Happy Birthday To Me! New Camera, Fantastic Photos!

Ditto ~ Happy Birthday ~ :T$:

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

A camera stand would be more useful for photos of coins than a tripod.

Chris

 

Have also considered copy/camera stand as well. Lots of options.

 

It appears to me that the luster is much more prevalent in your point-and-shoot pictures. I find them to more desirable looking.

 

I find it very odd that this is the response that I am getting.
In hand the coins resemble the new pictures much better than the old pictures. Also with my monitor there is luster but the coins have an overexposure to that luster in the pictures.

I will admit the new pictures exhibit less luster, but the details and colors are sharper than before, and I would much rather buy/sell the coins I have from the new pictures than the old ones. I'd also want to show them off with the new pictures than the old.

 

Just to give my two cents... I like the old pictures more as well.. Not that it really matters though if the new pictures resemble the coins more appropriately. Whatever pictures we like more doesn't matter even a tiny bit, it really only matters on how accurate the photos depict the coin in hand.

 

Wow, nice photos!

 

It's your birthday, go get the copystand!!!

Happy Birthday!

 

Dont be surprised by the reaction. You have only had the camera 24 hours, I will almost guarantee at some point you will look back at these first images and see a large improvement.

 

I don't doubt that by any means.

 

Excellent! Great shots.

Enjoy the new camera.

 

Happy :cheers: BIRTHDAY !!!!!

Let me know when you go pro and I'll send ya some business....


.

 

looks like the older photos had better luster, while the newer ones have better color

 

Don't know if I'd want to accept those Chief

That seems to be the main consensus.

 

To me, the new photos are a bit too contrasty which makes the surfaces unnatural looking. It might be worth trying to go into the menus and set the contrast setting one click under default and see if this makes any improvement. You can always set it back if you don't like it. Another answer is to buy a decent postprocessing program and adjust tonal curves as you see fit. I like Photoshop Elements (about $79 here) but there are many that could do it. I have not had a Nikon since 2000 but have faith that their cameras over a couple hundred dollars will have settings that can be used to tweak results so you should play a little before writing off something you don't find perfect.

BTW: One thing I liked on that old Nikon digital was a feature called Best Shot Selector (BSS). When turned on, it would shoot three frames in quick succession and then throw out the two with the smallest file sizes. Since sharp images make larger JPG files than blurry ones, this feature would keep the sharpest of the set if there was a difference due to camera motion or focus error. It might do no good on 9 out of 10 shots but could save you if you accidentally jarred it on release. I believe most recent Nikons still have this feature.

 

Travis, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! And those photos look fantastic, nice work!

 

Depends on the tripod. I use a Manfrotto with a grip ball head and would take it any day over a stand. Of course this is from my photography outside the world of numismatics, but it works perfect with coins.

http://www.manfrotto.com/product/0/322RC2/_/Heavy_Duty_Grip_Ball_Head

 

tmoney-

My take on it is that the original(p&s) images were probably sharpened way too much either in the camera or with the proprietary software that came with it. I think this is what is making some think these have more detail, but in actuality they're just oversharpened and have become an exagerated caricature of themselves so to speak. I really like the new images and think that those are probably much more in line with the reality of the coin in hand.

 

Thank you Charmy.

I'm glad somebody gets it.
I'm about as confused as could be with some of the responses, when looking at the coins in hand and both photos, the obvious choice are my new pictures.
The old camera I was using is not good with colors, and details can be hard to capture as well. The luster has always been something somewhat decent to capture with that camera, but to make the coin look more like it did in hand, some pictures needed some major editing. (And even after that, they didn't look all that good)
My camera also had another problem. I would take a picture, it would look fantastic on the screen, and when I uploaded it to my computer, the pictures would not match up, and the results would be rather drastic at that.

I'm very pleased with my new camera, and I'm already improving with it. I hope that I can continue to get better with this camera, and photograph my collection to the best of my and its abilities.

 

I'm glad you're having a good time with it. You'll have a great time learning all that a DSLR can do. One simple piece of advice that I can give that will be more handy when you have a stand than it is now, is to use the timer when taking photos. You'd be amazed at just how much vibration and movement of the camera comes from pressing the shutter button. If you're taking shots of the Rockies at a high lens speed it's not going to matter that much, but for shots of coins it can make a difference in the sharpness of the details.