Camera and copy stand for coin photography

So I've been trying my hand at photographing my coins for several months now. I've got a super cheap setup. Basically I'm just using a jewelry tray, a couple desk lamps, and have been using my cell phone running FV-5. I've read Numismatic Photography by Mark Goodman (a truly excellent book) and have gotten better at lighting techniques.

I've only tackled photographing raw coins so far, experimenting with lighting and camera settings in FV-5 based on suggestions in the book. Here's a photo I took the other night, which is my first successful-ish attempt at photographing a coin in a slab. I think I have better focus and lighting, but I wasn't able to get the colors to pop. They are much more vibrant than this, and the reds and violets ended up looking brown. I think the lighting angle I had to use to minimize glare on the slab wasn't that good because my desk lamps are so short.




Here are my current problems as I see them. I don't have very good control of the lighting angles, as my desk lamps are extremely short. This restricts where I can position my rather large phone, as if I get the lighting in a good position, my phone will block much of it. I am also unable to keep the phone steady enough while shooting, which gives me some focus issues. Having to touch the screen to take the shot is also problematic. It's also difficult to get the same height between shots of the obverse and reverse. Though I have gotten better at some of these things, I feel like my setup is currently limiting me.

What I'd like to do is pick up a copy stand to give me better control of the lighting angles. I've been looking into them, but many of the reviews cite quality issues with plastic parts. I noticed a lot of coin photographers saying they use copy stands, but what brand? Right now I'm looking at the Albinar High Load 28" Copy Macro Stand as the reviews seem better than the average copy stand in terms of quality. Has anyone used one of these, or can anyone recommend a good brand?

Picking up a copy stand means I'd need to pick up a cell phone mount adapter and likely a clip on macro lens. I'm hesitant to shell out the money for these when the end results might not be that great, as I feel I may already be pushing the limits of what my phone can do with macro photography.

So I was thinking it might be a better idea to just pick up an older DSLR that can be had for under a couple hundred. If I can connect the camera to my computer to preview the shot and take it without having to touch the camera, that would be an enormous plus. Can anyone suggest a good beginner camera (and software) that fits these requirements? I've been looking at several possibilities, but I don't really have a point of reference and I'm feeling lost.

 

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I tried a DSLR once and found out very quickly that you need a good macro lens to accompany the camera if you want consistently great results, and good macro lenses are expensive. Though I have maxed out my performance and will never be as good as the guys who have mastered coin photography with DSLRs, I think my photography with a point & shoot is pretty darn good. I use a Canon Powershot SD 880 IS, a cheap copy stand, and two gooseneck desk lamps with CFL bulbs.

IIRC, my camera cost me about $400 brand new and it has macro capability, digital zoom, and a timer. You can get them really cheap used but I don't usually trust used point & shoot cameras.

Just throwing it out there if the DSLR option proves to be too expensive.

PS: If you place a coin or poker chip under the bottom edge of the slab, it will angle the surface of the coin into the light allowing you to capture toning better. With regards to sizing, the best thing to do is to use post processing software to crop the coins at their edges and then shrink the photos to a consistent size. I use 700x700 pixels for one side shots and 1000x500 for obverse and reverse side by side.

 

My suggestion if your going with a DSLR. Get a decent used 50mm f1.8 prime lens and a set of extension tubes. That will be far less than a macro lens and the 50mm will give you a decent distance from the coin to allow control of your lighting. If you shop on eBay you can pick up the extension tubes and 50mm for between $100 and $200. For about double that you can get an 85mm f1.8 prime and get better working distance or greater magnification. I used to sell photography equipment, this used to be my suggestion to people interested in macro photography on a budget.

 

I have no suggestions, but I love that quarter.

 

Personally I think you have to have a think about what it is that you are trying to achieve before spending a penny. You say that the colours don't pop but how much does that matter? I am certainly not too good either but have decided that I'll improve over time rather than cashing my pension for a slight increase.

Have you tried using Photoshop or other manipulation software (this can be free) to change the levels? As suggested above, you should be able to ensure the images are similarly sized at the very least.

Whatever camera, it really needs to be supported and ideally stabbing at a button best avoided. Is there a remote or timer function you could use? Some sort of stand will keep a similar distance and avoid shaking hands.

At the end of the day ask yourself if popping colours are worth $100 / $500 / $1000 than work out what you need to buy. Whilst I am sure lots here would criticise my efforts they are fine for me right now and I'm learning something new all the time.

 

I don't know if this will help at all, but here's $5.00 (!) worth of stuff I use when I want something other than a scan; an old copy stand from the typewriter days, and several sizes of spring clip. All very sturdy and stable. The copy stand, being heavy enameled sheet metal, can eventually be bent to the angle you want.

 

@doug5353, how do you use that setup with coins?

 

I take a coin in a 2x2 or a slab, and clip it to the copy stand, then go outside and position everything just inside a tree/building shadow on a bright sunny day (no glare), then use my digital camera on "macro" setting. What $5 gets you is a stable platform you can easily move around. It's not high-tech, but it's only $5.

Probably 95% of my images are made with a Canon scanner. Here's a scanner image of a worn, shiny countermarked Barber quarter, a difficult example to get a suitable image.

 

Best thing I ever bought (from UK)
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It is used with a Canon 7D DSLR exclusively with coins. Camera has a macro lens 60mm and I use a remote clicker to take the photo, avoids shake when the shutter goes.

As far as the mobile phone goes, see the picture which I pinched of the CCF photography forum. They have fixed the camera to an upturned tub. I don't I just hold it. Then I use the camera software to edit and crop the photo to remove as much background as possible and then email it to myself to finish off on the PC. Email the largest size your equipment can handle for best results.


I don't use a lightbox but I have two halogen table lamps, they have "goose necks" so they are very flexible.

 

Here's what I use. Bencher copy stand, Nikon D7000 with a 150mm macro. The lighting is the crucial aspect. These are 65w 5000k LEDs. You can see the results at www.irv.com -- all the coins on the site are shot with this rig.

 

Great comments from everyone so far.

I don't exclusively want a DSLR, I just figured that was the best option for what I want to do. If there's another option that will get me to the type of photo quality that I want I'm all for looking into that too.

A lot. I really like toned coins, and my photography is not adequately picking up many of the aspects I enjoy most about the coins. I also enjoy die cracks, repunched devices, overdates and the like, and want to be able to take pictures in a high enough resolution to see some of the finer details clearly.

Here are a few pics of coins I have picked up over the last year that I thought had very decent photos. These are the types of photos I want to be able to take. Well lit and clear.




In addition to wanting to photograph well the coins in my collection, I have also many coins that I intend to sell. The importance of having a great photo when selling a coin can never be overstated. I know I bid higher for the above coins than I would have if the pictures weren't this good, and with a poor enough photo, the coin wouldn't have even caught my attention in the first place.

As I still have the desire for good quality photos of my coins whether I take them myself or not, taking my own photos will also save me the fees of having the coins photographed by the TPGs when I send them out for grading. I think a good photography set up would pay for itself over time for these reasons.

I think my photos right now are maybe 60% of the way there. I think getting to 100% may be prohibitively expensive, but I'd be very satisfied with getting to 85% for a few hundred bucks.

My phone has a decent camera for a phone, but it's really a phablet. The thing is huge. With how short my lamps are, it really blocks the light. I find I can take a high resolution image that is poorly lit, or I can take a lower resolution image with better lighting. With a slab I can't really get in close due to the glare.

Here's one I took on my phone with a smaller focal distance. I like the level of detail, though the focus could be sharper. This coin just has toning in shades of grey though, with colors in the mix they appear completely washed out taken like this.


I do use Gimp to make color adjustments, but it's more that certain regions of the coin are just not lit enough and some colors aren't coming through. I don't want to enhance the picture to create something fake over taking a better photo. Of course scaling and cropping is an option to get the obverse and reverse the same size. It bothers me though that there is so much variance in my focal distance due to my setup, and also the phone not being level distorts the shape of the coin.

 

If you do a lot of cropping, it means your image area was too big to start with; this is more true of scanners than cameras, and more true for stamps than coins.

I've had sellers send me this combo - they used the entire 8 x 11 scanner glass to make the image, then cropped away 95% of the result = lousy images. If you are scanning a stamp or coin, make your image area 2 x 2 or at most, 3 x 3.

The selected image area for my 1916 quarter (above) was 2 x 2 inches. Plus it's a faster scan.

 

True, that. At Baltimore last week I had a guy at the table who was very interested in a deeply toned Mercury Dime. End of the day, eyes were shot, he couldn't decide as he was having trouble seeing the coin well enough in the terrible room light, even with a lamp. I mentioned my photo of the coin on the website. He pulled it up and looked at it, deal done. He bought the coin based on the photo even though the coin was in hand!

A proper rig will indeed pay for itself, plus you get the added benefit of honing your photographic skills.

 

That looks like a nice setup, thanks for the pic. Is it just the "Copymate II with heavy duty counter spring" that I see advertised, or is there any other additional setup you've used to mount the camera? It looks like you're not using the standard tripod thread hole for the camera, what's the connection?

 

This is my setup for pretty much everything. When I set up at shows, I used a carbon fiber tripod instead of a Kaiser RS1 copy stand to keep the weight down and transportability up. Current camera is Nikon D610 with 200mm Micro-Nikkor which I focus manually. Previous setup was a Nikon D80. I also have a 105mm Micro-Nikkor I use when the 200 makes the working distance too long (slabs, large things). This was a bigger issue with the D80, since the D610 is a full-frame camera. The camera is probably positioned for silver dollars.

 

Ok so I've done some reading on the suggestions above and on the setups you guys listed. I'm thinking a good entry level DSLR for my purposes would be a Nikon D80 or a Canon EOS 40D.

It looks like the software for tethering the Canon is free, but is something like $150 for the Nikon. Both cameras look to go for around $150-200 used (body only). It seems like older models don't go down that much in price from that point, but the next models up (D90 and 50D) are about double that price used. I'm not sure if that would be worth it or not for the step up, but I'm thinking it would be better to stick with a D80/40D and put the extra money into a macro lens instead. I haven't looked into macro lenses yet though. Any comments on these models or on macro lenses would be appreciated.

 

For tethering a Nikon, I use ControlMyNikon, which is not sold by Nikon. It's about $20-30 and works really well. The D80 body is about 8 years old now, so if you buy one, make sure the number of shutter actuations isn't too high. MTBF on the shutter on a D80 is something like 50,000 shots. You are correct that the lens matters the most. With Nikon, you can buy an older (late 1970s or so) manual focus 105mm AI or AIS (describes the mount style) Micro-Nikkor for about $200 that is super sharp. I used this exclusively until I bought my 200mm lens.

 

" . . . using my cell phone running FV-5. . . "

What is FV-5?

"Having to touch the screen to take the shot is also problematic. . . "

Your camera phone may have a built in timer shutter delay which means you don't have to touch the camera to take a picture.

When I was taking pictures of coins and medals I bought a really workable macro copy stand but I don't remember where I bought it. When I find the invoice I'll post the vendor's name and address.

I think your pictures look pretty good and there'll probably get better.

I like pishpashes set up for camera pictures and all the other rigs.
pishpashes is KIS (keep it simple) to quote my last boss

 

It's an Android app for giving you manual control over your phone's camera settings.
http://www.camerafv5.com/

 

Good advice, thanks. I'm assuming that an f/4.0 is just as good as an f/2.8 for coin photography, since light is not really an issue and they coins aren't in motion.