Post your coin photography set-up

And now for something completely different - but it is part of my photography workflow. I thought it would be a break from some of the highly technical concerns.

This is about managing the image files themselves.

When I shoot a few coins I end up with a set of cryptically named files from the camera. I connect to the memory stick and see this directory (using Windows 10).


I set up a directory structure to try to keep things organized but not have so many images in a single folder that I can't find what I want.


My naming convention is to divide the folders by denomination (01c means cents) and decade. The main folder holds the cropped and processed final images of obverse and reverse. The subfolder Original is where I put the untouched files from the camera in case I want to go back to the beginning and work on my photo over again. "Vendor Photos" is for images I take from the auction sites when I buy a coin. They are often better than my own. (sigh)

The tedious part was moving the files from the memory stick to Original and getting them renamed properly. I just use the File Explorer in Windows to move them. I end up with a mix of raw image files and ones I have renamed already.

I wrote a small utility to rename them. First I select the right folder.


The utility then shows all the new files in that directory, and the picture of the coin shown in that image file.


I fill in the series, year, mint mark, and whether I am seeing the front or back of the coin in this picture. If I have more than one of the same year / mint, I can put in a counter, like #01 or #02. The software looks in the directory to see if I already have some images for that coin (shown in the list at the bottom) and proposes a file name.

If everything looks good I press the Rename button. The file is renamed, and is also opened in my image editor so I can crop and adjust it. When I have my finished image, I save the file in the parent folder (say, "01c 1930-1939") using the same file name. That way the finished images and the raw ones have the same names, but in different folders.

Then I move on to the next file.

I put in the ability to zoom in to see the coin better, but the utility has only one purpose at the moment so it is not overloaded with extraneous features.

 

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I do something roughly similar - with less automation - using filenames keyed to "stock" numbers I use in my spreadsheet, although the denomination, mint and year are included in the stock number. The only major difference is, I never overwrite the original image, instead saving the edited image as a new one. So each "keeper" shot ends up as an original (usually RAW + JPG), a fullsize edited version, and a third reduced to posting size.

And having come up all the way from Windows for Workgroups, I can't make myself include spaces in filenames.

 

Then you really wouldn't be comfortable when I use periods inside the file names!

My camera is about 10 years old, and does not support raw images. I just end up with two. The camera images are in Original, and the cropped and resized web images are in the directory above that. I can always start over again from the Original if I mess up.

 

You guys are way more organized than I am.

 

I got a heavy wooden cutting board and put a wooden upright on it, to which I attach a handy dandy camera mini clamp/tripod device. The Nikon Coolpix 3 camera is held steady that way and can zoom in or out to frame the pictures. For now I only have the one light source, with one of those new fangled kind of fluorescent lamps.

 

I've only managed to impose that order on my coins in the last two months.

My Archive is still just folders for denominations, then dates, then individual coins by no particular naming convention. I got irritated, though, when I looked at a Cent and realized I had no idea where it came from or what I paid for it. Spreadsheet time.

 

Very nice, I will soon be trying to take photos with my Iphone 6s. Have you tried any of the clip on lenses? I ordered a macro one.

 

Look guys I just whipped a coin out of my pocket snapped a picture free hand and no lighting and I'm already better then have of those FleeBay sellers!

 

The macro attachment may be worth trying.

The iPhone 6s is what I have, too. It has a fixed wide-angle lens. If you hold the camera at its closest focus, about 4 inches, and zoom all the way out to wide angle, you can see exactly how much of the sensor is covered by an image of the coin.

When you zoom in, these relatively few pixels are digitally sampled and interpolated to form the final image you record. I just was not able to overcome this limitation, although with a lot of experimentation with lighting, white balance, and exposure I achieved results I liked. However, they did lack fully sharp detail.

In post #113 above I compare images from the iPhone to a Sony superzoom DSC-H9. This camera is about 10 years old and does have its limitations.

First, its macro mode is limited. By moving the elements within the lens, you can use zoom with macro. It doesn't really make the image bigger in this mode, but does let you move the camera further away so it doesn't get in the way of the lighting. The image of a Lincoln cent occupies the center 1/3 of height and width of the display, so that means the image only covers about 1/9 of the sensor. It's not a true macro as it's defined earlier in this thread.

Second, it does not have "live view" where the camera is controlled by the computer. It does have a video cable attachment for showing images from the camera on a TV. I use this to hook the camera to my computer monitor, and by luck whatever is showing in the camera display also shows on the monitor.

However, the resolution of the image is very poor and you can't really see the coin in focus. The camera also has a remote control that lets me snap the shutter without touching the camera. When the shutter button is pushed, the camera does its final autofocus and the resulting image is quite sharp.

Third, the batteries are shot, so I had to get an external power supply. This is not an issue when the setup is already tied to a tripod and cabled to the monitor, and it lets me shoot as long as I want without worrying about batteries.

In any case, I think the macro lens could help you. It will magnify the image before it gets into the camera, so you really will be covering more pixels with the coin. This should get you past the graininess you see when you zoom into my iPhone pictures.

 

I also save every image as it comes off the camera and make a copy to play with. You just never know when you might need that original. It's nice to have a fresh copy that's never been edited. I keep the same file name the camera gives it and add to the end of the name for a copy. This makes it really easy for me to keep track of everything.

 

I'll let you know how it turns out

 

Welp here it is. I am extremely pleased with the quality of this lense especially for how cheap it was!! I can already tell it is going to be superb. Now kind you these pictures are only a test sample. Free hand and no lighting. I'll be getting a tripod and light next.

 

Will be good to see quality of this lens once you get the tripod and lights set up. The parts in sharp focus look good but it's hard to tell how good the lens is when things are angled.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but lenses with lots of Depth of Field are actually of lower quality than ones with very shallow DOF. When the coin is angled, it's hard to tell if the poor DOF is due to the lens or the angles. Once you get the coin flat, we'll be able to see the DOF and estimate how good the lens is.

 

It seems the macro is only good for real close shots, pictures of whole coins I think will need to be taken with no lense

 

Love this setup. I wanna try that.

 

rmpsrpms builds these. Visit his website link on his post above. (#135)

 

Neat so far. Still haven't received my lights or tripod in. Just testing the waters with what little time i have.

 

I contacted member gbroke on page 1, second entry, of this thread but never got a response. I am completely new to photographing coins, and thought that the stand shown in the picture there might be useful to me. Upon further research into this sort of "copy stand," I was able to locate several at Amazon the looked like this one, but nearly all of the buyer reviews were negative, saying that the stands could not support the weight of their cameras, that the stands were not stable enough or that the camera could not be lowered enough to take very close-up shots.

Another member did answer my question about stands, but in the course of going to the links he provided, I came to the conclusion that my 4 megapixel Kodak Z700 may not be up to the task after all.

Unfortunately I have been unable to find too much information that is helpful to the photographic neophyte; one look at the 7 pages of this thread is proof enough that this was intended for enthusiasts who could compete in a world-class photo competition. So, where should I look to get some idea of the basics, and who can recommend one of these two-legged camera copy stands? Any and all suggestions will be appreciated.