I know coin photography is a subject that's pretty well covered here but I'm interested in what everyone here uses to post their coins on CT. Nearly all are excellent in that you can enlarge and clearly see the coin. I use a cell phone most of the time but there are some times I've used a Nikon D7000 with various lens combinations, various ebay macro and micro cams, 4k digital cams and everything else in between. If I'm doing a lot of coins at one time I'll set up a light box with cam supported overhead. Otherwise I'll just use a couple of desk lamps and a cell phone. What works for you?
I use a Nikon D3200 with a 100mm macro lens. Lighting is from a couple of worklights with daylight spectrum LED bulbs. The placement and direction of the lighting varies coin by coin. Many times I'll use an angled plate of glass between coin and lens for axial lighting. I always take the photo against a medium gray background which seems to work well with my camera's settings. My general goal, in taking coin photos, is to show the coin as closely as possible how it looks in hand under normal lighting - even if sometimes it results in a slightly less eye-catching photo. Auction house photo: My photo: SICILY, SYRACUSE Second Democracy, 466-405 BC AR Litra (12.4mm, 0.78g, 5h) Struck c. 460-450 BC Obverse: Head of Arethousa right, wearing pearl tainia Reverse: ΣYRA, octopus References: SNG ANS 132; HGC 2, 1375 Darkly toned. Perfectly centered and well struck. A fine example of classical Syracusan art in miniature.
Thanks! I suppose it's a bit unfair of me to compare the two, since I can take all the time in the world for my photos while the AH is trying to photograph hundreds or even thousands of coins as quickly and efficiently as possible. Still, it does show how very different a coin can look IRL versus a poor or mediocre photo.
For most pictures, I use a piece of regular paper for a back drop, two LED book clip-on style lights and an iphone (6?) on a stand built with Legos.
This is my setup. Canon EOS Rebel T3i, with a macro lens, on an adjustable copy stand, with up to 4 adjustable lights. I try to do minimal processing.
I use a fairly cheap (about $200) Elikliv microscope with built in camera and a few lamps. It works well enough, but you have to adjust the color balance based on the coin type. My biggest problem is I prefer to eliminate the background when I crop the image, and I just use the Microsoft photo app. It works very well most of the time but often has issues differentiating shadows from the edges of the coin and will "eat into" the rims in spots. Before uploading here, I have to do a screenshot of the photo as the files that come from the microscope are too large, but they still show pretty well once posted.
This is my goal as well. I'm not typically this strongly opinionated, but accurate fidelity should be the golden rule here. A coin image should indeed ideally look as close as possible to how the coin actually appears in hand—including its details, surfaces, fields, color, and both its perfections and imperfections. The aim shouldn't be to make the coin look 'better,' more colorful, or artificially beautiful. I always have to chuckle when I see a photograph where bronze looks like silver, silver looks like bronze, or a myriad of similar such discrepancies. And yes, believe me, I know all too well that this is much easier said than done. It takes time, practice, technical knowledge, experience, a solid understanding of whatever camera equipment is being used, and more. It's hard! Yet it's a pretty basic and logical goal. And a side point: I know auction houses put their photographers under pressure to produce quickly. But it seems an auction house would benefit by doing what it take$ to give their customers a greater confidence that the coin they see in the listing image, really is pretty darn close to what the coin really looks like when the buyer removes it from the shipping package. And in the case of @The Meat man above comparison, I know I would bid higher/stronger if I knew that being highest bidder meant getting the coin in the 2nd image, than I would if I thought being highest bidder would get me the 1st/top image. Surely most others would as well.
Thank you all for your replies. I find it very interesting to see what kinds of different methods are in use. I fully agree that getting the pic to match what is seen in hand is crucial. I concur that we all absolutely need to see the Lego stand!
It's just a basic platform really. I chose Legos because I could get the height of the phone just right for the best focus. I'll get a picture of my setup in a bit.
I just use a Cannon 200SX camera and daylight - no lamps. This is an old camera you can now buy for about 200 euros. I sometimes need to shoot up to 20 pictures to choose one I like. But it does work even if the pictures are not too sharp. I recently bought a new i-Phone 16. It takes amazing pictures with sharp detail. The problem is, it also makes the surfaces of the coins look like they have chickenpox. It picks up every minute surface detail and magnifies it. I can't use this for coins. Too Bad!
Many of the shots I've posted here are either from a Nikon D200 or D800 using a 105mm f/2.8 VR macro, with the camera attached to a Beseler copy stand. Lighting depends on the coin. For direct lighting, I use an LED ring light or the Nikon R1 system. For diffuse lighting, I use a light tent and the lights attached to the copy stand. For small coins, I can either add a Marumi +3 close-up accessory lens or use a set of Kenko extension tubes. I recently upgraded to a Nikon Z8, but at least for now am using the same lens.
