more photography practice - 220508

I can order the stuff to coincide with when I'm off.

I have a telephoto lens; the salesman sold me the wrong type of lens when I bought the camera. Would that do the same thing as the tube? The telephoto lens was a slow lens.

 

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You can get an adapter for less than $10 on eBay or Amazon.

 

Tough love time: Sorry, but the problem is attitude. When you are unwilling to do something because it is too much trouble, you can not expect things to be first rate. If handheld snapshots are all you want, fine. Buying things rarely makes better images but learning to use what there is can work wonders. I have posted about building solid wood supports until I am blue in the face but people insist on hand holding in poor light and complaining. If you have a neighbor who does 'cabinetry' perhaps he would slap together what you need from scraps. It should take about five minutes and scraps abound in any wood shop. I have posted a hundred rig photos but all you really need is the most simple. The extension tube on a telephoto lens would work BUT first you need to figure out what distances will work to shoot your coin with your camera/lens set-up and then make the rig to hold the camera at that spacing. This photo show a simple rig outside but you do not use it in bright sun. It also shows an adjustable focus rail but you can screw the camera to the wood and change distances by placing different books under the stand. If you are not willing to do these things, the best answer might be to try to hire a kid with a camera and the desire to learn how to do it.

 

^^ This. (Note that the telephoto by itself will likely not allow you to get close enough to the coin. It's more for enlarging distant subjects.)

 

Thank you. That rig shows me exactly how to do it. I can show it to my neighbor, who is indeed a cabinetmaker - his firm builds and installs custom cabinets and pretty much anything a room needs, and that shouldn't be that hard. I have posted your very helpful pics to my to-do Word document. Many thanks to Severus Alexander, too.

About how long is the arm, and how far from the coin do I want to make screwholes?

I am off next week, so maybe I can get together with him. He once gave me one of their 'rejects', which made the perfect nook for a UPS unit.

My old time radio hobby doesn't give me a whole lot of spare time (the shows don't transfer and clean themselves), but if he can build it and I can buy it, cool! I'm hopeless at building stuff anyway.

I was expressing my frustration. There is indeed no point in much further photography until I get the needed supplies. Then I can try again.

The camera is a Sony alpha 77 (c. 2012, 24mp). I bought a Tamron lens, which is pretty fast.

It takes a really long time to edit together coin photos (even those mediocre tries took a lot of the day), so photographing 30 years worth of coins would be a long-time project. After the great bronze disease debacle of 2000, I'm very skittish about holding coins (even with gloves),especially AE, so that would further limit when I could photograph. Basically when I get up in the morning or a point in the day where my hands are bone dry. I think the main culprit of the BD outbreak was examining the coins close to my face (using a magnifier). I always hold my breath now if I do that, which I usually don't. About the only time I handle the coins is to rotate them in the flip when the coin arrives.

And per the morning, the very best of the tries came in the morning. I also notice that my label pics are also much better in the morning or day. The label pics don't turn out all that badly. The label pics are mainly for archival information, not so much to have the prettiest photo.

Photos would also remind me of many coins which I've forgotten about.

And maybe I can start ID'ing coins in the enigmatic bags of Byzantine (probably Bulgarian) trachea and 1st/2nd century As-sized provincials.

 

There's no telling until you get the extension tube and try it out with your camera. Then you'll be able to figure out how far away from the lens a coin needs to be, so that it fills most of the frame for a range of sizes (adjusting with books).

 

I'll look at the amazon link tonight, and if it works with my camera, I'll order it. Ditto the lightbar.

 

Looking to take the path of least resistance, even if it's more expensive, I started looking for a ready made stand. I did find a desk clamp type one, but that wouldn't work in my case.

With all the macro photography that goes on, surely there must be a manufactured stand?

 

A lot of good advice has already been given. The rig that Doug showed will work, as will any halfway decent, cheap tripod designed for cameras. The main thing is to allow the camera to face straight down.

You already noted that your best photos are in the morning or day. That should mean there's at least some natural light in your photos. If you can, you may want to consider using natural light in your photos instead of a lightbar. It's much simpler, costs nothing, and greatly reduces the amount of setup you need. Natural light will also reduce the effect of shadows cast on the coin by the camera.

It's really not that difficult to take decent coin photos. All you need is:

1. A way to get the camera to face down, without falling
2. Sufficient lighting, natural light if available is the simplest and requires the least setup
3. A way to either press the shutter button remotely, or if the camera allows it just set a two second delay

 

Here is my rig @nerosmyfavorite68. I believe Doug's rig is better and more stable but this gets me by for now and was a "cheap fix".
I still work full time and between children, grandchildren and a pack of dogs don't have much time so I cut corners.
I have a Nikon SLR with a Macro Lens and a friend set me up by reversing a lens but I found it complex. For other stuff I use a Nikon Coolpix so I experimented with that and am slowly getting better.
Everything came from Ebay and Amazon and the whole rig including camera was less than $150. We live in a throw away society and because people want the latest, fastest etc you can buy a secondhand Nikon for $30.00 in its box with software. This has autofocus and a macro setting and is in the pixel range not thought possible when the first digitals came out but probably not as good as some phones. The copy stand was double the price of the camera, the lights were $12.99 each and the scissors lift $8.00. The other day the copy stand spring loaded adjustable camera mount broke and a camera store quoted me more for a new camera mount than the stand cost me so I simply super glued a spare baseplate camera mount into place and leave it there permanently and screw out the camera if I change a battery.
Now I cannot give advice on photography like Doug and others can but I know this works for me and I am improving. It really is 95% perspiration and 5% inspiration and I understand the angst about downloading images. I leave the camera set up and plug in my laptop and download using the Nikon software straight into my images and then crop and adjust from the Microsoft image saving.
I'm still experimenting with photographing with black, blue and white backgrounds and clear glass as you can see.
Because of limited time and the complexity of the large SLR trying to use it with Photoshop etc I was frustrated but I think that eventually I will achieve decent images with this rig and then move up to the larger SLR when I am more competent and have more time.




The LED's are flexible and can be bent wherever I want them but are more of a hindrance than a help until I master them.
One unforeseen thing I hadn't anticipated was the camera sometimes sees what you don't ,or at least not with eyes like mine. I recently photographed this coin to see Bronze Disease which isn't apparent in the hand. It is now residing in distilled water as I am now reading whatever I can on the methods of cure.

For every image I feel worth saving I delete probably 5. What I do get out of the exercise is the ability to look at coins close quarter at leisure which is easier than with a magnifying glass if I am trying to refer to a book simultaneously.




My advice is keep at it, I accept I won't win prizes but any skill takes time.

 

This is my setup.

Canon DSLR - with 60mm Macro lens - Manual settings - F8, 1 1/3 secs.
Tripod
Lamp with Daylight bulb Light tent at about 1 o'clock. Light balance set with photographic grey card.
Glass plate with velvet sheet on top - hole cut through with black rod stuck to glass
Height of glass plate can be adjusted for different coins using a variety of books
Coin balanced on rod.....

 

The problem with macro is there are ten thousand answers to a thousand questions and as many photographers who actually believe that buying a better camera will help as much as taking ten thousand bad photos. My, old, old, old page even had a drawing that showed measurements to make the stand and a few people actually read those pages.
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/coinphoto2011ez1.html
And that same page has several sample photos taken with that simple rig. This one used light from a window but one on that page used artificial light. I flop back and forth according to the coin and my mood.

I have no photos of my most recent rig and, since I have not been taking coin photos (no new coins) my old rig has been modified to be better for flowers. Someone mentioned 'Cool-Pix' which reminded me that the same page showed a 'travel' rig made for my first digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix 990. That camera is, today, a joke and capable of better images than 90% I see. It was what I used when I shot the plates for Victor Failmezger's Late Roman Bronze Coins book in 2002.

These days I am much more into macro of flowers and am anxious for the insects to come out of hibernation and pose on those flowers (preferably while being eaten by other insects). Part of me wants to prop a coin up on a flower and combine hobby photos but that does seem a bit ridiculous. Meanwhile I am being ridiculous taking small parts of flowers for practice. This image shows about a 3mm section of a wild flower and, at the bottom, the camera that took the image. Imagine what a real pro with thousands of dollars worth of gear could do.


Collecting coins and photography have several things in common. I believe most important is the fact many of you deny that the guys who grade for NGC Ancients have handled more coins this month than I have in my time in the hobby (before they were born). This makes them 'better' at coins than I am. The camera in that photo above was new in 2019 and just rolled over 30,000 images. By many standards, that means it is not quite broken in. Not all of those images were any good but I learned something in the process. If you want to get good at coin photos, take pictures. Take a lot of photos. When you are happy with the results, throw them all out and do it again but better. If it is not worth doing better, is it really worth doing?

 

Good points. I'd like to find something out of the box if possible. My neighbor has already been a saint and helped me with various things around the house (putting up the security camera, etc.), and I don't want to bother him if I can avoid it.

I was on a photography forum for a bit. I could ask suggestions there if there's an out of the box solution.

I'm off next week, so I can study things more then. I also treated myself to a really nice huge Justinian follis. I've really been going to London Ancient Coins a lot lately. Pretty nice coins for relatively moderate prices.

Perhaps two good things will come of this. I will have photographs of my coins and I'll learn about manual photography. Even though I generally know what ISO to use, the manual photographs ALWAYS come out blurry or sub-par. Even after watching how-to vids and copying the specs of successful auto pictures (under the same circumstances).

My dSLR (Sony a-77) - 2012 vintage - is a bit long in the tooth, but it takes fine pictures of record labels and people. I'd like the next one to be a canon or Nikon, but that would mean having to get lenses all over again.

 

My DSLR for coin work is an old Canon EOS 400D, called the Digital Rebel XTi in North America and datyes back to 2006/2007 so it's not about the age of the camera. I use my above setup with either a remote release or normally a timed release in order to avoid any camera shake. I have thought about updating the camera but this one serves me well for what it does....

 

I have been a Canon user for 16 years now but, if I already had a number of Sony lenses, I probably would stick with Sony. Each brand has certain advantages and disadvantages. Each is capable of fine work. I would, however make the switch to mirrorless over DSLR's now. I do not see any of the major brands doing anything to update the DSLR technology. The big question now is whether we want to spend under $1000 or over $6000. Both are upgrades over the cameras in double the same price brackets a decade ago. My Canon RP takes much better photos than my old 5DmkII. I suspect the same would go for the Sony line (but I have no interest in changing because I have so many Canon lenses and understand the Canon ways of doing things. The truth remains that any camera with APS-C or Full Frame sensor made in the last 15 years is good enough for photos to be posted online (CT, Facebook, eBay). You will see the differences if you make really big prints or use new features like eye tracking and focus peaking but for Coin Talk, the best are serious overkill.

 

I just started using my Photoshop CS more and today I was doing my coin photos and found a selection tool that must have been made for peeps like us. Open your photo, go to "Select", scroll down to Subject and click, give it a moment, you now have a blinking line around your coin, go back to the Select menu and scroll down to inverse, now the background is selected. On the left menu, go down to the double square and click on the left one, a graph of color comes up, select the area that's black and click on new and okay. Now your color is selected. On the left go down to the Paint Bucket, click on it then move it over the selected area on your photo and click, you now have a black background and you're also set up to do this to each coin with just a couple of clicks. It's really not complicated, but there is enough difference between CS5 or 6 and this. Good luck and get that tripod!

 

After the expensive coin order I put in today the photography stuff will get delayed a couple of weeks . Many have waited for 15-30 years, so a couple of weeks won't make a big difference.

I'm a bit of a pixel peeper. Do any of the affordable ($600-1200) cameras offer significantly more than 24 mP?

Sony also has a goofy RAW format. I have to convert it to DNG to work in my old version of Photoshop; a bit of a pain.

The reason I went with Sony in 2012 was that I really liked my 2004-era one (the model escapes me now) with a Carl Zeiss lens. The Sony's been okay. It does well enough for people and record labels.

 

The rating in megapixels is far from the most important factor in image quality. I have no knowledge in or desire to learn about Sony, DNG or Photoshop since I prefer other brands and software and do not make a living making You Tube videos about things I have barely used. For coins in my collection, the limiting factor is usually the coin rather than my amateur, 26MP Canon RP. I might do many things better were I to spend $2500 on an R6 (which is only 20MP) but you could never see it here or in any online venue. The image below was reduced greatly to be allowable here. The lens that took it was made in 1913 intended to be a wide angle for a full plate camera (8½ × 6½") but taking a coin photo with it was really ridiculous. Almost any modern macro lens (unless damaged) could do a sharper image. Click to enlarge but remember that the original file was reduced from about 7000 pixels across to the 2048 (Facebook maximum) shown here. I love the images from high end, modern cameras and lenses BUT they show their worth making large prints of detailed landscapes and macros of nature. Coins? Not so much.

I know nothing about DNG except that it allows people to process RAW files from several brands of cameras using their favorite Adobe Photoshop software rather than a program created for a specific brand. Since I only use Canon, I use Canon software and see no reason to convert. It is rather like using Google translate rather than learning to read a language. It is nice that it exists for those who need it. I'm lost by the statement that Sony's files are 'goofy' when because they don't match up with old software. It would seem that it is the old software that is goofy.

 

My new version of Paint Shop Pro opens .ARW (the Sony format). Photoshop CS5 doesn't.

Canon or Nikon would probably be my next one.

I use the multiframe noise reduction mode for taking label pics. It works pretty well. I tried that on coins, but it didn't work for those.

I use the old CS5 because it's the last (or next to last?) really-own-it version of Photoshop. My mom gifted me her suite - which had about everything except Audition. I'm really a Photoshop novice, so the old one works for my needs.


I'm actually using the rental version of Audition 22. The software's actually a lot better than my old 3, so it's worth it. The batch conversion alone was worth it! What took 15 minutes on 3.0 took a minute on 22. However, I wouldn't pay 30 or 40 a month for Photoshop. I work with old recordings so I can stomach the 200-a-year for Audition.

Your photos are very nice, Doug!

 

Canon has one advantage besides being a good camera. The RAW software DPP4 is free to anyone with a Canon camera. They just discontinued their APS-C EF-M cameras in preparation for the latest and greatest RF line this summer so you might get a deal on a decent old model. If I were doing coins only, I would buy a Laowa Macro lens.