I finally conquered my photographic nemesis...

Lovely photogs Justin. One thing eludes me. A photographer of your caliber having problems? I think you're just being modest........

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

No modesty here on this one. It has been downright frustrating to get the color that is on this coin to show through while having contrast on the devices and not get glare from the plastic of the holder. I really envy Phil at PCGS, he gets to shoot almost all coins without the handicap of the holder. If I could shoot this without the holder, it would have been much easier. But thank you for the compliment.

 

Naked coin shots are the best........

 

Especially at 1:30 in the morning.. LOL!!

 

Kripes......I remember when I was up that late. Perhaps instead of 'naked' I should have intimated 'RAW'........

 

This coin is also in a holder and also drove me nuts, so I will post it in sympathy. The red is deep and rich and a single photo never captured what I was seeing.

Of course, an animation has its own problems. Perhaps I need to realign one of the reverse images to make it smoother...

 

Gorgeous Large Cent!! I love the fiery reddish orange popping with the luster.

I just bought a Morgan Dollar yesterday, that has fairly deep semi-PL fields with color that I just cant get to pop, because of the plastic holder. The fields have a very watery look and are very reflective, while Anna is fairly frosty. Up around US UNUM is a gorgeous deep electric blue and down around the date and under her chin is a nice pumpkin orange.

 

Great buy for the season!

 

Very nice penny, wow amazing!

 

This thread inspired me to take another crack at this one through the slab today. The latest image is truer to the in-hand color, so I'll call it progress.

August:

Today:

 

I definitely like the second one better. Good job, keep it up!!

 

Not only are business strike Lincolns tough, but proof Lincolns are even worse. They may have a mirror surface but it's not like silver where you can reflect a dark background off the mirror. The surface already has a color of its own.

I am fighting with this one and I have made some progress. Any tips on photographing these early post-war proofs would be helpful!

 

That's because copper isn't as reflective as silver. Silver will reflect something like 95% of all the light that hits it. Copper reflects a fair amount less and the absorbing of that light gives it the color.

 

When they are raw, they are so much easier to work with. My technique will change depending on how the surface of the coin is. For proofs that are not toned, I will use a standard setup for me, which consists of 3 or 4 lights. If the surface of the Lincoln Cent is toned, then I will use a combination of axial lighting and direct illumination.

This 1953 Proof was not toned, so I used 4 lights. My main light was positioned at around 2:00, the second light was at around 10:00, the third light was at about 7:30 and finally my 4th light was positioned at about 4:00. All lights were set at a much lower angle than I would use for silver coins. This allows for a better contrast on the bust of Lincoln without getting intense hot spots. Also the two bottom lights were positioned further away so that they cast less intense light on the coin and were only acting as fill for the darker areas. I let the fields stay a little dark. I expect them to be darker on a mirrored field, but you can still see the color of the coin and the viewers brain knows how to interpret the image properly.



In this 1955 Proof Lincoln Cent, it had some really nice toning going on. So I chose to use the hybrid of axial and direct lighting to illuminate it. The axial portion of the equation lights up the fields because the mirrored surfaces reflect the light directly back at the lens, this causes the toning to really pop. The direct lighting helps to bring the bust out and get some contrast. The lights used for the direct lighting have to be placed much further away than they would be during normal shooting. If not, they would seriously overpower the axial portion. If you do some research on axial lighting, you'll find out why you lose so much light using that technique.



And finally here is a modified version of the lighting from the axial hybrid above. I angled the light in the axial portion a bit differently to produce different effects. It's all in just being creative. This is a Lincoln Cent from a 1964 AH Proof Set.



In the end, there really is no right or wrong way of doing this. There's simply a better and worse way of doing it and creativity will help you find the better way. Also some basic lighting theory used for portrait photographers helps a guide. Because really, your shooting a portrait on almost ever coin. Everything above is vastly easier to work with when the coin is naked. Once you throw a slab into the equation the work really begins.

 

One trip to Home Depot, a new DIY enclosure and three light bulbs later:

 

Some success with this one, but I have a lot to digest with all your detailed advice.
I will get more lights, to start with.

 

White coins give me a lot of trouble, I am not sure but changing the F stop has helped me show some detail in the hot spots.
I am close I think. This is 4 led's. I have always been impressed with those that can show the die flow and luster, With out losing the detail. It would be nice to show the white tabs of the slab, actually white.

 

The additional lights have arrived but are not assembled yet. Here is a new attempt wirh three lights.

 

I do think animated trueviews are in the near future.

Phil showed some work on Instagram and it was a PCGS coin but animated.

 

That is a really good idea.

Dramatically toned coins are almost impossible to photograph once they are in plastic. The light angle that excites the thin-film interference and brings out the color - that’s the same angle that relects light off the plastic into the camera lens.

I have tried, and failed, to match the TrueViews. The animated images really should be taken when the coin is outside of a holder.

When this happens I can abandon my one-person quixotic crusade to make the still image obsolete!