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 Replies: 56 / Views: 9,683 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1327 Posts |
Poll Question
What do you prefer to take pictures of your coins or scan them. I have truble sometime getting good pictures of my small coins, such as cents and dimes. and wasn't sure if some prefer scan over pictures. I don't have a good scanner and before I went out and buy one wanted to see what every one uses. So the poll is what do you prefer. pictures or scans Results
| perfer taking pictures of coins |
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54% |
14 Votes |
| perfer scaning coins |
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12% |
3 Votes |
| both depending on what using it for |
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35% |
9 Votes |
Poll Status:
Locked
Total Votes: 26 Counted
Last Vote:
05/10/2006 02:55 am
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1327 Posts |
I would like to see bobby's opion since there are some great photo on this site what did you do on most of the coin on the site
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
9371 Posts |
Djluster, You just beat me to it. I was just about to ask the same question. I have been trying to get good scans, but even on high resolution and playing with different background colours I can't seem to get good colour in my gold coins i.e. Aussie dollar. I just tried a photo, but that was to bright with the flash and to dark without, can't win. It will be interesting to see what others do. Steve  |
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Forum Dad
 United States
24148 Posts |
Photographs are 10,000% better than scans. I have scanned coins at 300 DPI and if I posted it here you would swear the coin was MS66. However in a photograph you can see the hits. Since 99% of the images I need are for coins for sale, the only way to go is a photograph. It shows the buyer everything they need to see to make an informed decision. Believe it or not, lighting is more important than the camera. Never use the camera flash. You must have a consistent color temperature. 5000K is the best. This has nothing to do with wattage. Wattage only gauges power consumption and has nothing to do with brightness (which is lumens) or color temp. If you have mixed lighting in the room, your photos will never be as good as they could be, and usually they will not be good at all. I have an illuminated flat panel that's 6" x 8" that delivers a consistent 5000k color temp from below...  Table Top Studio is the place to get them.Cost is about $90, but the life is a whopping 10,000 hours. You could take photos 2 hour a day, every day, for almost 14 years. [:0] Overlighting is 1 5000k color temp incandescent standard base 250W bulb. About $7-$10 in a good camera shop. Don't panic if the bulb is blue, the light won't be. Trust me. You must have a tripod! You can tell me until you're blue in the face that you can hold the camera still. I don't believe you and besides, well, ummm, you can't.  Here's what it turns out....   In addition to being far superior in quality than scans, photos have another great advantage that most overlook. They're tremendously faster. In the time it takes for the scanner to just warm up, I can have 2 coins (4 photos) completely done from taking the photo to ready for publishing.  If anyone has any questions I'd be glad to try and help. Now just to prove my point, below is a scan of the above 1921 Morgan. If you were looking to buy this coin, which image would you rather be looking at? Notice almost none of the chatter on the cheek is visible in the scan.  |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
9371 Posts |
Thanks Bobby, That's a great help. You can certainly see the difference. Steve |
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Moderator
Australia
16808 Posts |
I hit "prefer scanning", mainly because my scanner is new and my camera is an old clunker that can barely manage 800x600 pixels.  Time to upgrade soon... that'll mean even less money for coins...  Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
1529 Posts |
A lot of truth in what Bobby has posted. For me, I choose the camera over the scanner and have been able to obtain what I consider to be excellent photos for an amateur. I am still experimenting as I progressively come to grips with the full capabilities of the camera and learning the differences between different types of lighting. Here are four different photos of the same coin....     Equipment is a 8 megapixel capable digital camera. Lighting is two 100 watt halogen type table lamps set on either side of the object to be photographed and a small maglite wide beam torchlight focussed on the coin from the front. Photos are taken with the camera set on a tripod. |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
9371 Posts |
Thanks for the tips guys. I just put together a set up using what I have available at the moment. I have a fluro desk lamp at the rear and a wind up LED torch at the front. I only have a 2megapixel camera. Even with this crude set up, you can see the difference between the scanner image and the photo image. Check these out .   Big difference Thanks again Steve |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1327 Posts |
thank you bobby so is that light pad all you use or do you have light from above at a angle. becuase if that is what oyu do just using the pad a typode and a camera than that is much easyer then my way of using two holgen lights. and I might have to go out and find one of those
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Pillar of the Community
Belgium
2078 Posts |
I voted for scanner for the simply reason that I can manipulate scans to show glue and fingerprints and cleaning etc and I am hyperadjusted to photograde gold done by scanner On the other hand there is a lot more very bad photos out there completely over exposed or green or dark or blurred Glare alone will hide all bangs and dings Even my friend bought a goldcoins by photo that upon receipt was jewellry cleaned . This was not visible on the photo but would have been visible on the scan as one but ugly dark scan Of course he had return privilages but when he tried to return it that was another matter alltoghether |
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Forum Dad
United States
24148 Posts |
quote:
thank you bobby so is that light pad all you use or do you have light from above at a angle.
Overlighting is 1 5000k color temp incandescent standard base 250W bulb. About $7-$10 in a good camera shop. Don't panic if the bulb is blue, the light won't be. Trust me. |
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Pillar of the Community
Belgium
2078 Posts |
Bobby I sincerally think you are one of the few photo artists that can make a coin come alive in a photo An uncaring person can more easily do a bad photo then a bad scan I think At least going by the number of bad photos I see daily on the european ebays  |
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Forum Dad
United States
24148 Posts |
quote:
An uncaring person can more easily do a bad photo then a bad scan I think
I agree 100%. It's because of the lighting that I mentioned above. When you scan there are no worries of lighting. But there are worries of an inaccurate image. |
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Valued Member
United States
421 Posts |
Cameras are more difficult as they have more variables to conquer but, as has been said, I think they are the way to go if you want the best pictures. Those variables, once you conquer them, are what can give you great shots.
In my opinion, you can get a good image of some coins using the right scanner but, in order to get a great, lifelike image on the full spectrum of different coins, I think you have to use a good digital camera.
Edited by Stujoe
03/04/2006 12:59 pm
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Forum Dad
United States
24148 Posts |
quote:
Cameras are more difficult as they have more variables to conquer but, as has been said, I think they are the way to go if you want the best pictures. Those variables, once you conquer them, are what can give you great shots.
That's the cool thing about consistent lighting. I can go from silver to copper to gold, and not change one single setting on the camera. The photos are dead on first time every time. Wasn't the case before, I had post-it notes stuck everywhere with the settings for different coins. |
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Forum Mom
United States
5877 Posts |
Hey Stujoe, I took a look at your websites and they're coming right along. Looks great!! I'm glad you have the link in your signature. I'd like our members to take a look at your site. It's obvious that a lot of work is going into it. |
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Replies: 56 / Views: 9,683 |
Posted 03/03/2006 11:40 pm
