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 Replies: 15 / Views: 1,818 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4085 Posts |
I have posted previously about some frustration with taking photos of my collection. One of the main points of frustration is that more recent photos with what by all accounts should be a better camera just don't capture the look as good as my older photos. I took another shot at this yesterday and still didn't get the results I wanted. In discussing with my better half, she said "why don't you just use the old camera"? Which I may do, but still trying to figure out why the difference? Here are some comparison shots under the same lighting conditions. These were quick just to compare the two cameras, but the older camera still took better pics: Canon PowerShot SX260 HS  Canon PowerShot A590 IS  SX260  A590  By all accounts, the SX260 is a better camera, with Canon's High Sensitivity system, a CMOS sensor, etc. But I think the A590 pictures are more pleasing. I have even tried using the white balance settings on the SX260, but that doesn't seem to make much difference. Looking at these in Picasa, the A590 shows ISO 125, 1/60s, f/2.6; the SX260 shows ISO 200, 1/30s, f/3.5. The colors in the A590 pictures more clearly represent the true colors of the coins. Maybe I just use the A590. The SX260 takes great pictures in other uses - much better than the A590 in low light, for example. But it seems like it should be capable of more. Short of buying a non-point and shoot camera (not in the budget right now), looking for thoughts around why I am seeing the results I am seeing. |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4593 Posts |
Better lens? More sensitivity to the colors you are photographing?
Remember, all cameras are compromises - trying to be fairly good at all things. Sometimes you just happen to hit the sweet spot.
-----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4038 Posts |
The differences are probably in the "picture style" settings. The older camera is showing less contrast, which should be adjustable in the settings. I don't see a lot of difference in the colors, just in the levels, but once you get the levels right you might also adjust saturation setting to see if you can do better.
Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9395 Posts |
I wonder of lighting could be a factor?
I've noticed the same thing. Sometimes old film photos or direct scans of coins look better than my most recent efforts. The old photos are "fuzzy" by comparison with the latest ones, but often have better eye appeal, and look more like the coin. This is especially true for shiny silver coins, and also toned silver coins.
Even older digital images with low-angle diffuse lighting often look better than photos taken with the high-angle undiffused and slightly diffused Jansjo lights that I'm currently experimenting with. Only gold coins look better with the latest setup.
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Differences in sensor quality - older, less dense sensors are likely to run into less diffraction effect and require far less software magic to achieve an honest outcome. Differences in in-camera software sophistication. Differences in lens quality, since all point-and-shoot lenses are serious compromises, if only to cram it into a smaller space, much less the inherent compromises of a zoom lens. Differences in camera-to-camera production quality - "bad" lenses are a known thing in photography.
My experience is that the best P&S cameras for coins are all "older."
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Valued Member
United States
374 Posts |
Those are both pretty wide apertures to actually see diffraction effects... Your SX260 shots look pretty noisy - are you shooting by hand or with a tripod?
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
You won't see diffraction in a pic sized to post here unless you're at f/100.  |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4085 Posts |
Thank you for the input so far.
These were shot using a camera stand and two second timer so I was away from the camera when the shutter fired.
The common theme here seems to be that point and shoot cameras ARE compromises. The SX260 is smaller; the A590 is a bigger bulkier camera, so maybe there is a factor there or just as others have said, newer does not necessarily equal better for all circumstances. I always did have good luck with the "A" series Canons in general.
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
The Canon A60 I bought my stepson many years back was what made me start thinking about taking pics of coins, because it flat worked. Of course, that made me a pain, borrowing his camera all the time, and led me down the road of progressively-better cameras until I was at a 350D and 100mm Macro, which led to me doing half my posting in this subforum....
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
Taking a closer look at the pics, I see that the lighting is different between them. Take a look at the 1943 Steel Cent. In one the back of Lincoln's head is over-exposed, while in the other it is not even highlighted. The 1955-S Cent is over-exposed on the face in one pic, and on the other the highlights are on the back of the head. This means that the lighting is inconsistent between these shots. It's impossible to tell the difference between the cameras for coin photos when the lights are not the same.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4085 Posts |
See, that's the thing - the lighting WAS identical. These shots were taken back to back, one after another, with the same light and same set up for each camera. That is why I am so disappointed with the "better" (SX260) camera's performance.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
KenKat...that's the thing...the photos don't lie. There is something different about the lighting. I'm thinking that the working distances between these two cameras must have been so different that the lighting was affected. How far away from the coins were you for the two cameras? Lighting is EXTREMELY sensitive for coins. That said, did you look into the camera settings to see if contrast and such settings were different?
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Look at where the bright spots are on each album panel. None of the 4 are an exact match. That's not possible if the lighting is truly duplicated, although the 590 images are close to each other. The laws of physics don't allow it.
That_small a difference is capable of making you feel the camera itself is inadequate.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4085 Posts |
The lights were stationary and I used a camera stand. I did move the coins off the stand between shots, so there was a subtle difference there and maybe that was enough. I do know that the above examples are pretty typically what I see from the SX260. It seems like it suppresses reflective light; maybe something with the DIGIC processor difference (4 vs. 5) or maybe the HS system.
I haven't explored the manual settings for the SX260 in much detail beyond white balance (such as contrast, etc.) Not sure how much the A590 allows. Maybe the SX260 settings could be tweaked but it seems like out of box, the A590 just seems to capture coins better. Really, I just want to get decent shots of coins without too much work and it seems like the A590's base settings are more aligned to that.
Maybe someday when I have more time I can dive into the SX260. Or get a legit SLR and take real coin pictures!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1476 Posts |
about the lighting differences, is there natural sunlight hitting the area? That my be part of the cause do to the position of the sun in between shots? I could be wrong but I had to ask.
Edited by Dar
04/28/2015 3:59 pm
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
The A 590 has far less pixel density and a far less compromised lens system due to the much shorter zoom. The SX260 has more sophisticated in-camera processing. All other things being equal - as in, using as much manual control as possible and as little in-camera processing as possible, I expect the A590 to shoot better pics 10 times out of 10 where coins are concerned. Most of what makes P&S cameras "better" for the average consumer makes them worse for us.
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Replies: 15 / Views: 1,818 |
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Posted 04/26/2015 11:46 am
