Photograhing your finds

I thought I would put together a little tour of my coin photography setup to help everyone out there take better pictures of their finds. It's easy to take great looking pictures with just a little equipment and some knowledge.

First, a picture of the whole setup from above - I have my camera mounted to a tripod, facing straight down. Off to the side, facing straight at the edge of the coin, I have a 100 watt desk lamp. For a coin stand, I had to raid my daughter's tinker-toy box for some parts! I have a dowel type part, poked through a black piece of paper to keep the background a solid black. Below the paper is a large circular piece of wood as a stand, and at the top I have an end piece to serve as a holder. It's diameter is slightly smaller than a dime.




Next, a shot of the stand. You can see the wooden tinker-toy setup with the paper and the lamp. Having the lamp off to the side will give the surface of the coin shadows and highlights creating an image with a pleasing texture. Warning, this will show off every imperfection in the coin while it's bringing out the other more pleasant details.




Third up, a shot of the lamp on, showing how the lamp illuminates the coin.




Here are a couple of quick examples of pictures taken a few minutes ago with this setup.




It is easiest to use a camera that has manual controls for the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO to control the exposure yourself. The goal with this setup is to have the correct exposure for the coin, using the lamp, while keeping the background black. I accomplish this without having to edit in photo software by brightly illuminating the coin, while giving minimal illumination to the background (the black piece of paper behind the coin).

If anyone has any questions about how best to photograph a coin, go ahead and post!

 

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A quick follow up post with one more example from this afternoon.

 

"Nicely done" - professional photographer

 

I started out with the lamp like that. Now I just use natural light. It brings out the natural color more, especially with toners IMO.

 

I disagree - perhaps if you aren't properly white balancing your photographs that would be the case (I'm guessing they came out yellow or orange with a tungsten bulb lamp), but I assure you, the samples above are quite true to life.

 

No. The red cast was my problem, and now I don't have that problem with natural light.

 

I'm still thinking that you had a white balance problem with the bulb - most cameras, especially of the point and shoot variety, white balance to natural light easily, and less so with artificial lights - but it sounds like you've got a system that works for you. Thats all that counts!

 

Thanks for the post!!! I'll have to try this out... Are there any decent cameras that I could get for $150 or less? haha. now all I have is a Nikon Coolpix L18

 

I haven't shopped in the $150 price range for a while, but you'll want to find something that has a 'macro' mode, and ideally manual controls over shutter speed, aperture, and ISO speed.

That being said, I took this photo with the setup above and my camera phone:


It's clearly not as nice as the shot in my post above from my 40D and macro lens, but it's usable. It would not be ideal for coins much smaller than a half dollar though. Dimes would just get lost.

 

Actually, I took a look at the Nikon L18 on the Nikon website. I see no reason why this camera wouldn't work. You would just have to use the exposure compensation function to fine tune things.

 

Attempt 1:

I just turned over a lamp on a table and took a picture in macro mode. no zoom, about 1 foot and a half away from the coin. I couldn't zoom or move closer to the coin or the picture would get really blurry. Also the lighting is really bad lol.

EDIT: I didn't use my tripod cause I was too lazy to walk up to my room to get it

 

First, you need to make sure that you are in your camera's macro mode - this will allow you to get closer to the coin. Macro mode is usually indicated by a 'flower' shaped icon.

Second, you need more distance between your background and the coin. In my setup shots above you can see that the coin is about a foot away from the black background. This will help you light only the coin while keeping the background dark.

Third, you want to make sure you set your camera's white balance - there is usually a setting to change from auto white balance (AWB) to tungsten or incandescent white balance (sometimes indicated by a 'light bulb' icon). This should correct the color of the coin so that you don't get the yellow/orange/red color cast.

 

A little underexposed. I had to tweak the levels in post to fully black out the background. sjlund, you say that you shoot in macro, but it looks like your camera is a couple feet away from the coin. What length is the lens that you use?

 

i always have a problem with getting a shadow on my coin using 1 light north of the coin ... should i use 2 lights or something? any ideas?

example:

 

I am using a Canon 40D body and a Sigma 150mm macro lens.

Your shot looks good, nice morgan!

 

My advice to you will be similar to pballer above - make sure you use macro mode, more distance between the coin and the background, and fix your white balance. These are critical steps - if you skip any of them, your results will likely not be what you want.

For your specific question, no, I don't think you need two lights. I would guess that the glare at the top of the coin is actually a reflection of the lamp/bulb directly. Make sure you are lighting more from the edge of the coin and less from above it. This becomes much easier when you separate the coin from the background, such as in my example setup above.

 

Here's a few of my pics using a different technique.




That's just one coin... I still need a copystand to really get the sharpness dialed in, but I am hesitant to drop the cash on one right now.

 

Here's another quick sample with my setup with a 1919 wheat as the subject.

 

Well here's attempt 2. The camera is in macro mode and white balance was changed. There is a 12 inch space from the paper to the coin, and the light is just slightly higher than the coin. I don't get how everyone else is getting solid black backgrounds, but I'm sure not. And my camera just isn't taking super crisp photos for me :/
These photos are so embarrassing...

 

This is a helpful thread. You'd laugh at the setup I have used.