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<p>[QUOTE="Publius2, post: 5179009, member: 105571"]One of the my recurring failures photographing coins is that of satisfactorily depicting old proofs such as the 1939 WL half depicted below. This is a PCGS PF67 coin in a pristine slab. After reading much here about axial techniques and having failed horrendously with direct light, I built an axial arrangement around an $2 picture frame, shown in this photo. The black vertical block at the lower front edge of the glass sets the glass at 45 degrees and also prevents the light from the lamps from washing across the surface of the slab.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1212190[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This first photo is my original direct-lighting effort and you can see it is a miserable failure. All photos use the same lights and camera (75W LED floods, 5500K, Nikon DSLR, ASA100, f-11, camera white-balanced to lights).</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1212192[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>This next photo is the raw JPEG hi-res using axial lighting. You can see that detail is somewhat washed out but what surprised me was the blue-green tint. I can only suspect that the picture frame glass has a tint that eluded me. It also has a bit of soft focus despite using manual focus to get it looking right on the computer screen before shooting. Maybe the glass pane is not really optically clear?</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1212193[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Finally, this is the axially-lighted coin that I have post-processed liberally to try to make it appear as close to the original coin-in-hand as possible. Better, but no cigar. The quest will continue. Your thoughts and critiques are welcome.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1212197[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Publius2, post: 5179009, member: 105571"]One of the my recurring failures photographing coins is that of satisfactorily depicting old proofs such as the 1939 WL half depicted below. This is a PCGS PF67 coin in a pristine slab. After reading much here about axial techniques and having failed horrendously with direct light, I built an axial arrangement around an $2 picture frame, shown in this photo. The black vertical block at the lower front edge of the glass sets the glass at 45 degrees and also prevents the light from the lamps from washing across the surface of the slab. [ATTACH=full]1212190[/ATTACH] This first photo is my original direct-lighting effort and you can see it is a miserable failure. All photos use the same lights and camera (75W LED floods, 5500K, Nikon DSLR, ASA100, f-11, camera white-balanced to lights). [ATTACH=full]1212192[/ATTACH] This next photo is the raw JPEG hi-res using axial lighting. You can see that detail is somewhat washed out but what surprised me was the blue-green tint. I can only suspect that the picture frame glass has a tint that eluded me. It also has a bit of soft focus despite using manual focus to get it looking right on the computer screen before shooting. Maybe the glass pane is not really optically clear? [ATTACH=full]1212193[/ATTACH] Finally, this is the axially-lighted coin that I have post-processed liberally to try to make it appear as close to the original coin-in-hand as possible. Better, but no cigar. The quest will continue. Your thoughts and critiques are welcome. [ATTACH=full]1212197[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]
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