This is a friend's coin, shot with a lighting technique I developed to resolve maximum detail. Shot with a Nikon D810 at ISO 64, 1/100, RAW. Lens used: Nikkor 60mm micro AF--this lens is sharper than my 105 AF-S. Shot near 1:1. There's a lot of interesting details to see: clash marks, cuds, die cracks and breaks, and possible file marks on the portrait. The strange "OF" in the legend may be a master die issue. Click to see maximum resolution. © Kurt Story
Most of my photos like horrible, half the time when I do a photo it makes my coins look like little blurry pancakes. When I post them they end up sideways too. My closeups look like horrible individual pixels too. Great photography skills and most importantly, great coin. I love all the errors. I would post my worst photographic efforts of coin but I assume no one would want to throw up on their keyboard. ---------------------------------------------------- When you see me posting a photo of a coin and it looks decent it is probably the 1000th photo I took of that coin before I got a good one.
This could make 69's out of a lot of MS/PR70 coins. Is this the product of the lens or the lighting you developed? Or must you have both?
It's a product of both, as this lens is extremely sharp. However, it is my lighting technique that helps resolve these details, including minute wear. Agreed that I could probably find circulation on some coins slabbed as MS.
Are there some do's and don'ts with the settings for regular digital cameras or better yet, smartphones ? I have a Galaxy S4 and the only setting I turn on is the anit-shake. I never touch the ISO or other stuff, I don't even know what they are for. I know very little about cameras except how to put my finger down to 'click' the photo. If there are settings on smartphones to turn on/disable for shiny coins at close range, I'm all ears.....
The more manual settings your camera has, the better potential for good results. Here are some settings your camera might have that you should use: Aperture: If you can set aperture, use a high enough setting to capture all the details--see below about tripod too. Contrast: if your camera has a contrast setting, set it low to retain more detail. Metal reflects a lot of light, and if a coin is overexposed, the detail is probably lost. Once details are captured, you can always adjust contrast in software. Size/quality: To capture maximum detail, choose the largest output size. Cameras often over-sharpen the photo, especially for jpeg files. If you have processing software like photoshop, turn off sharpening and output in a format like .tiff or RAW (.nef). You'll retain more detail that way, and sharpening in software always gets better results. White balance: If your camera has a white balance setting, experiment with the different options. For example, choosing "incandescent" under a light often gives better results than "auto". Tripod: it's possible to get decent results with a handheld camera or phone provided the light is bright enough, but a tripod makes capturing a sharp photo that much easier, especially if you can't set the shutter speed. Using a timer or remote release helps reduce shake too. Light: A brighter light helps the final result, since the camera's ISO setting can be lower (less image noise), the aperture can be set higher (sharper image), and a faster shutter speed will reduce shake, even if the camera is on a tripod or macro stand. These are probably obvious things to do--I use them all when I shoot coins.
Kurt; You definitely aren't a novice. Thanks for the advice. I have been lazy about the white balance settings. I'll have to pay more attention to it.
36? How about 50?????? http://www.techradar.com/us/news/ph...redefine-the-professional-dslr-market-1283740 This may be the camera I would be looking for!
That's an image size of 8688 x 5792pixels--wow! So, with a 24 x 36 sensor, that means each sensor pixel is only about 4 microns square. With such high resolution, ie small pixels, you're going to run into diffraction-limited sharpness that much sooner. In other words, you will need your lens set to a larger aperture to get maximum sharpness, which may also affect depth of field for macro shots. That's not even taking into effect that many lenses don't have "perfect" optics. So for my 60mm macro lens on my Nikon, it probably gets the best detail I can hope for at a maximum of f8-9. I also have the Nikkor 105 macro, which isn't nearly as sharp--I don't think it uses all the pixels in my camera. Well, that's a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo, but suffice to say a 50mpx camera would be really tricky to actually capture that much detail. If you don't have the best lenses and everything else set perfectly, you may be paying for pixels you might not actually use. Here's an article that explains diffraction-limited photography.
