| Author |
 Replies: 64 / Views: 9,681 |
|
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1476 Posts |
Quote:
Look at the RGB histogram and you should see this effect and know how much you need to drop the EV to compensate I guess it's time to learn how to read a Histogram. 
|
|
Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
Yep.  |
|
Pillar of the Community
 United States
1304 Posts |
The more photos I take, the more I realize I don't like the lighting used in the last photo I took of some other coin. I imagine I'll be shooting and reshooting coins until I get it just how it should be (in my mind anyway). Then when I get a new lens this entire process will repeat itself.
Edited by EFLargeCents
05/21/2015 08:22 am
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1304 Posts |
Next up, trying an 85mm Nikon Micro (Macro) lens. This should give me the ability to produce 1:1 for all my coins while still managing to have room for lighting elements. It also can work double duty for all the non-coin photography outside amongst nature, something important to me and why I'm not going with a bellows set up.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
Having a bellows setup actually makes it easier to make the camera work double-duty. If you use a copy stand or tripod, it is the camera mount itself that determines alignment to the coin. If you use bellows, then the bellows mounts to the copy stand or tripod, and alignment just needs to be done once. After that, the camera can be easily removed from the bellows and walkaround lens installed for portraits/flowers/bugs. Once the family photos are done, just remove the walkaround lens and reinstall camera to the bellows and pick up where you left off.
Edited by rmpsrpms
05/26/2015 09:10 am
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
717 Posts |
That is exactly how I sold it to my wife, lol! Problem is, I don't even own a walk around lens :)
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1304 Posts |
I'm not sure how convenient it would be to store the bellows set up. As it stands now I can easily disassemble my copy stand and slide it anywhere out of sight. My lens goes in a bag with the rest of my equipment and is put away. This is something my wife likes. Plus, I only need one macro system as opposed to two. I know I'm loosing a bit of functionality and close up focusing, but I am already missing a lot of that using a Nikon with digicamcontrol (manual focus is near impossible using live view on a computer screen)
|
|
Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
For you, autofocus therefore remains a consideration and it's hardly like you're using inferior glass with that 85mm. That said, the Nikon 85mm is in the same price range as the 90-100mm Macro lenses from Tokina, Tamron and Sigma which are all superior to it and will function normally with your camera.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1304 Posts |
I was able to find a used 85mm Nikon lens for a great deal, though initially I was leaning heavily to the Tamron 90mm. If I don't like the Nikon, I can easily sell it for what I paid and get the Tamron. The Tokina and Sigma's I looked at didn't autofocus on the d3300 so I didn't even consider them. If the live view on the computer screen was better I wouldn't have minded manual only, but that just isn't the case for me.
|
|
Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Works for me. At this point, it's plain that you're doing your due diligence and making wise choices for your circumstance, so all I'm up to here is being the Devil's Advocate rather than questioning your choices.  |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1304 Posts |
ssuperddave I think having all this information in this thread (and others) is great. If someone looking to dive into more advanced coin photography methods stumbles upon this and other threads a lot of options are going to be present for them to consider. The more devils advocate playing you do here, the more knowledge will be available for the next person! It needn't be one sided!
Also, one thing I noticed shopping for the Tamron 90mm, was that a lot of stores still carry the older version with the extending focus tube, which would be a terrible choice for coin photography, as it would likely get in the way of lighting. Tamron has a newer one, but either photos aren't updated on sellers stores, or they aren't as available, I don't know. The newer one acts like the Nikon 85mm where the focusing is all internal.
Edited by EFLargeCents
05/27/2015 10:14 am
|
|
Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
The extending of the lens during focus *does* inform your technique somewhat, but merely going higher with the lighting lessens the increase in angle required so it's not a dealbreaker. And pretty much every Prime lens with Macro capability will be acceptably sharp - differentiating between them is picking nits.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1304 Posts |
New lens, new trials. Small coins this time, Half Dimes that didn't come close to filling the sensor with the kit lens now can completely fill the sensor. First up is a Morgan I had laying around. Lens is a Nikon 85mm micro (macro)  Ran into trouble with one of my nearly proof like Half Dimes. I tried diffusing my lights to not much success. Is axial lighting my next step? Any thoughts on improving the 1860? The amount of noise/CA in the 1860 compared to the 1842 is quite noticeable. f/8 ISO 200   100% crop comparison at the dates  Edited by EFLargeCents
05/29/2015 3:33 pm
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1476 Posts |
Umm, can I ask, how did you do the 100% crop? I haven't figured that out yet.  |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1304 Posts |
Dar, for 100% crop you just view the image at 100% of its size in your editing program and then crop what you want to post. So basically you go to view or zoom and select 100%. At this point depending on your resolution the image is huge on the screen and that is 100%. Then you crop the portion you want to showcase. I did the dates. Hope this makes sense.
|
| |
Replies: 64 / Views: 9,681 |
First Page
Previous Page
Posted 05/20/2015 6:34 pm
