Does anyone else think that these pictures are blurry?

@Dougmeister , YES, I think those pictures are blurry. I don't like the surfaces on that coin. Way too smooth in my opinion. They don't look natural. I would steer clear of that coin.

 

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Is that wear on the Eagle's chest... and why isn't it in a slab? Surfaces look unnatural too, agreed.

 

For what it's worth, I was only using the Flying Eagle as a particularly poor picture.

I was initially interested in the 1925 S California Commemorative Half Dollar. But after not being able to see much in the photo, the comments here, and the dealer's responses... I'm taking the advise here and steering clear.

 

Maybe it is just the pictures but I would question the authenticity of the FE.

 

Not so blurry that I can't tell that flying eagle has been cleaned harshly

 

slightly out of focus to me also

 

Looks like scans and not a picture

 

It has a funky look. I'm not sure it's real.

 

If you notice the background, it is fuzzy. Looks as if you need a new eye glass
prescription.
If the background is fuzzy, the photo is fuzzy.

 

Not necessarily. Coin imaging plays at the edge of appropriate depth of field - the line between sufficient DoF and diffraction is a fine one, and if you seem to have focus on both coin and background you're probably into diffraction and losing sharpness that way.

 

Blurry? YES

Cleaned? Likely

Would I buy? Ha! NO, wouldn't even consider it.

Run as fast as you can.

 

Don't know if you have seen the effect of some of the face/skin smoothing photoshop plugins, but to me itemulates that. Kind of not real.

 

Keep your dough in your pocket instead of his on this photo exercise and find one you can examine up close....

 

Their exact comments:

"You are saying with our current pictures and zoom tool we provide the pictures are still not clear enough for you?"

"I am looking at these pictures on a Mac and two other computers and they are clear to us. All are in focus on out three computers.I don't believe that I can add any better pictures with the equipment we have."

"On my computer the pictures are sharper. Now as to what we are dealing with it could be a resolution issue on your end with your monitor. I keep my laptop on a high resolution setting. Regardless of what the issue is the pictures we have on our website are what we can provide. I am sorry that they don't meet your expectations. Our goal and efforts have been to provide a quality website with quality images to people that visit our website."​

 

Well that was at least a professional response. Maybe it should be a requirement to join CT and get some photography advice before becoming a dealer. I'll write a letter to the ANA and PNG to make sure it happens.

 

I actually felt guilty and kept double-checking my eyesight to make sure I wasn't imagining it.

You're right. At least they were professional about it.

I just wish he would agree with me that the pictures... ARE BLURRRYYYYY.

 

It's like arguing common sense with one who has none: it's an exercise in futility. If they honestly believe their images of reasonably sufficient quality, you will convince them no different, so it's best just to walk away.

I will say, perhaps in their defense, that it is all too easy to get stuck in one's ways, especially if they've been doing this a long time. I remember when switching from film to digital - with a .3mp or 1.3mp "gem" of an awfully expensive a POS iirc - and thinking how wonderful it was even though the images themselves looked like, well, you know. It was just so much quicker and easier (and per-shot cheaper) that I chose not to see what was in front of my face. Their techniques may have sufficed for so long now that they honestly don't see any problem, or perhaps they simply don't care.

 

Perhaps he has no experience with a dSLR and dedicated macro lens; if he's an individual he's probably kind of busy running his business and doesn't really have the time to deep-research imaging including examples. Perhaps he's in his 70's and no longer capable of resolving that kind of detail physically.

 

Note you can see the complete edge of the coin on the right and not on the left, so the camera was off center of the coin. Therefore, the surface of the lens was not parallel with the surface of the coin, so portions of the coin in a close-up photo cannot be in equal focus. This arrangement of the camera/coin is useful to show mint luster on a coin, but a straight on photo of the coin would be better for uniform surface detail.

 

Well, not necessarily.

Point a camera at a flat surface, parallel to the camera's focal plane. Draw a rectangle that exactly includes the camera's field of view (with the lens that you're using). Arrange things so the field of view is several times wider than your coin.

Now, put the coin in one corner of that rectangle. Take the picture, then crop it to only show the coin. Presto! You've taken a picture that will show one edge of the coin, but has the entire coin equally in focus (assuming your lens is up to snuff).

There's actually a specialized "tilt-shift" lens type that lets you do this while filling the camera's FOV with the subject. It's used more for architectural photography, but could be used for this as well.

I actually scored big because of this once -- a large-volume eBay dealer listed a roll of proof Kennedys, neglecting to say whether they were silver. Because they were laid out in a rectangular array, I could see the edges of some of them, and could clearly see that they were not clad, even though the whole array was in focus. There was at least one other bidder who spotted it, but they wanted it cheaper than I did, so I won, at less than half melt.