Help With Coin Photography, Most Of My Equipment Has Arrived

I think the diffusion is the difference, not the distance from the light source. I moved them closer because less light was hitting the coin after covering the lights with tissue. Moving them closer, in general would be less diffusion. I will not be offended when someone corrects me!

Dave, I have gimp loaded, and actually used it to crop the first pic. But that was my one and only experience with it.

Yeah, I went to a T2i from a 12MP XSi and noticed the "sparklies" from the very first shot. The only thing I can think is the sensor is so pixel-dense at 1:1 that it's picking up individual reflections from surface irregularities. I'm using an XS now and seeing none of it.

For the record, the El Nikkor is the gold standard for "cheap" lenses and if you can duplicate its' results you're in good shape. You'd need the price of a 75mm Apo-Rodagon D - only under $300 if you're lucky - to do any better.

Don, use the Gimp's Scale Image to downsize, and then "Export As" to save the new image. In the Save dialog you'll get a slider bar to denote Quality. I use 80% as the default, and can see no visual changes at 70%. That will give you a 1000px image which won't need the Optimizer. Filters - Enhance - Sharpen is the sharpening routine if you want, and it's good for as much as 40% (using fullsize images; I usually do 20% and occasionally 30% when I use it).

Nice images. The first one looks like it suffers from internal reflections from the extension tubes. Look down into the tubes and see if here are any shiny surfaces. If so, you need to flock them or paint them flat black. It may be just one of your tubes giving problems. 2nd shot doesn't seem to have the problem so if you removed a tube that one is probably the offender. Nice colorful coin to do testing on.

My first pictures of the cent using live view. Zooming in to focus was very helpful, as are the test shots. I have a Bogen tripod with a geared head which helps, but I am pretty sure I am still not quite square to the coin. Background is a sheet of copy paper. A bit washed out, probably over exposed a bit.

The tripod is my dads, so I am looking at a dedicated base, either copy stand or microscope base. A small footprint would be nice, I have already kicked the tripod 5 times in 2 days!

What's the largest coin you're planning to image? That will determine the size of the stand you need, and also what bellows will work best for you.