Even amateur photographers like me know that there is no substitute for photographing in natural light. I have talked about my iPhone photography process here: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/macro-lens-for-iphone-coin-photography.353462/ I have found that sometimes when I photograph in natural light, I get shadows that can enhance features of a coin. However, I have also discovered that if I cup my hands around the coin, it creates a kind of lightbox effect that distributes light evenly across the coin and brightens it. Or maybe cupping affects the auto light setting on the iPhone I use—a literal manual adjustment. At any rate, you can see the effects below. I left one photo uncropped so you can see my cupped hands and their brightening effect. I’m divided over which method I like best. I’m not really taking art photos, so the brighter photo seems to show more detail and thus might be preferable for my cataloging and sharing purposes. But there’s something about the natural light and shadow I find attractive as well, and such photos might be truer to the coin in-hand. If you could select only one type of photo for your cataloging purposes—shadows or bright--which would you use and why?
Using a white or grey sheet of paper instead of your hand helps keep the color balance more natural. Your hands do not reflect all colors the same.
I definitely prefer shadow. The coin comes to life more. That is what my connection with coins is about; feeling history coming to life. Well lit photos are good for buying and selling, but then I prefer the scan, to be honest.
Your hands shadow the background fooling the camera into lightening the exposure. I see the light Valentinian washed out but using manual exposure would correct that. I have never understood why so many people light a coin brightly on the rear with no light on the face. Neither Nero choice is appealing to me. The low relief of the Valentinian makes this less a problem.
I agree once again with my fellow septuagenarian @dougsmit. Light the face not the back of the head. I also prefer a dark-ish image.
I use shadows from natural light along with a light background, tends to give an in-hand look. Also the coloring on the coin comes out right. In rare instances I use light, for example, the Constantine coin I shared last week has a very dark and glossy patina which did not show well in natural light - I just couldn't get the image bright enough. I resorted to using a "flash" setting on my phone which produced a reasonable image, but I cannot say that I was entirely happy with the result. Overall my phone cam (google pixel) takes very crisp and detailed images so long as you do not focus too close. You actually get more detail by moving the phone back about 6" from what seems normal. Anyway, I'm still experimenting a bit.
Actually, I think it depends on the individual coin. Most of my silver coins look better in low-angle bright light, which shows off the details well. But this approach can often exaggerate surface roughness or corrosion, especially with bronzes, in which case I have to play around with reflected light or a second overhead ring light. I've been photographing ancient coins for around 15 years now--initially I just placed them on a scanner; can you believe it?--and I still haven't found any one method that works for all coins. Often I'll photograph a coin 3 or 4 different ways and still be dissatisfied; I'll process all of them and then just settle for whichever one annoys me the least or looks closest to in-hand. As for background color, I have recently discovered that the brightness and luminosity of my coin photos seem to come out best when the background is about the same brightness intensity as the coin--very pale blue for silver coins, dark purple (just happens to be purple; could be dark blue or brown or whatever) for very dark bronzes, with different shades for the many variations in between. It's a journey, and I'm still traveling.
What you are learning is the difference (simplified) between DIRECT light and DIFFUSED light. With direct light the light casts dark, distinct shadows. When you cup the subject you are stopping more direct light, and your hand are also reflecting light creating a reflected light scenario thus lower the amount of dark, distinct shadows. If you were to put a white show curtain (or even wait for a various thicknesses of cloud cover over the sun) above your objects outside in direct sunlight you would create one panel/layer of diffusion, and create a light that casts a lighter shadow. This then usually leads people into flash photography and improving their ability of controlling light. For instance, if you put someone under a tree in the dark shadows during a bright day ... can you properly control the exposure of a properly exposed subject *and* a properly exposed background ? I recommend you go to a photography forum such as thephotoforum.com and you can learn a lot .. it can also be expensive depending upon how far you want to go. But coins are not really 3 dimensional like people so learning simple diffusion as mentioned above can really help in your images.
I have been doing a lot of coin photography lately, and decided to take pics both with shadows and with a reflector trying to remove shadows. Here's an example: I tend to prefer the ones with shadow. It gives more dept to the picture, and details aren't that much better on the bright one. Using a reflector to get more luster in the hair works pretty well though:
I feel like you just have to decide on a coin-to-coin basis. Rather than having a hard and fast way of photographing everything, the goal should be to show the coin in the best possible light and as accurately as possible, and that's going to depend on the coin's metal, patina, etc.
Lighting is everything. I took this picture just with a smartphone camera but waited until I had decent lighting conditions Once you take enough coin pictures, you'll understand how lighting works and what angles correctly capture coins versus washing out or masking the detail.
Reflectors can be too reflective and look unnatural. Try using a gray card rather than white. I might try raising the light angle a bit so it is not scraping harshly across the relief.
A gray card is good advice. As for the side light, I find that it helps defining the high relief, but that’s just my taste. It can overexpose certain areas, though. Especially with lustrous coins.
