• Your Biggest Coin Photography Frustrations?

I’m preparing an ANA Money Talks presentation on professional coin photography for the National Money Show in Savannah this February. I hope to see you some or all of you there.

My reason for reaching out here is that we all, professional and amateur photographer's alike, face the same challenges photographing coins, the difference is how we handle them. Rather than putting everyone at the presentation asleep covering the usual f-stops, tripods, and keeping the coin level, I’d like to focus on answers you don't find on YouTube. I'll want to discuss the actual problems that challenge collectors and how professionals solved them.

What frustrates you the most?
Coins that never look right no matter what you do.
Details you can see in hand but can’t capture.
Photos that look flat, harsh, dull, washed out, or just… off.

If you’re willing to share example photos, even better. Seeing real-world attempts—whether they worked or not—is extremely helpful and will directly influence what I cover in the talk. They may even be included in it. This presentation is meant to serve the audience, so I’d like it shaped around what you actually want answers to.

Thanks in advance.

Denis Richard
Coin Photography Studio

 

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I'm pretty decent at photographing people or objects, but I've never had any luck with photographing coins. I have a sony Alpha-77 (I'd have to dig up the lens specs, I bought a relatively fast lens for it), and I've also tried my Note 20 Ultra (with more luck), resting on a soup can.

The cell phone yielded better results, but aside from lighting issues, I rarely get good focus (I have the Note 20 Ultra on manual, which has much better results for photographing people, and I can use raw mode images.

Terrible images, no matter what I do, and I see people using cell phones (and even doing quick, casual snaps) with decent to great results. That's really frustrating.

I'm photographing ancient coins, AE or AR. I haven't bothered to try with AV until I master the other two.

Oh, and even though I photograph the items using the same distance (soup can), the obverse and reverse images often differ slightly in size, which makes trying to stitch them together frustrating (and it takes forever, like 30 minutes per coin, and I'm not even doing a background). I normally just use dealer photos.

Here's a typical 'after' photo (with the raw images stitched together and sometimes there's some color adjustments.

Oh, and something to rest the coins on safely has been a frustration. I've been using a clear coin capsule, but as you can see, it's not always ideal.

These images were done for a super low-grade Byzantine lot. I normally don't take photographs but these didn't have any dealer photos. The reverse is a bit more in focus than the obverse.

I didn't bother to try and remove the coin from the background (that's another issue). These were just for identification and my records.


Another problem is that I don't have anywhere good to set up a good lighting system. I'm using a decrepit antique chairside model radio (which was basically a small coffee table) as my photography workspace.

I also don't want to spend a bunch on it. If I could find a pre-built lightbox (I've seen people use shoeboxes and the light), I'd be more in business.

 

White balance! How and when to use a gray card! You don't have to have your gold or copper coins looking silver on a gray background that looks blue!

 

Thanks for sharing. There's a lot to unpack there. You make an interesting connection between getting better images with a cell phone and their processing algorithms. Lots to think about. If I wanted to quote or paraphrase your frustration, would that be okay?

 

Excellent points. There are several ways to tackle the white balance problem. Thank you.

 

For me, I end up with results like this. This is not a bright white coin so the color is close but the details come out muted/flat.

Full disclosure, I am using an iPhone. I tried for a long time to use a camera but was never happy with the results. The new phones make it easy.

Dark copper coins I typically have no issues with.

 

I use an Elikliv scope which gets decent detail, but the color is always an issue. I can get it to work but always have to adjust based on if the coin is silver, copper, proof like etc. I'm not trying to get it perfect, just close and with enough detail to catch the smaller imperfections.

 

Are you happy with the results of the iPhone, or are they just acceptable? What kind of issues were you having with the camera? ( I assume it was a DSLR) Exposure problems? Proper colours?

 

Yes, that'd be okay. The reason I probably get better results with the cell phone is that I have a basic stand, with the soup can. I do have a tripod for the sony, but it's useless for pointing downwards, and I don't have a macro lens.

The main points:
-focus, or lack thereof, of macro images
-creating a same sized image for obverse & reverse
-finding something safe & appropriately-sized for a coin spacer
-lighting/struggling with making a setup/workspace
-being unable to easily isolate the coin images and use fancy backgrounds
-The whole process is cumbersome & something which I don't enjoy.

 

I just took this with my Samsung S25, I use to take photos with my Canon camera, I find the phone a easer to use.

 

@ToughCOINS
Here's a proof I took today, I do lean the coin against something.

 

For most coins I can get acceptable pictures with the iPhone. Some, most silver, I have problems like above.

Honestly, I don't remember which camera it was but yes a DSLR. It is sitting downstairs collecting dust. Problems with exposure were the biggest. I didn't have the time or patience to figure it out.

 

Probably my biggest issue is getting my manually-adjusted focus just right. Can take a lot of twiddling around, taking a photo and then zooming up to see how in-focus it is.

Photographing low-relief coins can be challenging. The design is too shallow to create much of a shadow so the details can easily fade into the fields.

 

My biggest complaint is the limitations the slab causes with both color and proof coins. You can only pinpoint the light so close to the coin before slab glare blocks color. It can be a frustrating experience.

 

@ToughCOINS
I use a 6500 Degree Kelvin with a high CRI lamp and it's in a wall light.
I purchased the fixture from Laconia Electric when they had a place in Wolfeboro.

 

My photography, and hoping this is in the past, but has been so terrible that people question the legitimacy of coins I've had graded and slabbed by ANACS, NGC, ICG & PCGS. Now THAT is some bad photography - I was using my old iPhone 6 for a lot of those (like my avatar photo - my 1916 SLQ which sparked a debate that even Insider got drawn into, lol) but I've worked on it, off and on, and am now using an iPhone 13 and have an inexpensive light box from Amazon and have been getting better results - learning how to use the stacked books to stabilize my camera above, with the coin on a bottle cap was a good first lesson from me (thank you all who post that for newbies). Nonetheless, bad eyesight, some color blindness and not the best depth perception (or something?) have really made this more difficult than it looks for me. I really respect those of you who are the masters of this - and thank you for posting your photos, information, ideas and tips. Edit - per OP request - here's an old bad photo I took - when I was really really trying to take a good photo.

 

Can you elaborate or post a reference?