Warning Big! Cent. Need Photo Assistance

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Author	Replies: 6 / Views: 1,687
nohope587 Pillar of the Community United States 5953 Posts	Posted 03/02/2010 08:49 am Trying to get as far as I can without using Gimp. Any suggestions on improvements Settings on the camera Zoom x2.2 optical F2.5 Speed 500 5 second delay Overhead lighting three halogen bulbs 1 Directly above and 1 each a foot either side. Distance coin to lens 14cm http://www.mycoins.us/forum/Photoshop/DSC08015.jpg http://www.mycoins.us/forum/Photoshop/DSC08008.jpg Edited by nohope587 03/02/2010 11:09 am Report this Post to the Staff

SsuperDdave Moderator United States 23522 Posts	Posted 03/02/2010 12:02 pm OK, I'll bite. Settle for a smaller final image. Zoom less - you might be pushing your camera's minimum-focus distance with the zoom. Keep the shooting distance; aim for a final image about 1200px instead of the ~1700px you're getting. Your pics are a little out of focus at the edges; it might be a lens limitation which this suggestion will eliminate. Stop down. f/2.5 results in a really shallow depth of field. A setting of around f/5.6 (in a point and shoot) or f/8-f/11 in a dSLR will increase depth of field. This will help make up for minor out-of-parallel between the lens and the coin. At f/2.5, you might not have enough depth of field to focus both devices and fields. The above will require you to increase exposure time, as less light will be getting in. With a stiff camera mount and a delayed shutter, there's nothing stopping you from going down to 1/30 or even slower in the interest of getting enough light to the lens. I've shot nice exposures with full-second exposures, just to see if I could. Just the aperture change I suggested would require you to go from 1/500 as you're shooting, to about 1/200 or so. By "directly above," I assume you mean the light is as close to the lens as possible. Try two lights just like that, at 10:00 and 2:00, as close to the lens as possible while being above it. Going from three lights to two will require additional exposure, too; added to the narrower aperture you're probably looking at about 1/80-1/100 to get the same brightness on the shot. Add a lens hood. Unless your entire shooting room is finished in matte black, including your body, you're getting at least a little light bouncing from various points and into the shot. This lowers contrast and adding a hood will help you play with lighting to reduce the areas of "darkness" such as at about 11:00 on the obverse pic. Be prepared to use different settings for obverse and reverse. Differing percentages of fields/devices mean less/more light bouncing from the fields straight onto the lens. I vary exposure for Morgans a lot - all other things being equal, the reverse of a Morgan gets 1/200 when the obverse gets 1/125, for instance. Report this Post to the Staff
nohope587 Pillar of the Community United States 5953 Posts	Posted 03/02/2010 12:14 pm Thanks SuperDave I don't have full control over the camera. I can adjust the F value but then the Aperture becomes automatic. I had the zoom on 5.1 (filled the screen on the camera and noticed the distortion. I will try backing off a little more The camera will not autofocus more than about 15cm away from the object in macro mode Tried adjusting the height until the focus control stopped working. Melted the hood with the halogens a few months ago so I guess I will have to order a new one from Sony.. Thanks for the tips will try all that I can. I figure there must be a full manual mode on the camera so i'll have to go back to the manual and look see. Report this Post to the Staff
nohope587 Pillar of the Community United States 5953 Posts	Posted 03/02/2010 4:01 pm So how did I do? Fixing to F/5.6 auto 1/100 Two lights no hood http://www.mycoins.us/forum/Photoshop/DSC08016.jpg http://www.mycoins.us/forum/Photoshop/DSC08017.jpg Home made hood two lights 10/2 F8 1/40 http://www.mycoins.us/forum/Photoshop/DSC08019.jpg F8 1/60 http://www.mycoins.us/forum/Photoshop/DSC08020.jpg F8 1/80 http://www.mycoins.us/forum/Photoshop/DSC08021.jpg F8 1/100 http://www.mycoins.us/forum/Photoshop/DSC08022.jpg Report this Post to the Staff
SsuperDdave Moderator United States 23522 Posts	Posted 03/03/2010 10:51 am I'm thinking that f/5.6 set is the "sweet spot" for your camera - the obverse pic rocks and the reverse pic is just slightly overexposed - 1/125 might be perfect for it. These are as good as anyone is doing without a dedicated macro lens. Downsized to about 1000px, about as large as you'd generally want to post them online, they're tack-sharp. Report this Post to the Staff
nohope587 Pillar of the Community United States 5953 Posts	Posted 03/03/2010 11:32 am Thanks again SuperDave Time to start playing with RAW images and Gimp now Report this Post to the Staff
SsuperDdave Moderator United States 23522 Posts	Posted 03/03/2010 11:55 am Don't forget the goal here. I usually tell people to shoot for a nice, clear image of about 600px as a minimum size for forming decent opinions in a messageboard post. In your case, you're creating pics of such quality that you should aim for 1000px final images. Anything bigger, and you run into problems both with hosting and viewers' monitors. It's overkill. I don't say that to discourage you from shooting the largest clear images you can. I'm not in a position to say that. The point I'm making is in postprocessing, knowing what you're ultimately going to be doing with that image. In the Gimp, I take an image and apply as much as 50% Sharpen filter (usually 30-40%) to a 2000px coin image. Full size, that's a bit too much Sharpen but when I downsize the result to my usual 800px posting size, the visual result is very true to the original coin. By all means, play with RAW, but in your case I don't think it'll generate much improvement. You're pushing the limits of your lens' focusing ability, you have the white balance absolutely nailed, and the only question is how good your camera's internal processing software is at generating .jpg's. Judging from what you're posting here, I'd say it's pretty good. Report this Post to the Staff
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