This is my Uncles Photo settup for coins. (wish it were mine). I had no idea what a tent was or anything. What do you think of this overall settup? I'm thinking about saving up some money and possibly selling some coins to support such a settup. Is the tent necessary? He did this using an 85mm Macro lens.
The tent is just to diffuse the light, so many people are able to make their own diffusers, sometimes by putting a part of an empty (and cleaned and dried) milk bottle over the coin and photoing that way. There are other ways. You might want to explore that, as the tents and similar setups seem to me to be extraordinarily priced based on what you get. The lighting is very important, and you might check craig's list for a nice camera holder (the one with the stable pad under it). Be careful of which tripods you get, some are pretty cheap (both meanings) and don't quite do the right thing for me.
I haven't had very many positive results using a tent as a diffuser. I like his setup, though I'd rather have a copystand for coin photography. I wish I would have had a setup like this when I first started. I've switched lighting 4 different times and copystands 3 times. It seems to be an ever evolving hobby, just like coin collecting.
I don't prefer the tents. I'd much rather use the direct light itself and diffuse as needed with a piece of white paper or something. Does the camera and lens come with it? That's the important part in taking really monster pictures.
A remote control for the shutter is a good idea. Looks like that is what is next to the lens cap in the second photo? Keep the camera still. That or a timed shutter.
Some of the best coin pics I've ever seen were taken with $150 camera. It's like anything else, you can spend a fortune on equipment and still take lousy pics with it. Or you can spend next to nothing and take great pics.
Thanks Doug, didn't know you noticed! Jason...I bought a setup just like this when I first started coin imaging. it now sits in my back room collecting dust. I found using the tent was more of a hassle then anything. It also came with those little high powered light. Which I also found out, do not work nearly as good as regular light bulbs.
I use my tent for proofs and proof sets, but for all other coins(especially if they have toning) I use a regular setup. I have gone through 4 different types of lights and I have stacks of different bulbs that I have tried. I'm still not sure which ones work best. I use a $200 camera and a $10 tripod and I don't think I do too bad.
I just bought a fugi film camera with a 24X zoom at Wal-Mart for $150 and i seem to do just fine. No tent needed.....
Copy stand, Canon Xti with 60mm macro, remote shutter release, and indirect lighting work fine for me.
nice setup. I use something much simpeler (but then again, my pictures are not as good as yours) but i am happy with the results i am getting so far. Here is mine The first 2 pictures are how it works. I use led lights (the ones from my usb microscope) for lighting. the camera is placed in the exact same angle as the coin. the 3th picture shows that i have made a "holder" that i can easely take out to turn the coin around to take a picture of the obverse and reverse.
