Critique Lukky - Part 1

The last ones I think have potential, but you've over exposed the photo a tad. Make your shutter speed a bit quicker by a few stops. You don't want to "wash out" any of the details on the coin. I also still feel like you need to back the lens up a little bit since you aren't quite focusing.

Let me know if you want me to remove this photo, but here is an example. (I know I have a different lens, but my focal length is 60mm, so very close)



Do you see how sharp all of the details are? Granted this coin isn't nearly as nice as yours, you can see all of the details, as well as the color. This is right out of the camera, just cropped and a white balance adjustment. No sharpening or anything.

We'll talk about lighting later, but being further away should give you better opportunities with lighting!

So for the time being, really focus on (pun intended) getting your focus and exposure down! Let's see some more attempts!

Well I wouldn't give up so quickly.

The photos on the top of this page looks like they are in a little bit better focus/ exposure. Whatever distance you were away from the coin, get there again. You're focus is right there.

Then work on exposure. The photos at the top of the page are slightly under exposed. Get that setup up and running again, then play with your shutter speeds. Stop down to f/8 and your ISO around 200. Making sure you're using a tripod, now move that exposure around slightly to really hone in on the right spot.

This one looks a lot better. Now your coin "seems" darker because your light source is very low, or close to the same height as the coin. Get your light source up higher and closer to your lens, and now you will have a nice bright coin.

So you're showing a TON of improvement on your exposures and your grasp on photographing coins.

I think what it's coming down to is, what format are you shooting in? jpg? RAW?

Essentially your digital zoom (the crop you perform) is what is making the coins look soft and needing to be sharpened. If you're going to make such a serious crop, I'm thinking (if you aren't already) shoot in the highest quality that your camera will let you... either RAW or jpg FINE. That will ease some of your noisiness come crop time.

I'm shooting with a 60mm micro lens (Thats Macro in Nikon language), and can essentially fill my field of view with the coin. I would continue to experiment with the setup that you have, to find the BEST combination of settings. Once you find something that works, then I would say it is time to think about upgrading to another lens that allows you to really fill the sensor with the image.

I wasn't shooting in RAW, but I don't know what I was shooting exactly. I took some pictures in RAW format, but I don't know how to edit them now. I'm attempting to find a program that will let me edit.

http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/

There's a plugin of UFRaw for Gimp.