more photography practice - 220508

I experimented more with coin photography for AE, AV and AR. This time, I repurposed an unused cheapie headphone rest, which has a stiff rubber top. It makes an okay rest for small coins, but the raised edges make it harder for coins of Sestertius size on up.

The photography station: a decrepit 1940 Philco chairside radio (basically a table) which I use for my record label photographs. The light source, a 100 year old lamp, lol. (LED light). Same workspace as previous tries.

One of the AE, a dark Constans (not pictured), was more or less a failure (too blurry). It needs more light.

I also experimented with white balance correction. I had used the dSLR. It has less megapixels (24) than the note (108), but offers raw mode.


All in all, I think the raised holder for the coin made an improvement in the final results.

Coin photography is pretty frustrating and time-consuming. Just finishing one takes an incredible amount of time (photography, editing). Say an average of 15-30 minutes per coin.

Even if I finally improve dramatically, photographing my unphotographed coins will be a very long-time project. No use doing that until I'm really satisfied with the results.

Per the gold, I didnt want to risk any accidents with my Tiberius Apsimar, so I took the equivalent of a junk boxer in gold.


Ex Marc breitsprecher, 2011. (That was the older tag in the flip). The reverse was so crude that I had to go back to the original dealer pic to figure which way was up. That result, so-so. The original pic was better.

The differences in color of the coin background is due to white balance adjustments in editing.

Original 2011 pic.



The first one I tried, a junk box Allen Berman Byzantine.


The result, ehhhh. More light would help. The flash results were a total failure (way too much). I didn't bother to check if the flip had the right Sear number. The coin; worn and around VG, brown color.

And now for the one with the most satisfying results; the silver. I had tried to photograph this one in my previous try, and the results are here for comparison.

This time:


last time:


I think the improvised stand made a lot of difference on this one. Raising teh coin helped and also helped with the SLR lens not making a shadow (when I'd be forced to bring it down low to the coin).

I just realized: I think the rose is upside down again. I don't know why I keep doing that. I have the individual obverse/reverse/label pictures and this can be fixed.

Even though with the rose mistake, I think this effort is much improved.

The Rhodes was a Christmas or birthday present from a couple years back. The coin store from whence the presents came had slabs for a while. Those might be harder to photograph. Or easier? Anyhow, it was a very thoughtful present.

 

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I just tried with another Christmas present, with results I'm pretty happy with. My next need is extracting the coin from the background (before the finished product).

The true color of the headphone/coin stand is a slightly off-white.

I also made a new canvas to dump everything into. A light grey.

What do you think?

 

What software do you use to edit the photos?

 

Photoshop CS5. I also have the new version of Paint Shop Pro.

Previous attempts to extract the coins from the background have been failures, but I'm no real expert in Photoshop. Perhaps Paint Shop Pro may have a smarter lasso tool?

I think I'm having a halfway decent breakthrough with silver coins. I still need a light bar or something like that.

 

Still kinda blurry. Not sure if that's a focus issue or a camera shake issue. Are you handholding the camera? Pretty much impossible to get good shots doing that, at least without a flash...

 

I'm handholding the camera. I do have a couple of (tall) tripods.

*I'm working on another test batch.

Coin photography is 10/10 frustrating. It's not really worth the time and aggravation. Until I can get a hand held light bar, it's probably not worth the effort to make further attempts.

Why isn't there some out of the box coin light box kit? That would make sense. We're just thrown to the wolves and expected to figure it all out ourselves.

 

The subject also seems to make a lot of difference. The Rhodes didrachm came out somewhat okay. Some of these aren't.

I'm using programmable auto mode. Manual photography ALWAYS comes out blurry for me, even if I know the general ISO I need, etc.

 

How does one do the smart lasso in Photoshop? I.e. to strip out the background from the coin.

 

In Photoshop, if you are trying to separate an object, such as an obverse or reverse from the background, the magic eraser is useful. If I have a dark coin, such as a dark rough bronze,

I photographic against a white back ground, in diffuse, natural light (I rely on my skylight for this). I set the digital camera for manual (not automatic - the flash washes out much of the original color of the bronze). Once I select the two photos I want it upload into Photoshop, I copy the reverse and paste it next to the obverse, after resizing the canvas to accommodate it. Since I photograph from a standing position without a stand, the images may vary slightly in size, so I adjust accordingly. After the two images are properly oriented next to each other, I merge the layers. Using the magic eraser, with a sensitivity setting of around 21 I remove the back ground. A background, say a gradient, can be introduced as a new layer. The lighting may also need adjustment, usually a bit brighter.

Personally I don't photograph the label with the coin, unless the label has some notable feature. I prefer to photograph the coin alone, with a description on top (others prefer below). The main reason for photographing only the coin is that it allows the coin to stand out on its own, without the distraction of a label. If I have made a label for the coin (something that I am terribly behind on), I go to Word, where my labels are stored, find the appropriate one, copy the text and paste it above the photo.

 

I haven't had much luck using the smart lasso.

Instead I use the selection brush tool. I find that I have more control with this tool. If you use it, select selection brush tool in the lower left. The size of the brush can be changed. Moving the brush over the object, with the left button of the mouse held down, move the brush around the object until the marquee line completely surrounds the object. Make sure that here are not internal marquee lines - they will not copy. Once the object has been outlined, it can be copied, cut or moved to another area on the canvass.

 

To even out the background color, might I recommend using a wide vignette, maxed out as light as possible. It's a simple way to get the entire background pretty uniformly white, regardless of how it started off.
Here's an example with maximum white vignette. You can barely tell that the background was a sort of off-white color on the left, and grayish on the right.

 

Magnus Maximus Siliqua, local coin shop, c. 1995. I suspected that Jon Kern was the supplier, but I could be wrong. I stupidly discarded the original tags, but they were written in colorful ink, with not all that much information. Sear number, who it was, etc.


I didn't expect much with the slab photos. Not great, but not horrendous.


And now for one of my most beloved coins. Back in the late 1990s, my grandfather and I would make yearly trips to Chicago. Besides having lots of fun, I'd always drag him to HJB and Jon Subak. Purchased HJB, whatever year Men in Black came out.

Ok, so that's all for tonight. I noticed that the pictures done in the morning came out best.
For success, I think I need:
1) better lighting - a hand-held light bar.
2) tripod - I have a tall tripod for my camera. I'm off in about a week, so I might have time then to experiment.

I'll also experiment in the meantime with trying to isolate the coin from the background. What you're seeing (for the coin) is the original background. The color becomes different when I adjust the temperature, brightness, etc., in raw mode. The canvas onto which I dump it is a light grey.

 

You'll rarely get better than mediocre photos this way. A tripod might work if you can get the camera pointing straight down. But I just took a few two-by-fours and screwed this together (sorry the 3D is wonky but you get the idea):


Super easy to build! You need a long bolt to affix the SLR through one of the holes in the upright and a holed little piece of 2x4 (or whatever) to act as a spacer so the camera is sticking out far enough. Then you can use books or whatever to create a higher/lower platform on which to place the coin. Use a level to make sure the camera is perfectly horizontal. Use ISO 100 and a small aperture (may mean a long exposure).

(Using a phone is easier - just keep it steady on a stack of books. Of course the lens is limited in what it can do.)

I use these: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07YFY7H7J/ . One I use on a stand, the other I usually hand-hold.

You also need an extension tube to get a good macro from your SLR, I think I mentioned that before.

 

Yes, I remember you recommending an extension tube. I just created a word document so I won't lose the info. Would you happen to know what kind the tube is, off the top of your head?

No point in further photography until I get more supplies.

 

And thank you, I copied your 2x 4 idea into that Word doc.

I STINK at carpentry, but my neighbor is an accomplished cabinet maker.

There was another thread where the fellow was using a stand similar to my headphone rest, and he used dental wax to stick the coin onto there. I could probably mod my stand by finding a white or 18 pct. gray stiff card and putting it on top of the stand.

 

This is the one I have:
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00E7L2902/
There should be plenty of them available on Amazon for your particular camera. Just make sure it has electronic contacts so the autofocus works.

 

I made some progress today, so the day wasn't totally lost.

And thanks for reposting the tube! I put that into the Word doc, where it won't get lost.

 

I use the @dougsmit black background strategy. For me, just a black velvet underlay, various sized cylinders to raise the coin (extra long nuts are good for average sized coins, or even just small cylinders made of construction paper), and large cylinders of black construction paper around the coin (say an inch at least between the edge of the coin and the cylinder) to keep the background dark.

 

Here is my current set-up:



(Ironically, sorry for the poor picture quality.)

I took a square piece of plywood and mounted a wooden dowel rod vertically in its center. Then I cut out and taped together a pyramid-like box out of cardboard, painted the bottom of the box with a special, super light-absorbing black paint, poked a hole in the bottom for the dowel, and slid it down on top. It is great for creating a solid black background - what light does get down in there is not easily reflected. The top of the dowel is dished slightly to better accommodate the sometimes thick, uneven surfaces of ancient coins.

Sometimes I use my phone as shown in the picture (sitting on a book to get the focusing distance right), and sometimes I use my DSLR on a tripod. I don't have any macro equipment for the DSLR though, so those pictures tend to turn out less refined. On the other hand, the phone camera has a tendency to over-emphasize every tiny detail, sometimes making the picture unattractively (and unrealistically) grainy. I experiment to find the best option.

The light is just a fluorescent bulb, which contrary to the photo, I usually hold in one hand, experimenting with angles, distances, etc. while I watch the screen/viewfinder until I find the best spot (which is not always the same from obv. to rev.)

The photos I get aren't professional by any means, but I'm pretty pleased with them most of the time.
After the photos I crop them using whatever default program my computer came with, adjust brightness, exposure, warmth, etc. if necessary, then use Paint to put the obverse and reverse images together with the descriptions.

I've gotten it down pretty good so it doesn't take me too long once I get decent photos.

 

Nice setup, thanks!