Ultra Budget Coin Photography Setup

In an effort to help others on a budget take better photos of their coins, I have come up with the following.









































This is only Revision A, so there is a lot of room for improvement. And it is not like my photos are that great, but they seem better than a lot of others.

Criticism (both constructive and non constructive) would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I do realize one setup is not an end all for pictures of every coin in every state. But, this setup is so cheap, and buying 16ft of LED lights (like I did for $8) plus a ream of cardstock, can produce over 50 of these setups. You can have one for BU Morgans, AU Morgans, BU Gold, etc..

Here is a link to the PDF file. Hopefully I am not violating any rules posting this...

http://www.soundbuggy.com/Eric/coins/Budget_Coin_Photo_Stand/budget_coin_photo_stand.PDF

 

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Here are two photos I just took with this exact setup and my iPhone 7...

What suggestions does everyone have to improve them? Yesterday I played around with using electrical tape to block out some of the LEDs, and with a plain paper shield to diffuse the light more. Both were very promising.

 

Nicely done, MacGuyver! ;-)

Dumb question... would more LEDs be better? Circular arrangement maybe? Somehow illuminate the entire coin...?

 

The classic way to light coins is with two lamps, one at ~10:00, the other at ~2:00. This imparts a cross-pair of luster bars. If you need to add fill-light, it should be much more diffuse and at lower intensity than the main lights. So I would suggest putting a small piece of white paper over one of your 3 light arrays, with the paper ~1" -2" away from the lights. This will diffuse them so they don't excite luster and instead help fill in the dark areas of the coin. Align the light tent so the diffused light array is between 5:00 and 7:00 depending on shadow aesthetics.

 

There was some really good advice given to you in your earlier thread.

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/need-advice-with-an-1880-o-morgan.332656/#post-3355554

Chris

 

I know nothing about shooting modern coins but the three bright bars on the shiny coin really bothers me. I might experiment with the same stand and the lights moved to the inside edges of the 'roof' so that the direct light (these LED's tend to be very directional, don't they?) would not hit the coin but illuminate the entire top with diffuse light. I have not tried this and any results I got shooting ancients would not apply to bright Morgans. I would enjoy playing with the idea, however. Thanks for sharing.

Minor changes in light angle really make a difference in the result so I would also suggest playing with your same lights and rotating the coin so you get different angles. Below is the same coin shot eight ways with the same light but with rotation changing the angles. The differences are immense but you can visualize the results before shooting and select the one that you like best.

 

For people who don't have the DIY knack, Amazon has all sorts of tripod set-ups for cellphone cameras.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=phone+ca...=c&hvqmt=b&tag=mh0b-20&ref=pd_sl_1w008pdmze_b

Chris

 

I looked through 10 pages of listings in the Amazon link above but I didn't see a single product that could be used for shooting coins.

 

I am going to redesign this based on the 10 and 2 dual lighting suggestion to see what results I get. I will then try adding the diffused lighting as another test condition. If I can perfect this, I may change course towards a 3D printable design for anyone into that. Also, to the suggestion of a ring light, or more lights, that is kind of what I started with. I used a square grid of LEDs. Although I am sure one could see it from space it was so bright, it took away any signs of luster in the coins.

 

Ringlights are too multi-directional to show luster. Luster presentation depends on reflection of light off the surfaces of the flow lines. Single lights do best, and excite a single "luster bar". Two lights at 90-deg angles are also good and excite 2 luster bars. Any more and the lights start to interfere with each other's luster bars, until you get to a ringlight and there are no luster bars at all.

edited to add: the best placement for the lights to excite luster is actually 10:30 and 1:30...no kidding. These two clock positions are orthogonal to each other (at 90-deg angles) so they minimally interfere

 

I'm sure you know more than I do. It was just a thought.

Chris

 

No worries, it was a good thought Chris! Many folks have asked me to build something like the OP is doing, but I've never been all that enthused about the quality of photos from any of my cellphones. I've tried several of the commercial phone holders but even the best of them is pretty much junk. I've tried some of the clip on lenses and even tried to make my own lens system, but I've always been limited by the phone camera.

 

I'm with you 100%. For that matter, I'm not a fan of LED lighting as it is.

I saw the recent thread about the camera stand set-up you built for another member, and I would rather spend the money for a decent camera and have a set-up like that any day.

Chris

 

OK, so now its 10:30 and 1:30?

No problem, it is not too difficult to modify my CAD model.

Also of note, I happen to own a much nicer camera then my cell phone, but there is something appealing to me to extract the maximum I can from the phone. I read some factoid somewhere that all the best photos are now shot on cell phones, likely because people keep their phone on them, and don't wish to drag around an SLR. With that in mind, most people own a phone with a good camera, so they would not have to invest in an SLR, copy stand, etc. I don't doubt one bit though it is much easier to get better photos with the SLR setup!

I think somewhere on this forum someone did a lot of work with shooting coins with their iPhone 4, and that really was an inspiration to me to work on this project here.​

 

OK, here is the new file with two LEDs (well, 3 in each group) at 1:30, and 10:30 (90 degrees apart).



I also found out I need to redesign the feet for this thing. They are too "wobblily" with points at the ends of them.

 

A tripod, a slug, and a dud........that's me.

Some Jansjo lights fitted around the perimeter and it's showtime.

I'm ready for my closeup Mr. Demille.......

 

OK, I finished the 1:30 and 10:30 setup...







Then I tried a slight modification (blacked out the outer most LEDs)...







Opinions?

I think I really need to add on some diffuse light next.

 

I am not sure what to say. It should not look like that based on my experience. How far away from the coin are the lights?

 

Height wise they are about 3.5".

 

I'm not sure if you are going to find a one size fits all fixed non-adjustable set up. I use several lights that I can adjust depending on the coin. I have found that each type of coin requires a tweak to light source, distance, angle, etc. Even within each type of coin I will still make adjustments due to luster, etc.

I like the simplicity of the set up but it may be limiting. Swap out the same morgan you are shooting with a different one, then try some other types of coins. I'm curious if one fixed setup will give you consistent results that you are pleased with?