I've heard some good things about LED ring-lights and CFL circular lights, especially in terms of imaging slabbed toners - does anybody here use them to photograph coins, and if so would you recommend them?
I use ring lights quite often, mostly when doing high magnifications but sometimes when doing full-coin imaging. My original "smile director" concept is based on shaping the light coming from a Jansjo LED to look like a section of a ring light. This is for good reason...a full ring light gives an unnatural look to the image, similar to having too much diffusion, but sections of ring lights don't have this issue as long as they are carefully selected. Ring lights have the advantage of having the light source come from a narrow strip, and if this strip can be made to shine from high enough angle, it can accentuate toning colors. Too high an angle and you will get glare from the slab surface. These two requirements, "high an angle as possible" and "not too high an angle" are best met with a narrow arc of light that can be created by using a ring light and masking off those regions that cause too much diffuse or "fill" lighting.
Back when I was experimenting with various lighting techniques, I tried ring lights, but the coin images weren't very good. What I mostly use now is a variant of the "smile director successor", as described in the another coin forum. For some ultra-shiny coins (like reverse proofs), I have to use diffuse axial lighting, which usually produces acceptable, but unusual-looking results.
Interesting, never heard of this smile director technique before - I'll have to check that out. @charlietig, this is the type of light I'm talking about: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JIBWCX4/
I tried a LED ring light, but was never satisfied. Sometimes there would be reflected images of individual LEDs; other times, using a diffuser, the lighting was too flat. Ring light stays in its box. I like a couple of Jansjo's, sometimes in conjunction with flat light from a distant source. Cal
