Coin Reshoots

thanks! man, i can't see them on my pic at all. i can if i really adjust the contrast...




did i get them all?

 

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Nailed it!

 

My first axial lighting setup was a piece of glass from an 8x10 picture frame. See below. I mounted it to a couple of 2x4 blocks I cut on a 45-deg. angle to make a pair of right-angle triangle blocks, about 3” x 3” x 1 ½” thick.

I wrapped them in white duct tape and applied dollar store Velcro to the 45 side of the block and a matching piece to the lower outer edges of the glass panel and stuck them together.

I used this super simple type for over a year when I first started. It's very sturdy.


Took about 20 minutes in total to make .

I stuck my camera on a tripod above the glass, and put a light about 18" beside it. With experimentation, I discovered that by adding a diffuser between the light and the coin, that could be moved either closer to the coin, or farther from it, depending on the coin's brightness, and by rotating the glass on a spinner I could produce images like those you've seen me post.

With that set up, I made this image...





and this...



and these ancient coins...







All shot through a piece of picture frame glass stuck to a couple of 2x4 blocks. I'm pretty sure this lighting technique will even work with your cellphone in place of a DSLR, but I haven't actually tried it. I can't see why it wouldn't.

This is my current axial lighting set up, Ver 3.0, which is an improvement in efficiency and workflow, but is essentially the same as the simpler version above.