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 Replies: 30 / Views: 3,695 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
819 Posts |
do I need a macro lens? the macro setting seems to opt out at about 8 inches not allowing for any coin detail. tried scanning without good results.
Are the inexpensive diopter lens that can be stacked together a good option?
suggestions?
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
These were shot with my Rebel XSi and the factory 18-55IS lens:   Shot in Manual mode, ISO 400, f/8, 1/50th exposure. I don't remember the distance from the coin, but it was shot at full zoom (55mm). The original images were about 1100 pixels. I applied a little color correction and a little sharpening in postprocessing. That's probably close to as good as I can get from this lens; if you want better, you'll likely have to consider a macro lens. What sort of detail are you looking for? |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
819 Posts |
SuperDave, the pics you show have sufficient detail for me! Will try those settings and see what happens. Trying to get pics to post on ebay and also some error coins to ask about on the forum. Have a Lincoln Memorial cent where the "LIBERTY" appears as "IIIBERTY" with the third "I" alongside the vertical of the "B" so if I can get pics like you posted I will be ecstatic! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
819 Posts |
SuperDave,
went back and reviewed my inst. book again, tried many settings on Manual Mode and AE mode, tried f8 at 1/50 and 400 ISO, this is the best I could do...just can't get a clear image when focusing at many different distances-focal lengths .
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Pillar of the Community
United States
819 Posts |
sorry, couldn't get image to upload.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
819 Posts |
 Finally was able to upload a pic, this is the best I can get. Used settngs posted by SuperDave in above posting, then had to try to raise or lower the camera until the sharpest exposure, came out very small, used camera software to resize and upload. Not goog results, how did you do it Super dave? |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
5953 Posts |
First question that springs to mind. Are you holding the camera? or is it on a tripod? This image looks as if you are holding it or moving it when taking the shot.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
819 Posts |
I was holding the camera with the coin laying on a table, I have a copy stand that I am going to dust off and see if that makes drastic difference. Will post results in a few hours, maybe less.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5953 Posts |
It will make a huge difference.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2254 Posts |
Ahhh yup, use a tripod of some type. It doesn't matter if you stack up books on both sides of the coin to straddle the camera. Your handshake will never be steady enough to get Dave's detail. Although Kurt could give him a run for his money I think.
Regardless, it looks like your color is pretty good through the blur. Try the copy stand. I have found that macro settings aren't all they're cracked up to be. Get the camera about 12 inches away and zoom in as far as you can while still getting good focus. You will be surprised at how big the pictures can get when resizing yourself. That camera probably won't suffer from enlarging pictures and losing detail are my thoughts...."digitial zoom" per se by cropping and resizing.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
819 Posts |
Copy stand really helped, though I am still not getting the detail like SuperDave, going to try some more at different angles, this one was shot straight on 90 degrees and the extra lines in the Liberty don't show that well.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
14454 Posts |
I don't have this camera but mine you press the button half way down and then it auto focuses and then beeps when it is focused and then you press the button all the way down to take the picture. I am not sure yours does this but you may want to try it and see if you can get clearer pictures that way
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2254 Posts |
You're definitely headed in the right direction. Well done. What distance are you at? Are you using the timer function? Regardless of using the copy stand, if you're still pressing the camera by hand instead of using a timer to take the picture(hands free), you will get some loss of focus. I'm pretty sure Dave has a remote tethered to the camera and he either pushes a button on the remote for the picture or via a PC. If I don't use the timer function with my camera, I get wobble when I press the button.
I think the Rebel of any model version is a crazy good camera for coin pictures. My guess is that you just need to play with distances now and focusing using the cameras own functionality. I would try 12 inches away zoomed in as far as it will focus, 16 inches, 10 inches, 8 inches etc. Again, when you have a photo like you posted, try making it larger by simply resizing it via your PC.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2254 Posts |
Bob, I took the liberty of resizing your last picture. I haven't tried the first one yet. Looks like a focusing issue is all. If Dave comes along, he will certainly be able to critique better than me.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
819 Posts |
Thanxz Tights, appreciate all the help and comments above. Will try the timer functon next time, in the meantime here is another view trying to get it right, it actually shows the "lIBERTY" as being worse than it is. as far as the auto-focus, didn't use that as I wanted to control the speed and f settings in the manual mode, I think I loose the capability to control those functions on auto-focus, but will give it a shot.  I think lighting may be an issue with the copper coin instead of a silver like Dave posted. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2669 Posts |
Is this the actual size of your picture or are you sizing down to be able to upload directly to the forum? You can keep your original size and upload to photobucket.com or imageshack.com instead, if your non-resized pictures are over 100K.
The auto-focus on the Rebel is independent of the manual shot settings.
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Replies: 30 / Views: 3,695 |
Posted 01/25/2010 09:28 am
