Helpful Article

MontCollector thank you that was a very good read. I like how this person walks you through. the test that was done. I have been doing a lot of experimenting with lights camera lens. I have been thinking a lot lately about taking my whole setup apart. build a mount shooting every thing vertically. buying a big macro lens something that moves the camera back 2 to 3 feet. just to see what I get. this would allow me to change the angle of the lights. I want to get rid of lens reflections. I found a light on ebay. I purchased one. they are made in Germany. the light has a special grooved disk. the light in the center is the same as the edge. you can shoot through the center of the light. I am hoping this eliminates the lens shadow. if not I take every thing apart and start over.

One possibility is to use the shift function of a tilt-shift bellows, like the Nikon PB-4. Make sure that the lights (which are now off to one side of the coin) are very even and diffuse, so the reflection off the coin is uniform.

I had to do this once to bring out some date details on a slabbed coin. The glare off the slab needed to be very uniform, so it could be subtracted out in Photoshop to recover the coin image, with acceptable contrast. The result was not ideal, but al least you could see the date.

pepactonius that sounds like some thing. I may need to try. pepactonius this new light may help. it has a special diffuser. plus the light is dispersed evenly across a cross a 9 inch plate. the plate has special micro grooves. that keeps the light even plus the light spreads out like a cone. at maximum it is 6500k daylight. it is designed to be dimmed. to light what ever metal evenly. with out reflection. plus there should be no reflection from the lens on my camera. you shoot through the center of this light. but I have purchased stuff before. I find it don't do what they say it will do. I will find out soon. I like your idea. I know you do good work with coins. thanks for the suggestion

I like your setup. we all like to use what ever works. ok first what is your camera. what do you have for lens. if you don't have a macros lens. there is other ways to over come that as well. I can tell you. there is a lot of members here more than willing. to help you same as myself. so camera plus lens first. then go from there

If you want to take closeups (for example at 2x, 4x, 10x magnification) You'll probably need special macro equipment of some sort:

- Closeup lenses that fit into the lens filter threads

- Extension tubes or bellows with special lenses that do well at larger extensions - like bellows lenses or enlarger lenses, or even low-power microscope objectives.

- Teleconverters that can also work to increase magnification in come cases.

- Macro coupler, so that you can use one short focal length lens (reversed) on front of a longer focal length lens (like a short telephoto) -- I suppose this setup is somewhat like a closeup lens. I wonder if your super-telephotos for wildlife might work as the main lens in this type of setup?

took sever pics of same coin in different lighting.





The one above is with all light on



with both OTT light on




with one OTT light behind a leaning piece of plexi-glass acting as diffuser.

Which one looks better to you?

I ordered an autofocus tube extender kit should be here next week. Comes with a 13,21, and31mm tubes. Cant wait to try them out. If I understand correctly, these will decrease the minimum focus range for lenses. Should I use my 18-55mm macro lens with this kit or will it decrease it enough for me to use my 55-200mm(1.1m/3.2ft min focus) macro lens?