Taking Pictures of Coins

A lot of rude people on this site. Ergy was asking for advice - which he got along with a lecture. Keep on plugging Ergy and you will find the right level of photographs for your coins.

 

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@Denis Richard thank you for your reply. The first step, I just ordered a copy stand. I've been holding the camera and after reading all the posts on CT about photography it seems that this is my first problem (of many).

I noted that for raw coins in another post you mentioned that your camera was ¾ inch above the glass, and about five inches above the coin at the lenses minimum focus distance of 12 ¼ inch (larger coins can be 12” – 16”) and you usually shoot at f14, 1/200 sec. That is very helpful.

Now to take one of my wife's pictures off the wall to get the glass

I've been trying to also find a post on the CT site about how to shoot graded/encapsulated coins but did not find one. Do you also have a similar setup for graded? I find that this is really difficult but I see the HA photos and they look great.

 

Glad to hear your copy stand it on the way. My earlier posts have been centered around axial lighting and raw coins, since that is the vast majority of collector coins. I use a different set up for slabbed coins. I was in the process of putting a tutorial together about that. I essence, I'm using indirect lighting to produce images like this.



There is no light shining directly on the coin or the slab, but it is rather surrounded by light

The coin images below were cut out of slabbed shots.


as are these;



Happy Shooting!

 

I also have ordered a copy stand. My pictures are balanced against a scotch bottle box and it shows.


Probus. AD 276-282. Antoninianus
RIC V 157

 

Many of my coins don't lay flat (pic. 1). So you raise or lower your camera I presume. I'm taking pics from the same height, I feel like that causes some blurriness if I'm focused on the portrait height.



Thank you all for your help my picture taking (engineering and photo editing..) skills have improved quite a bit just reading this forum. It takes the right tools and experience using them to really take good pictures. I took a nice pic and realized I had some of the wool carpet on the glass (neck and chin) which ended up being in focus rather than the portrait:



It is difficult for me to get the coin and the legend to my liking because of that different height deal. So a combo of same plane, different heights and likely some movement at capture are my lingering issues with images. A lot of that is equipment, rather than user error, so everyone is going to see all my coins again each time I get better at photos!

Thanks again for sharing!

 

Most ancient coins don't lay flat. That's the nature of the way they were made I suppose. Photographically, that's not a problem, just another step added to the process. If the coin has a deeper focus area than you can capture in a single image, which some ancient coins do, you need to focus stack. Take a couple of pictures with the focus at different depths, for example, focus toward the front, then toward the back. The depth of field will overlap and you combine them in your editing software. I shoot at f14 which gives me a depth of field that covers 90% of the coins I shoot. What aperture are you shooting at? Try increasing it.

This image is a single exposure at f14. Remember not to focus at the highest point of the coin; you’re wasting focus depth. There is available focus area in front of the point you are focusing on, so as a general rule, focus about 1/3 of the way into the area you want in sharp focus. In the image below, a 2,100 year old Alexander the Great silver tetradrachm, I focused on his eye, not his cheek or hair.





About moving the camera, I do that for almost every coin shot (which is another reason for a copy stand, because repositioning the camera with a tripod is a pain.) I try to get as many pixels on the product as possible, so I adjust the camera position to fill about 90% the frame with the coin; I don't want to be too close to the edge. Generally, coins less than 3/4" round are smaller than full frame at my 12" minimum focus distance, but otherwise, I fill the frame. Of course, when I'm shooting dozens of coins at once I group them by coin size so I can make as few changes as possible, and make the changes I have to make from smallest to largest.

About those carpet fibers, get yourself a hand held air blower and give the coin, and the glass a blast before shooting.

 

Both Augustus and Probus above were shot: 1/40 sec. f/2.8 5mm ISO 160.

 

I think the f2.8 is a big part of your focus problem. You're focusing at your lens's closest focusing distance, which provides the least depth of field, coupled with the aperture set to capture the shallowest depth of field. See what you can do about changing the latter part of that.

 

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm
While fine for a large sensor (full frame 35mm), f/14 will run afoul of diffraction limiting sharpness on cameras with very small sensors. The above link explains this well be it is a bit more technical that most people will want. To be on the safe side, I use f/11 with my 'full frame' camera and f/8 with the 1.6x crop factor cameras I previously used. Point and shoot cameras, depending on model, will need to use something in the f/4 to f/5.6 range to avoid diffraction limitation of sharpness. I had one point and shoot that would not stop down past f/11 because the manufacturer knew that people would be unhappy with the images. On the other hand, lenses used on an 8x10" view camera often stopped down to f/64 but negatives that size were usually used as contact prints without enlargement so there was no problem.

If you are using a small point and shoot camera without interchangeable lenses, I would suggest trying f/5.6 at the most. If that does not do it you may have to choose between two kinds of unsharpness. Focus stacking is a great help but usually, in my experience, needed only when shooting coins at an angle as shown on the image below. Most people will not care to get that involved for normal needs. The four images at the right each have the plane of sharp focus in different places as indicated by the V marks. Software combines the images into one that is sharp everywhere. I have personally never done a focus stack over 100 images but coins often respond to 4 to 20 input images.
Click to enlarge.

 

So I get it a trade off: With f4 and ISO 200 it looks great regarding legend vs portrait but I'm effectively zooming in from further away so it lessens in overall quality.

Something as simple as the below takes me a solid amount of time, but I'm able to do the post-shot work much faster with some practice (even though the obverse below isn't rotated well).

Thanks, even at the current level of my abilities I like how it looks and it may save me new equipment purchases and I don't have the space for more stuff!

 

The more I research, the more it points to the axial setup. Did you purchase or make your set up? Thanks

 

@dougsmit and I made our peace. I can see where some are coming from though, I assume there would be a lot of trolls over the years. Overall everyone on this forum has been beyond supportive and very kind.

I’ve been very busy lately so I haven’t had much time to focus on my collection or trial photography, I’m hoping this changes over the Christmas break so I can experiment with some of the tips. I’m sure everyone will welcome me back with open arms at that time.

 

I built my set up myself. My first set up version (all the parts are shown in the last image, below) was equally effective as my current set up, though not as user friendly. If you're even slightly handy, you should have no difficulty with it.

It consisted of a piece of glass from an 8x10 picture frame. I mounted it to a couple of 2x4 blocks I cut on a 45-deg. angle to make a pair of right-angle triangle blocks, about 3” x 3” x 1 ½” thick.



I wrapped the blocks in white duct tape and applied dollar store Velcro to the 45 side of the block and a matching piece to the lower outer edges of the glass panel and stuck them together.

On the right is a piece of black velvet that I stuck to a piece of black foam board ( also from the dollar store) with a glue gun.

If you don't have a lazy Susan type spinner, like in the photo above, don't worry. I didn't at first, so I stuck felt feet to the bottom of the wooden block and I could just slide / turn the whole thing. I cannot stress enough the importance of turning the glass on the coins axis. Having the glass parallel to the light works best for only a small percentage of coins. You don't always need to turn it a lot, but you will turn it.

I used this super simple type for over a year when I first started shooting coins. It's very sturdy.

Took about 20 minutes in total to make.

I stuck my camera on a tripod above the glass, and put a light about 18" beside it, to the left.

I can save you a lot of experimentation by telling you that you also need a diffuser between the light and the coin. One that can be moved closer to the coin, or farther from it. The has an enormous impact on the contrast of the light on the coin. It also affects the exposure. Regarding the diffuser, I suggest you use something made for photography so it wont add any colour casts. I use a Lee 216 but that may not be easily available. It doesn't need to be big. I used a piece of white foam core board, with a square cut out, and taped a piece of diffuser to it.



I used the equipment above to make this image:

 

The picture of your complete setup is very helpful Dennis, thanks.

 

I do not own a smartphone, but I do have an ancient point and shoot Kodak that takes lousy pictures of coins. It does a great job on our pets, though, so I have just resigned myself to the fact that this is what it is.

 

Does anyone use Photoscape ?

 

Glad it helps, but that image was my first set up, not my current one.

 

Amen Amen! thats why my camper tires are flat and theres coons living in the garage