures Of Lustrous Coins.

That's not bad at all for your first experimentation; kinda proves the inherent worth of a big, accurate sensor, eh?

You're running into the dichotomy between successfully depicting luster, and getting detail that isn't washed out. It's as much a subjective thing as an objective one because there's no "universal truth" about what a good-looking coin image is. As you apply varying levels of diffusion to the lighting, detail will improve at the cost of apparent luster, but it's subject to the experience of the viewer of the image as well. I can imply luster on a diffused image pretty easily, but that's because I've looked at thousands upon thousands of coin images and shot a bazillion of my own. Frankly, I'm leaning towards using diffusion on all imagery of lustrous coins save high-magnification details, where I used to be a big fan of direct lighting.

For best evaluation of your images, crop to just the coin itself so you can show it as large as possible here. If that size exceeds about 1000-ish pixels in diameter - a good thing - reduce to that size limit out of respect to monitor size and bandwidth. That's plenty large enough to form objective opinions of your technique and results.

The range between f/5.6 - f/8 is in the vast majority of cases the best compromise between lens sharpness and depth of field. Only the very most expensive of lenses are equally sharp at wider apertures (lower numerically) as stopped down a bit, and at narrower apertures one runs into the diffraction limit and you lose sharpness there. As a simplification, I advise to leave the aperture at f/8 and worry about other stuff.

Quality closeup filters work. Extension tubes also work, more cheaply. The compromise between those and the bellows arrangements we're so high on around here is variability - you're stuck to a specific magnification with an addon lens or tube, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It's a point that needs to be emphasized - we push bellows setups because of their wider range of capability, not because of any inherent optical advantage.

Thanks for the advice. Just out of curiousity I tried my 70-200mm f2.8 to see how it worked. I did have to be a lot farther from the coin, which I think did help with light angle. I still shoot at f8 and used the same extremly cheep tripod, this one http://www.amazon.com/Targus-8-Sect...p/B001AK04VY so it wasn't the most stable, and that is why the focus is off. I think I had the focus right, these might be better then the other ones because they are not as washed out I don't think.




I also did a 1-1 crop this time to get more of the coin. Changed photo to better ones. Them being out of focus really bad, really bothered me. I know they are still a bit off.

Also. cropping the first set of pics, I think makes them look a lot better

My experience with |Tripods is different to SuperDaves. the problem with tripods can be external sources of vibration which the tripod ( especially if its a cheap one will magnify) the sources of vibration I am talking about a things like a truck driving past the house or some one walking past the tripod when the photo is being taken. If you are in a two story house using a Tripod upstairs is going to make the problem worse. If you are going to stay with a tripod there are some things you can do to assist. 1: if your tripod allows it mount your camera under the apex( usually cameras mount on top of the apex) this changes the center of gravity and makes the set up more stable. failing that; 2: Fill a 2 liter plastic bottle with water seal it well and then suspend it between the legs of the tripod. It gives needed extra weight and acts as a shock-absorber.

One more tidbit...I assume you're using Live View to take the shots, correct? If you're doing TTL, you will suffer from "MirrorSlap" that will cause vibration and fuzziness in the shot. When you use Live View, the mirror is up for the shot, and only slaps down (and back up) between shots. You will still suffer from "ShutterShake" but SS is much less objectionable than MS.

Good advice. I live in the three store building on the second floor, so vibration all around. I had not been shooting in live view, but will try that on my next attempts. Also, I had never considered weighting the middle down. I might try that, but seeing how cheep the tripod I have is, it would probably break it. I am just now really getting into photography, and need to get a lot of things.