bsowa1029 recently suggested that I take new photographs of this colorful quarter. The original photos were washed-out due to my coin-photography inexperience and reflections of the plastic slab. Here are my new photos. Like many rainbow toned coins, when you move the coin around (in-hand) it changes colors & appearance. During this new photo shoot, every time the lighting or camera angle was adjusted, it was like taking a photo of a completely different coin. The bottom line is that one photo can’t completely describe the toning. A series of photos or perhaps a video would be better than any one still photo.
One photograph can’t completely & properly describe this beautiful rainbow-toned quarter. Of course, this isn’t news to anyone that has experience photographing toned coins. Each of these photos rather accurately depicts the coin in-hand. It just depends how it is placed in the hand. Stay thirsty my friends & THANKS FOR LETTING ME SHARE.
Nice setup, is that in a bar or a man-cave? Did you make that box the coin sits on with one of these: That's what it looks like to me. If so, that's pretty ingenious. If that's just some everyday, common fine-tuning device for taking photos, please forgive my noobness.
Sometimes my vision gets blurry in the man-cave but the photos remain sharp. (It is a bar AND a man-cave). The toy is great for adjusting the angle of the coin to the camera & lighting.:smile
Thank you. :smile I post it from time-to-time hoping that it will catch-on. This old thread describes the toy: http://www.cointalk.com/t56856/
I would suggest getting the light sources closer to the edge of the coin in order to maximize the effect of your lighting. Based on the top photo, you have room to get them closer before the slab glare becomes a problem. Also, have you tried using 3 lights? BTW, gorgeous coin!
This is great advice for all CT photographers. Thanks for the help. This is great advice from Lehigh for all CT photographers. :thumb: I took other photos where the reflections are positioned much closer to the coin. In that case, I use a small piece of black cardboard with a 3/4" hole in the center. It leaves the coin exposed but blocks some reflection into the lens. Also, a quick tweak in the saturation & contrast (post photo) can give great results. I didn't do any of that in the photos posted so far. They are all just cropped raw photos. I only have the two lights in my set-up. I could always use a third.
Collect I'm really glad you took some new photos. Beautiful coin and great pics' Lehigh, do you use 3 lights? I use two but there are times that I wish I had a third.
I almost always use three, and sometimes on larger coins I use 4 to avoid shadows and dark areas of the fields. Very nice quarter Collect89. In your "setup" picture, I don't see a camera? I presume it's on the top of that tripod some 3 feet above the coin?
The camera is in my hand taking the picture of the set-up. The working distance (camera-to-coin) is adjustable from about 0-inch to 39 inches. The tripod pole you see in the photo has the rack gear & the tripod has the pinion gear drive. The pole can be inserted into the tripod from the top or the bottom. In the photo, the pole is inserted into the bottom of the tripod. The working distance could be adjusted from about 0-inch to 1 foot. If you insert the pole into the top of the tripod, you can adjust the working distance from about 1-foot to 3 feet.
