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 Replies: 38 / Views: 13,386 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9792 Posts |
As part of the EAC Convention this week, there was a chance to attend a guided tour inside Heritage Auctions and a nice BBQ Lunch. I jumped on board and signed up. We just got back a couple of hours ago, I was able to take a few cruddy iPhone photos of the room where all the coins are photographed and thought you all would enjoy seeing their set-up. Each station (I counted 18 in this room at least), has a Canon 5DmkII or III camera tethered to a PC with a Canon 180mm Macro lens, the lighting is a Calumet Travellite with a Bowens hood, firing through a translucent sheet held in place by a large wooden frame. I noticed they also use one of my favorite tools, the "Air Rocket" blower by Giotto to remove dust from coins and slabs. Cheap way to do this without buying expensive canned air. Pretty basic set-up with great lighting. Funny how they had flourescent bulbs above for room lighting, though the room was fairly dim overall, the ope window blinds did not relect light over the photo area. I didn't have any time to talk with the one photographer working as he was pretty busy. (note all the boxes of slabbed coins in on consignment currently), but he did say all camera set-ups are the same and they do have separate camera stations for Copper, Gold and Silver coins to speed up shooting and keep things easy and consistent without changing the camera settings. Got to see some amazing things inside the inner sanction of the third largest auction house in the world. Held a 40oz. Babe Ruth game played bat, saw George Washington's lock of hair, a photograph of all 7 of the original Gemini Astronauts - autographed, I also held about a $1 million dollars of comics in hand, and several rolls of St. Gaudens coins (yes rolls), Heritage also has a bullion desk that wholesales gold to other dealers and buys in bulk, mainly from Europe. That side of the business does over $1,000,000 every week in sales and purchases, sorry no photos were allowed for security in the "Gold room" - funny thing was, we were the first tour group that could have cared less for the gold, we wanted to see the numismatic reference rooms and early copper coins! The comic and pop art division was really interesting, as was the Sports memorabilia division, I have a few photos of other areas, but thought I'd post these up here first. Oh yeah, security was as tight as a casino counting room too!     *** Edited by Bobby - Replaced broken photobucket images *** "Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector. See my want page: http://goccf.com/t/140440Edited by westcoin
04/29/2015 6:27 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1314 Posts |
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
OK, I've no words appropriate for Coin Community to describe what this makes me feel like. Imagine a long night out drinking with the guys, and the sort of graphic language you might use towards the end of that night to describe your attraction to certain members of the opposite sex. I discovered at FUN that overhead lighting simply doesn't matter to a quality dedicated macro lens with Spot metering. It doesn't notice. And now I understand why they still manage to clearly show luster when they're plainly using diffusion. Directed light source (sharpened by the hoods), diffusion designed for the process, and big ol' lens hoods. Aside file management - and I'm sure they have that process nailed too - there's no reason why I couldn't shoot at least 5 coins a minute with that especially concentrated on one metal. I think the Copper settings would need no adjustment for Nickel. Boy, I'd hate to be their postprocessing person though.  |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
9792 Posts |
Yep, hoods on the lights only, every camera lens had a lens hood but it was on backwards in the storage mode, I'd think they'd just remove them all together, wish I could have spent more than a few minutes in the room and got to have a short discussion with the guy working, everyone else was out at lunch. Still a eye opening tour, wait till I show you the boxes of gold and Platinum US Mint stuff! The sheer number of everything in Heritage's facility was mind numbing. I saw a guy grading (well evaluating) proof gold, not modern stuff but classic Liberty head Proof gold, by the box full, had to be at least 200 coins or more.  Rolls and rolls of US $20 Saints, ROLLS! XF/AU and low end uncirculated by the rolls, hundreds and hundreds of them, maybe thousands, mighty impressive to see sitting on a table. "Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector. See my want page: http://goccf.com/t/140440 |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
It should go without saying that I'm pretty jealous of you right now.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9792 Posts |
More to come in a bit... Not photo related, so I will be posting that in the main coin forum. Keep an eye out for my posts, the EAC convention goes through Saturday night, and it's free to attend if you are in the Dallas area.
"Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector. See my want page: http://goccf.com/t/140440 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4037 Posts |
Pretty neat! Not a bad way to go for lighting. The long lens and concentration on one size item (slab) allows such a fixed setup to work well. One thing that's odd is they are not blocking the light from the overhead fluorescents. Each station has a different level of fluorescent "intrusion" and this probably makes a fair amount of variation between setups. I can't really tell where the light would be coming from onto the slab...12:00? They'd do even better if they did a central light block... and turned off the room lights.
Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
I don't think the intrusion matters that much when the camera positions are static and the setup tuned to specific metal, although it surprises me that they're (apparently) not using similar color temperatures in all lighting. The only problems I had at FUN with an even brighter overhead intrusion was obvious dissimilar color temps on lustrous silver - had no problem getting the luster and no other metals were affected. Their images tend to have the luster on a 9:00-3:00 line, which should mean they're lighting from that axis, right?
Now I have to go look and see what the image differences are between their various metals. But tomorrow; it's 1AM here.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4037 Posts |
Quote:
Their images tend to have the luster on a 9:00-3:00 line, which should mean they're lighting from that axis, right? The "luster bar" is perpendicular to the lighting axis, so 9-3 luster bar implies the light comes from 12:00. Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.comEdited by rmpsrpms
04/30/2015 10:17 am
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Ah. I inferred the opposite from the way 10-2 lighting plays on a coin (although I've learned that probably two dozen times in my photographic career besides today). This is why I will never be as good as you at this - unless I do it every day, I have to relearn some of the process each time I sit down to shoot. I just_don't retain it, and have no conscious control over what I do retain. I'm a holy terror in a trivia game and can't remember a phone number. It's frustrating sometimes.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4037 Posts |
Hah! I'm getting there fast. I had to write my wife's phone number on a Visa application and had to pull out my cell phone to look it up. Not good. But that's OK, most things and people are forgiving enough...
Now, about that luster bar...that means they put the slab in sideways with the top toward the light. Again, guess it works for them since they do just one thing, and do it in production line fashion.
Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
I've often contemplated what it would take to do this stuff on a production line basis - in fact, I just repeated that contemplation because I forgot what I concluded last time ( ) - and figured the very_first_thing was a compromise lighting setup which didn't need changed in any fashion save possibly intensity. And their images are clearly a compromise in terms of lighting, just a very well-though-out and pleasing one. That's not difficult when you have an essentially unlimited budget and I'd suspect their people know a thing or two about the process. |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Heritage is actually advertising an open position for a "Photographs Specialist." The link goes to their "World Coins Cataloger" position also advertised - same URL for both so they obviously got some code wrong - so no idea how they describe it, but it's interesting timing.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3546 Posts |
Every time I visit HA.com to browse their coins it is fascinating how consistent the photos are no matter what the substrate being photographed is.
I personally would like to find out a few tips insofar as:
1) How does HA maintain a photo's resolution consistent (w/o excessive pixelation occurring) when one zooms in on a photo using an index finger-operated mouse wheel?
2) And when one does zoom in very tightly (enlarging a coin to fill up an entire laptop's screen) in this manner 'all' of the various depths of a coin's surface have perfect clarity w/o any blurriness. What process do they use to achieve this result?
3) Finally, would any of CCF's coin photography threads have proven/tested current setups and discussions (with photos and a short video of the zoom-in process) from members that have successfully replicated these cool characteristics via reasonably affordable equipment and feasible processes etc.?
thx
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
94367 Posts |
westcoin - Great pics and thanks for this thread.
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Valued Member
United States
92 Posts |
WOW I would love to see that...
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Replies: 38 / Views: 13,386 |
Posted 04/29/2015 6:51 pm
