New Camera, Canon Rebel T5

Give him a fair hearing, but....

Either of those lenses, used, will cost more than a nice bellows and a decent macro lens. And neither are designed for using a bellows - they already magnify. The 60mm Macro can do 1:1 on the sensor, the 50mm Macro only half that, despite what the guy says.

Going with a bespoke macro lens of that nature, and going the bellows route, are differing things. The 50mm would be a nice increase in sharpness over what you're using now, but still limited by the amount of magnification it provides and would need the same sort of assistance much better (cheaper, more refined for coins) solutions also do.

Have you been through the "$400 rig" thread to see the whole system we're talking about? It is, we feel, not only better specifically for coins but far cheaper than anything a camera dealer could offer you. A 50mm Macro would work on it but it's far larger and more cumbersome than bespoke lenses.

I don't know how big these images were originally, but plan on this being 1/4 the size of your originals. It's a ton of magnification right there, when you think of it.

Now, the previous post.




Perhaps the first time you hooked the camera up to your computer, it asked you what you wanted it to do and you told it to open with the Microsoft program. No biggie; it just remembered that's your preference and the kids can undo that. It's called "file association."

So, you'll want the Canon software (Zoom Browser) to open with the camera. If you have it installed, it should appear on your list of options for what to do when the camera is plugged in, and you can choose it then and Windows will remember. Or, you could choose not to do anything right there, close that box and just start Zoom Browser like any other program on your computer. It will let you "go get the camera," so to speak.

Just make sure the camera is plugged in to the computer and turned on (I do it in that order) before you start the software.

My experience with the 18-55 is that you can't get the front of the glass closer than about 10" from the coin to achieve focus either automatically or manually. I liked my versions of it best at 50mm for sharpness. Still needed a little postprocessing to be at its' best.

Your images are, to me, a little less sharp than I think your lens should be capable of. They are also slightly underexposed, and the aperture is a bit open to be comfortable that you're getting enough depth of field. It has White Balance issues as well.

When depth of field is a bit too thin, you get into a situation where you sometimes get great shots and sometimes lousy ones, depending on where in that depth you actually focus. Closer to the tops of the devices, and you have what looks like a sharp picture. Closer to the fields, and the devices appear out of focus and nobody likes you.

Or, narrow the aperture a bit and get some more depth of field.

Settings for the obverse were ISO 100, 1/320sec @ f/5.6. It is a bit underexposed. If you're using full Manual, I'd like to see what happens at ISO200, f/8 and 1/200(ish). I want the coin a tad brighter - we'll worry about specific light placement later, the thing looks gorgeous lit from this angle - and otherwise unchanged. An alternative is Aperture Priority (A on the dial) and set aperture to f/8, ISO at 200 (makes more light available for free, essentially, let's use it) and the camera can choose the exposure.

Ray is going to come along and suggest you use Exposure Compensation to help you tweak the amount of light, and he'll be correct. Exposure Compensation overrides whatever the camera is thinking, and is capable of making more subtle differences than the major settings changes I outlined. However, Exposure Compensation works equally nicely both ways - less as well as more - and I'd like to get you in the habit of coming as close as possible without it first. That will make Exposure Compensation all the more powerful for you. But if you're using Aperture Priority, you will want to be ready to use it immediately because you won't be able to alter exposure. Aperture Priority lets the camera choose the exposure; Exposure Compensation lets you tweak the camera's thinking.

Confused yet? Good.

Check the distance between lens and coin. Your version of the lens is newer than the ones I worked with, and it may be able to focus closer than mine did, but 4-5" would have been too close for me. That may be the cause of the imperfect focus. If you're not letting it autofocus, give it a try. It's been my experience with Canon lenses that they're not awful bad at figuring out what you want to focus on in a Macro setting.

And all the focus stuff will go away when you can do it on the monitor anyway.

Since you don't have enough to do yet, research and implement Custom White Balance settings on the camera. Once you have light positioning where you like it, you can pretty much shoot full-face images all day of any kind of coin and the slight changes you'll make in light position won't change the White Balance setting. I have a "stock" Custom White Balance I use, for my camera exactly where it's set up. Just something I don't need to worry about any more because I've figured out how to recreate the light at will.

You're missing on the white balance somehow. Did you give the CFL's 5 minutes to warm up first? Many don't develop full lumens (and proper color) immediately. These images are too green(?) somehow.

The camera is offset towards the top of the coin a bit - you can see reeding above but not below. And the obverse isn't square.

If this is a Matte finish coin, you're got a nice relationship going between diffusion and luster. However, this may not remain the case with a Proof or Business Strike finish. Your lights are leaving just a bit of darkness at the bottom, to be expected. Try spreading them a *bit* farther apart on the "time circle" - 9:30 and 2:30 if you're at 10 and 2 - and see if that helps. It's a problem for all of us.

Are you deliberately using Exposure Compensation? Some is being applied. If that's not deliberate (the camera chose to use it), make it stop so you can get realistic exposures for your situation before tweaking with it. If you used it deliberately, it worked well. Ignore me.

Yes, I am now being picky with you. You're getting good results with good equipment, and it's time to learn how to be great instead of good.

Learn how to do a Custom White Balance. It's simple - essentially all you do is take a picture and tell the camera, "this is white" and it takes it from there.

Use a few stacked sheets of printer paper. I've found Canon cameras to do good white balance with that. 18% grey "official" white balance sheets also work well but why spend money? Set the lighting exactly as you will be for the image, ensuring the lit area fills the viewfinder. You should see no darker areas at the edges, but using Spot Metering for this shot will cause the camera to take data from the center instead of the whole frame and help with any edge weakness.

Focus on a toothpick in center of frame, then pull the toothpick and snap the shot. Have it save to the camera's memory card. When you go to choose a custom White Balance, the camera asks which image on the card it's supposed to use.This won't work if you then shoot on a colored backgrond because of different-color light being reflected at the lens, but it'll make you good to shoot on black, white or grey.

Do that, and you can use green lights if you wish and still get color right. Lighting color temperature does not matter in our kind of photography because we can so easily correct for it.

Black and white Proofs do not image the same way as Business Strikes. You already know this. Axial lighting does nicely; I rigged a circular kitchen fluorescent with a hole through the center as a ring light and that worked well. But they're going to frustrate you.

TIP: If you have a camera bag that is grey inside, that is most likely 18% grey, a little known fact that top camera bag manufacturers make the insides of the bags grey for that reason, at least the Professional Tamrac and LowePro bags that I have are 18% grey inside.

Hey All,I'm back!I had to go out too the homestead to tear down a building and get things ready for auction.
While I was there I saw these guys out in the back yard.



The deer didn't come out to play this weekend.

Anyhow,I took SsuperDdave's advise,and managed to get the white balance set using a tooth pick,and white paper,to focus on.
I also added a third light to the 12:00 position.





Here is a large cent...it looks like it went through a lawnmower.





And for the guys up north...

When I changed to three lamps,I changed the bulbs from 2- =100w 6500K,to 3- =60w 5500K,so there is more light reaching the coin.I changed the bulbs,because I only had two of the 6500K and three of the other,and I wanted the same K rating for all three.
I probably need to back the lights off a bit,or go down in wattage.I suppose I could set the F stop differently too.

That's for sure!
I backed the lights off 4"-6" and tried again.I think it turned out better.