Superdave On S2 Is For Coins

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Originally posted by SuperDave

Moved this to its own topic.

Here are the settings you need to become familiar with on your S2 IS:

Manual control, "M" on the top knob. You'll want to be able to vary all the settings you can, to compensate for differing metals and degrees of luster. Lustrous MS coins don't photograph the same way circulated ones do.

Aperture. Generally, you want the lowest possible number here, which lets you use the shortest possible exposure time, which tends to give the sharpest picture. However, if you can't be straight-up perpendicular to the coin, you'll need to set it to 5.0 or larger (numerically), which widens the depth of field and lets you get clear shots of areas at differing distance from the lens.

Exposure. Ideally, you want aperture around 3.2, and exposures over 1/100 sec. As you close the aperture (higher number), exposure has to climb also to the point that at 8.0, exposures exceed a full second to get as bright a pic as 3.2-1/250 under the same light.

Once you're in Manual control, on the S2 these two settings are changed with the arrows on the large button, on the upper right of the camera back.

White Balance. With the camera on, hit the "FUNC" button. The first setting, "AWB", should be highlighted. Using the right arrow, go all the way to the right, "CUSTOM." With the lighting exactly as you're going to shoot with, and the camera mounted as you're going to shoot, put a piece of pure white paper where the coin will sit, large enough to fill the viewfinder. Hit the "SET" button to set a custom white balance corrected for your current lighting. This setting will be remembered until the next time you change it, even if you use the AUTO setting to take other pics (on AUTO, it'll do the right thing for white balance on its' own, without losing the setting you set in MANUAL).

Macro/SuperMacro. On the left side of the lens barrel are two buttons. The bottom one is the Macro button. Hit it once for Macro (a flower will appear in the viewfinder), push it and hold for Super Macro (an S will appear in the flower). Super Macro is tough to play with - you have to get close enough to the coin to make lighting difficult, but when you become familiar with side lighting, you can make great pics of coins that'll fill your whole computer monitor. You cannot Zoom in Super Macro.

Macro will be your normal setting. Zoom works, but you can't get close enough to fill more than half the viewfinder with a Morgan, probably even less with a smaller coin. I get clear pics of a Morgan that are about 900-1000px wide, plenty large considering that 600px posted here is good enough to grade from.

Delayed Shutter. On the top of the camera is a small button. With the camera on and looking through the viewfinder, press it twice. The first time, an icon resembling a pile of papers will appear. The second, a circle with a 2 in it. This will delay the shutter for two seconds after you press it, and it's the setting I use, to give myself time to get away from the camera before the shutter clicks.

That's a start.

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