Gallienus Antoninianii photographed in natural sunlight

Most of my Gallienus collection languishes unphotographed. It's a gorgeous, sunny afternoon and I decided to photograph a few with my cell phone camera. Still have more to go, but I'm under the weather with a cold and this was all I could muster before taking a nap.

Let's see anything you feel is relevant -- coins you photographed in sunlight, Gallienus antoniniani, anything!


Gallienus, AD 253-268.
Roman billon antoninianus, 3.16 g, 19.2 mm, 1 h.
Rome, AD 261-262.
Obv: GALLIENVS AVG, radiate, cuirassed bust, right.
Rev: VIRTVS AVG, Mars standing left, holding globe and spear; P in right field.
Refs: RIC 317; Göbl 344x; Cohen 1221; RCV 10401; Hunter 32


Gallienus, AD 253-268.
Roman billon antoninianus, 2.28 g, 20.8 mm, 12 h.
Rome, AD 265-267.
Obv: GALLIENVS AVG, radiate head right.
Rev: VBERITAS AVG, Uberitas standing left holding marsupium in right hand and cornucopiae in left, Є in right field.
Refs: RIC 287 var; Göbl 583a; Cohen 1008; RCV 10368.


Gallienus, AD 253-268.
Roman billon antoninianus, 2.57 g, 17.5 mm, 6 h.
Mediolanum, AD 268.
Obv: GALLIENVS AVG, radiate head right; slight drapery on both shoulders.
Rev: VIRTVS AVG, Mars standing left holding marsupium inverted spear, right hand on shield; S in exergue.
Refs: RIC 534; Göbl 1150k; Cohen 1237; RCV 10411 var.

 

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I like the way natural light more accurately brings out the varying colors of a patina. Nice job!

Quick question, if you are just using your phone... how are you trimming the background out? That's something I usually don't do with quick photos as it requires me to get on my laptop. Do you have a quick an easy app or method for clipping backgrounds? Thanks!

 

Here's my Gallienus, 3.2 grams, 21mm.
Obverse: GALLIENVS AVG
Reverse: SOLI CONS AVG, Pegasus

Also snapped in the sunlight with my Google phone.

 

I'm photographing them with my phone against a plain white background, but e-mailing them to myself, downloading them to my computer and then using photo-processing software to crop them, paste the obverse and reverse images side-by-side and color-adjusting the background until it is plain white. The program has a circle one moves over the image with the mouse and you click on an area that's supposed to be white -- I click on the background, and voila!

 

I have never been able to capture what this coin looks like in-hand... and haven't here either. But I did just take this in window sunlight like those above.

It's a common coin, in bad shape... but in-hand the surface colors are great. Blues, greens, rusts, silver... I really wish I could get a photo that shows off the surface colors well.

 

Nice RC. What kind of set up are you using for white backgrounds?

Here's a Diocletion tet I got from JA a while ago that I just got pictures of today. I didn't think the sun would be coming out at all this year but we're finally getting some spring weather.

 

Oh... I see. Thanks for the reply! I thought there may be some fancy app that could do it all on the phone. What program are you using? My photography is strong with my 1-year old but terrible with my coins... I'm looking to improve!

 

Nice tet!

As for the set-up, I put down a piece of matte white cardboard for the background in a sunny area of the kitchen table. Then I put a mug next to it, so as to hold my phone parallel to the background and about 4 inches above it. I put the coin next to the mug with the lens hanging over the edge, put my phone on the mug, zoom in on the coin, focus on the devices on the coin, and snap a photo. Easy-peasy!

 

I'm mostly using microsoft office. I sometimes use paint or the other default program that came with Windows 10.

Here's what I did to @ancient coin hunter 's photo, as an example:

 

Nice coins, everyone.

My photos of a Gallienus antoninianus with Apollo. Equipment: an elderly Sony Cyber-shot and the tailgate of an even older Chevy pickup truck, lit by the Sun (billions of years old, I've been told). The only photo editing I know how to use is Paint - which I use to crop, mostly.

Not award-winning, by any means, but the sun does work better than any artificial light I've tried.






Gallienus Æ Antoninianus
(c. 267 A.D.)
Antioch (or Asia) Mint
GALLIENVS AVG, radiate, cuirassed bust right / SALVS AVG Apollo standing facing, head left, branch downward in right hand, left elbow leaning on tripod PXV in exergue.
RIC 610; Göbl 1670k
(3.86 grams / 22 mm)

Here is a very green Salonina with a doe reverse, photographed with the same "rig." There is a lot of "chromatic" (?) difference between this green goblin and the orange sand patina of the Gallienus above - in both cases the colors came through fairly true-to-life using natural light:

 

Wow, these sunlit-coin photos turned out very well. Nice work for some nice coins!

 

Nice looking photos!

 

I only use sunlight to photograph coins now. It has it's downsides, like not being able to turn the sun on whenever I want to take coin pics! Considering the bulbs in my house, the wood paneling all over the place, it just looks so much better.

Here is an early pic I took of an Apollodotus AE, with cent for size comparison and cracker crumb. I wont show the reverse pic, it is worse.




Same camera and photographer, just taken outdoors in sunlight and with painted background.



Same here pretty much with this Magentius...

 

I take the bulk of my coin photographs outdoors, and I have the same issue with the sunlight exaggerating the colors on the surface. I correct this by reducing the saturation level of the photo, sometimes by as much as 40-50%, after I've popped it into my computer. Often, I have to darken the photo, too. I just keep playing with these two adjustments until the color of the coin's surface looks about the same as the coin in hand.

 

What a great thread. I like this simple way of picturing one's coins! This follis I found in a box, I forgot how I came by it. It's a barbaric imitation of a Constantine I with two victories holding a shield over an altar. The lettering is all made up of VVDVVV's, and the mint is something like AAAAP. 'Mumble script' someone called this.

I used the old whisky glass method: put an empty glass upside down in the sun on the floor (in this case), rest your iphone on it and the coin at the foot of the glass. Make the coin almost as big as the screen of your phone, and gently make the photo. Like @gsimonel, afterwards I play with the adjustments to give the picture the same color as the coin.

 

I usually take pics in sunlight and artificial light, and then use the best pic of the two.

TL light:



sunlight:

 

What part of Office? I have it but dont have any imaging software included (that I know of).

 

Amazing how changing the light source can also change the reverse! I'll have to try this.

 

I've found it difficult to photograph silver or reflective coins in bright sunlight. Anything is do-able though, but it requires changing the settings. I've grown accustomed to shooting indoors (during the day though, with bright indirect sunlight) using an Ott light. I white balance to a piece of white paper and shoot against a black background.

Lately I've been shooting with a scrap of white paper in the field and I use that to color correct the image. That has worked very well to ensure the coin's true color is reflected in the final image. I need to reshoot a bunch of coins in this manner.

While there are differences in ambient light from shoot to shoot despite using the lamp, it's close enough that I don't have to vary the camera settings much at all for any given coin on any particular day.

 

It´s just a question... Sunlight, what its that?