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<p>[QUOTE="messydesk, post: 3646212, member: 1765"]Short observation: Your lights are too low.</p><p><br /></p><p>Longer elaboration: If you have large areas of dark fields, it's because there's no light reflecting from them into the camera. A coin's luster will naturally give you some variation between light and dark, but not this much. Raising the angle of the lights will brighten up the fields. On cameo proof and proof-like coins, you may actually want the lights a little lower (like you have them) to keep the fields dark and make the devices pop out. The other symptom of low lights I will point out is on the Mercury dime. Against the dark fields, you have blown out highlights near edges. Since the fields are dark, your camera is trying to compensate for a dark subject by increasing the exposure. The result is that where the light does reflect into the camera from the edges of the devices, they appear overexposed. If you raise the light up, almost to the point of having glare from the slabs, you'll have a better exposure. The fasces on the reverse are showing as being brighter between the vertical sticks and darker on the surface of the sticks because of the low lights, but there is another problem in play here. You stated you have your lights at 10 and 2. This doesn't work for Mercury dime reverses because each light fills in the shadows cast by the other on the fasces, and you end up with indistinct separation. Try 11 and 3 and even 1 and 5 and 11 and 7, and you'll see how big of a difference that makes. Pay attention to the appearance of the axe blade when you do this, too. Liberty seated coinage makes this even trickier by having groups of stripes in the shield that are perpendicular to each other, and you don't want your lights to wash any of them out. The general rule of thumb is to not have lighting be symmetric around groups of parallel stripes.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="messydesk, post: 3646212, member: 1765"]Short observation: Your lights are too low. Longer elaboration: If you have large areas of dark fields, it's because there's no light reflecting from them into the camera. A coin's luster will naturally give you some variation between light and dark, but not this much. Raising the angle of the lights will brighten up the fields. On cameo proof and proof-like coins, you may actually want the lights a little lower (like you have them) to keep the fields dark and make the devices pop out. The other symptom of low lights I will point out is on the Mercury dime. Against the dark fields, you have blown out highlights near edges. Since the fields are dark, your camera is trying to compensate for a dark subject by increasing the exposure. The result is that where the light does reflect into the camera from the edges of the devices, they appear overexposed. If you raise the light up, almost to the point of having glare from the slabs, you'll have a better exposure. The fasces on the reverse are showing as being brighter between the vertical sticks and darker on the surface of the sticks because of the low lights, but there is another problem in play here. You stated you have your lights at 10 and 2. This doesn't work for Mercury dime reverses because each light fills in the shadows cast by the other on the fasces, and you end up with indistinct separation. Try 11 and 3 and even 1 and 5 and 11 and 7, and you'll see how big of a difference that makes. Pay attention to the appearance of the axe blade when you do this, too. Liberty seated coinage makes this even trickier by having groups of stripes in the shield that are perpendicular to each other, and you don't want your lights to wash any of them out. The general rule of thumb is to not have lighting be symmetric around groups of parallel stripes.[/QUOTE]
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First coin macro shots. Advice from the experts???
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