The day was spent taking bunches of pictures of these two coins. They were shot with my new Canon T6 using the kit 18-55mm lens. I tried different settings and settled of F/9, 1/100 sec ISO 100 on my little copy stand. The light was a 75 watt equivalent 5000k LED. I can't seem to be able to get a nice sharp focus. I have gotten sharp focus but the lens doesn't really allow for a fine touch. I have read that these kit lenses are not the best. I have my Tamron 90mm Macro lens on the way. It has 1.1 capability and is rated pretty highly. I'm hoping it will resolve some of my issues. As far as color and exposure goes I think I'm on the right track.
Are you using autofocus? If so, there will be a little red light show which sensor was used for the focus. Be sure that the active sensor is on the coin in a good place. If not, check the diopter correction wheel near the eyepiece and be sure it is adjusted to match your eyes. If you wear bi/trifocal glasses or any other varifocal correction, be sure you are focusing using the top/infinity part of the lenses. The kit lens is sharper near the longer end but not all the way to 55mm but I have not noted that being a problem. The Tamron will be better. I hope it solves your problem.
@dougsmit, I'm using manual focus. I have the camera plugged into my computer and using the Canon software view and take the picture with a click of the mouse. The only thing I'm touching on the camera is the focus ring. The software allows me to change all the settings and I can see the changes on the screen. I haven't tried auto focus. I'll try that tomorrow as well as backing off on the zoom a bit and see what happens.
Thank you Doug. I appreciate all your help. I think there is still room for improvement but I'm pretty happy with the results.
From experience: There is always room for improvement but in trying to improve, it is possible to make things worse. Not all ideas are good ideas but we have to try or there will be no progress.
The Canon software allows you to focus from your computer as well, so you don't need to touch the camera (leave the lens in AF mode). Your autofocused version looks pretty nice though!
I'm still learning the software and have been playing with that. Trying to focus on the camera is almost impossible.
I use a Canon software system for this kind of shooting, and there is a mode that lets you do a super closeup for ultra fine manual focus. It gives you a few more shooting depth options than auto mode.
I haven't found that yet. The software looks like it has a lot of capabilities. I downloaded the instructions and will look for that feature. It should help quite a bit. Here is my latest image a denar of Charles the Bald.
Looks sharp to me and your color is now accurate. You're making life difficult for yourself though imo by shooting at f/9. These are very flat, low relief coins so you may not notice it here but you get a lot more focus 'sweet spot' by bumping that up to f/14 or f/16. Even with the cheap kit lens you're not going to lose any detail to diffraction for images at this resolution. Also, why not shoot with a white background? It makes it easier for your coins to be published on paper, saving someone the trouble of having to photoshop out the dark background - just saying in case it makes no difference to you. Some *do* prefer the look of black backgrounds of course.
@Suarez, I was wondering about increasing the depth of field as you suggest. It makes perfect sense to me. I'll try it out this morning and see what happens. As far as backgrounds go I'm indifferent. I'm still trying to figure out what I like and the best way to get there.
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm The above explains diffraction and even has a calculator to demonstrate how it varies with equipment and aperture. It does not and can not allow for differing degrees of tolerance for unsharpness either from standards or size of enlargements being made.
