Photographing Morgans

Ok, I am getting back at it to photograph these coins I will be selling, but I am finding it difficult to get the lighting and color right. After using different light sources I find that indirect sunlight to be the best. I'm using a Nikon D300s with 50mm lens ISO800 A3.2.
Could I get some opinions and suggestions please

1900 Morgan



1888s Morgan



Thanks !

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If that orangish color is coming from indirect sunlight I think you need to work more on lighting.
And maybe the camera settings.

Have you worked on the white balance setting?

And consider buying Numismatic Photography by Mark Goodman.
If you do get it, make sure you get the Second Edition.

 

Hard to judge on the color, since we have no idea what color the coins are. The hard light coming from the left down low is a bit much in my eye, and could be raised up. Also, most folks like using their own light source because it's repeatable and always the same color. The sun isn't, so you'll be re-doing lots of work for every shot.

Your selections of ISO 800 and f/3.2 seem odd as well. Usually you'd want the lowest possible ISO value (I presume you're on a tripod or something?) and an f-stop more like f/8 to increase the depth of field. Those images are soft, and a smaller aperture would probably help.

 

Do you have any bright white lights? If not, I recommend you go and buy three really bright lights with no shades and possibly get some better bulbs to replace. Get the brightest bulbs you can get at a cool white temperature. Then fix the lights to a flat and steady table at 9 o'clock, 12 o'clock, and 3 o'clock. This refers to the positions of the hour times on a clock, so put them directly up, directly to the right and directly to the left. Make sure to get tall lights that can be maneuvered around. Put the lights as high as possible to make the lights more defused and spread out over the coin. For these types of coins, you don't want bright white, but you want more like bands or strips of luster to radiate over the surface. As Dave said, you want the lowest ISO, which tends to be around 100. Plus with the 50 mm lens, you should be able to get good detail even with your 13 megapixel camera. Hopefully you have a tripod for the camera, but it doesn't seem like it from the shakiness in the second set of pictures. If not, don't bother buying a $100 tripod, just buy a normal $15-25 tripod WITH THE RIGHT SIZE TRIPOD THREAD for your camera, and that will immensely increase the stability and the quality of the picture. If you have something simple like iPhoto, you can tweak it to make it better. Also if you have an editing software like Photoshop or FireAlpaca (what I use for free), you can color the background to whatever color you want, and if you want to perhaps be "mean", you can color in the scratches to make it appear better than it really is, but I don't think you would do that, nor would anyone else on this forum. However, don't take our advice and stick with it. Keep experimenting, trying different settings, different lenses, lights, colors, etc. I do this and it comes out pretty good...







I hope we helped you! Good luck selling them!

 

Why no shades, especially if using actual bulbs, most of which are non-directional? Although LEDs have seemingly become more common in recent years, many have long been using gooseneck lamps with shades and achieving fine results.

“Even”?? You do realize this strongly suggests a negative and that higher megapixels in absolutely no way automatically mean a higher quality or more capable camera, right? There’s more to it and the OP’s D300s, even though now older, is still a fine camera capable of achieving results superior to, say, an inexpensive Sony bridge camera with a very tiny sensor.

 

By shades I meant like lamp shades. You never know.

 

The camera that I recommend to folks is the Canon Rebel XS. It's "only" 10.2MP but can produce world-class images.

Lighting, Focus, and Framing are the three most important elements in coin photography. Number of MP doesn't even make it to the top 10.

 

Which is why Justin uses a 36 MP camera...

By the way, straight from his website stating how useful the high quality is...

"All images are captured using a 36MP Nikon D800E Professional DSLR with the highest quality optics and lighting techniques. With this equipment I am able to capture everything from the most intricate details to the incredibly wild and gorgeous colors of some of the most amazingly toned coins."

 

I would listen to Ray (rmpsrpms). What Justin is using is great, but quality photos can be made with cameras with far less than 36MP. As long as you are using 10MP or more your photos will be great as long as you have lighting down and a good lens. I think most DSLRs now have all you need when it comes to MPs.
I'm using a 10 year old camera and it has 18MP, which is plenty for what I need.

 

Thanks, Ray.

You’re the first person I thought of, but didn’t want to mention your work as an example without permission.

 

Getting back to the OP's question:

- Indirect sunlight can give some nice looking images, but it's hard to reproduce, so you won't get the same result twice. Better to create a consistent illumination with diffused artificial lights. I like IKEA Jansjo LED gooseneck lamps, though unfortunately they are now discontinued items. There is still a lot of stock of them online, so they'll be around for a while. Get 3 of them and wrap some tissue around them to diffuse them. Put one at 2:00, one at 10:00 (both about 6" away from the coin), and move the other around at maybe 24" away from the coin to help fill in any dark areas. Alternatively you can put a few more layers of tissue on the third light and put it closer, which will improve diffusion if needed.

- Get the main two lights as high an angle (nearest to the lens / optical axis) as you can. The biggest single problem I see with your images is the light is coming in at too low an angle.

- I generally recommend operating around f11 effective aperture (I can explain why if you want). This means f5.6 for Cents, and f8 for Dollars. In the OP you state you're using f3.2, but that's really too big and can cause you problems. Better to stop down to f8 for you Dollar shots.

 

Thank all for helpful replies! I will definitely work on the lighting. Yes I do think the slight orange cast could have been from direct sunlight. I cycled through all of the White balance settings and none looked correct except the "Auto" white balance. I think the Led light I tried to use at first was too direct and too low. I need a diffuser as suggested. Also, the camera was picking that ISO based on the Aperture and shutter speed, but I think the shutter speed was locked to a minimum of 1/30 second since I usually shoot hand held....of course I can change that now with a tripod and force a lower ISO. Really got me thinking about photography again and I hope I can get the coins looking good since I'm certain that buyers are more likely intrigued by quality photos.

 

I'm glad we could help you! Show us when you get new photos!

 

Ok, here is the setup with desk lights I got off Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016U6ZJGM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
With setting the ISO at Lo1 (the other settings below 200 are Lo.7 and Lo.3?)
Aperture F8
Auto White Balance
Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

For the first one, your lights are too close to the camera and you want the luster to be like the second one, in rays instead of a single bright circle.

 

Here is the setup. The light were the same for all images...should they be closer to the coin?

 

Since the lights are LED you should use something to diffuse the light. The way they are now (undiffused) they are leaving hot spots or white out all over the coin.

I'm not sure how well auto white balance works on your camera, but performing a custom white balance would work better.

 

It's very unflattering to shine a light from below such that the chin and throat of the portrait is illuminated. Think of the coin as a model, and shine the lights onto it to best flatter your subject.

Your shots are all significantly over-exposed as well. What camera mode are you using (M, Av, Auto)? I always recommend Av, which allows you to fix the aperture for best tradeoff between depth of field and sharpness, then adjusts exposure time for proper exposure.

 

Lowered the exposure

 

That looks much better! It is still over-exposed in a few highlights but not the general over-exposure from before.

Here's the pic with some minor adjustments: