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 Replies: 18 / Views: 4,128 |
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Valued Member
Sweden
135 Posts |
Hello all, Please see attached photos... Notice how some elements of this Oscar 1 Krona coin are sharp, while others are a touch unfocused? Parts of the legend are exactly where they should be, but others not so much. Same with the denticles and elements within the coats of arms. Am I asking to exceed the capabilities of my camera phone? Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Should I consider diving into the realm of higher end camera equipment? Don't mind doing that, but I'd rather not sacrifice my Riksdaler fund if at all possible.   Edited by SpareHuman
06/07/2015 11:30 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
940 Posts |
Those are amazing images for a camera phone, WAY beyond the sharpness that I would expect. Do you stabilize it with something?
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Valued Member
 Sweden
135 Posts |
I stabilized it with a few of my wife's cookbooks... She doesn't use them much anyway  Some parts are sharp, but I'm hoping to do better. The coin looks far better in hand. The whole thing is sharp! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
940 Posts |
I use a Canon T3i DSLR with a tripod and remote shutter, and your results come close to mine. Well done!
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Valued Member
Sweden
135 Posts |
Thank you very much for your kind words... It appears that I'm on the right track.
Does anyone here have any experience with the Camera FV-5 app? It's a paid app and was wondering if it would be of use and help attain better photos then what I have posted here.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4038 Posts |
You may not be level. Try using the mirror technique described in this forum to ensure level vs the coin. Also, it would help to have a second light to get more even illumination. are you pushing the camera too close such that you're slightly out of focus? How are you determining if you're critically focused? And finally, what's the full size of originals from this camera...are you downsizing or just cropping? Would be good to see an original, unaltered shot right from the camera as that would tell us a lot about how far you can take it. Just make sure you are properly focused or it's tough to judge.
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Valued Member
Sweden
135 Posts |
Thank you for your response. I ordered a couple of jansjö lights (it seems they are rather revered on this forum) and I will use the pocket mirror technique that was discussed in another thread. I'll post a updated picture again in a few weeks.
Cheers!
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Valued Member
Sweden
135 Posts |
Here's some updated photos... Overall, I think that the image quality is better in regards to color and appearance compared to in hand. The focus seems a bit more balanced across the field, but capturing various levels of finer depth continues to remain problematic. My phone unfortunately lacks a manual focus, so the process painfully involves lowering the camera height by stacking thin pieces of paper of on top of NGC slabs. The Jansjö lighting has made a big difference. Any further bits of advice?   |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
Quote:
My phone unfortunately lacks a manual focus, so the process painfully involves lowering the camera height by stacking thin pieces of paper of on top of NGC slabs. I am not following this. If you don't have manual focus, then you have autofocus, correct? If so, then why would you have to mess with think pieces of paper and slabs to change height? Is this cropped from a larger image? You might try diffusing the Jansjos with tissue paper to reduce the hotspotting. Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com |
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Valued Member
Sweden
135 Posts |
While this certainly wouldn't qualify as professional, but for my purposes it suffices just fine. Took a lot of tweaking and experimenting, but I found something that works well. Thanks for your responses!   |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
717 Posts |
It appears to me that spending money for a set-up for coin pics would do at least two things for you. It would help get a little bit better pictures, (yours are really good right now), and you could eliminate most of the fussing with set-up. With my current set-up, if I decide to shoot some coin pictures I am 5 minutes away from clicking the shutter, and it only takes about 2 square feet of my desk to leave it ready to go. Shooting 15-20 coins quickly is a breeze, it takes longer to process them (cropping and resizing) than it does to take them.
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Pillar of the Community
2087 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
SpareHuman...pretty good pics. The problem with all camera phones is their lenses are not flat field. They have fairly simple lens structures and flat field was not a design goal, since most folks use the macro function for flowers and such. They just need to be flat enough and sharp enough to resolve printed barcodes when in macro mode.
You can improve greatly, at fairly low cost, by adding one of the EL-Cheapo lenses we link to and recommend for photography on this group. Optically, the most important lens elements are the ones closest to the object being photographed (ie the "objective lens"). By using high quality, highly-corrected optics as your objective rather than lower quality plastic cellphone optics, and then just using your cellphone at or near infinity focus (where it is designed to operate at its best) the result can be excellent.
Contact me for photographic equipment or visit my home page at: http://macrocoins.com |
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Valued Member
Sweden
135 Posts |
rmpsrpms,
Unfortunately at the moment, I'm working with a fairly limited hobby budget. I would love to take this to the next level, but I need to be sensible as well. I would literally have to build this from the ground up. Would need a camera body, lens, copystand, bellows, etc., etc. I have my eye on adding a new Riksdaler sometime this fall and a Riksdaler is a stronger need at this point!
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Pillar of the Community
2087 Posts |
All joking aside: perhaps you should look at this product. http://store.sony.com/interchangeab...pfm=category Its not cheap but it will allow you to take your Xperia to a much higher level. You could use Enlarger lenses on the unit. It would not be a huge jump in technique for you Edited by austrokiwi
07/21/2015 08:22 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4038 Posts |
Quote:
Unfortunately at the moment, I'm working with a fairly limited hobby budget. I would love to take this to the next level, but I need to be sensible as well. I would literally have to build this from the ground up. Would need a camera body, lens, copystand, bellows, etc., etc. I have my eye on adding a new Riksdaler sometime this fall and a Riksdaler is a stronger need at this point! I'm only talking about <$50 investment. In fact you might get by with $15-25 if you go with a true El-Cheapo. Edited by rmpsrpms
07/21/2015 6:00 pm
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Replies: 18 / Views: 4,128 |
Posted 06/07/2015 11:26 am
