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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 632822, member: 19463&quot;]<b>suggestions</b></p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m very new here but that does not stop me from having a few suggestions. I do not collect US coins but have a few from the old days when I did. My father gave me an Indian $5 many years ago so I dug it out and tried to shoot it. Compared to the ancient coins I usually shoot, US gold is a different game.</p><p><img src="http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/image/114684283.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>My first suggestion is to avoid such high contrasts that you blast the highlights into detailless blank spaces. One way is to add diffusion to your light. I use compact fluorescent bulbs which are very cool and not the fire hazards that some lights would be if you throw something ober them. The top image above show my usual rig with a white pillow case thrown over the lights to smooth things out. This rig is shown below (minus the pillow case) in the center of this illustration I made for another purpose. </p><p><a href="http://dougsmith.ancients.info/ph2008.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://dougsmith.ancients.info/ph2008.html" rel="nofollow">http://dougsmith.ancients.info/ph2008.html</a></p><p><img src="http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/image/96310336.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The lower images (same coin!) uses a fluorescent ring light I bought at Staples office supply store for $25. It works for very shiny coins but what you get is really a photo of the glare from the coin rather than from the coin itself. Color rendition is not easy since your camera lacks that balance in its feature set so you need to shoot RAW files or use the manual color balance feature of the camera. When it comes to bringing out legends, it is hard to beat but it is not very natural looking. This rig is shown above left. The third rig shown was a control using natural daylight from the window and was not tried for this coin (partly because it requires a nice day to work). </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Whenever selecting a camera for coin photography, I always recommend a model that allows macro at the telephoto end of the zoom. That gives more working distance and makes light arranging easier.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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