Anyone In San Diego Area I Need Your Photography Expertise

hello bishftl I was talking to a friend who has the same camera as you. if you are still using the fijifilm finepix sl 1000. if you are and you give me a week or so they will come and help you here with your lighting and settings. they know your camera and how to set the lights for it. one question they want me to ask you. do you know how to use a dimmer switch. do you have any electrical knowledge. if you do or know and electrician. we will walk you through how to build a dimmer switch. to use you halogen light set me know have a great one. if not we will yell you how and electrician can put one together in minutes. I have just wired up 2 they are very easy to do and quit cheap

Why are you guys going to the expense, heat and complexity of dimmed halogen lighting? What "expert" is advising this?

Halogens are too hot to put where lighting needs to go, close to the lens. It changes in color continuously as it dims - I have a homemade halogen lighting system which I used with a dimmer, until I found that out - and it's simply getting in the way of you getting results. You have to change the White Balance setting every time you change the dimmer.

The best photographer I know uses a single 75w incandescent bulb in a desk lamp. He got over complex lighting solutions a long time ago. All you need is the right 2" diameter patch of light. It's conceivable a candle is up to the task. And axial lighting is a niche solution which only does a couple of things well, and forces compromises to use it. Not for normal coin photography.

I will happily happily grade images of the quality of this Kennnedy, bshiftl. We discussed this in your thread - the only problem you had was White Balance and that's obviously fixed here.

What's wrong with your images? I'm the one teaching this stuff, and I don't see much wrong with your work. Sure, there's room for improvement but your images are well past the "rookie" stage.

the light studio setup I bought was actually free on ebay and the only thing that was in the range of the credit I had.
they are very hot and colors are not true to the coins.
the main thing I really need help with is axial lighting.

i have a lot of proof coins that are extremely difficult to get the dcam to really jump out like I have seen time and time again on the forums. I always get camera reflections or too much glare. I am not against buying or building a new light scheme, just need a direction to get pointed in.

thanks to both of you, much appreciated

I get you now, bshiftl. Makes sense - you've just found that Proofs laugh at you when you use the same rules as Business Strikes for lighting. Frustrates me too.

The only solutions I've found which depict Proofs the way I like are axial lighting and circular fluorescents. I have a 9" Circline kitchen ceiling fixture with a hole through the center which I use exclusively for Proofs. It was a ton easier than building an axial rig, which requires precision and careful photographic technique.

If you like, I'll alter the title of this thread to reflect that you're looking for help shooting Proofs, and hopefully it will attract other members with help to offer.