My coin photo setup

Someone asked a few days ago if I could share my photo setup. First I have to thank Doug for the great information he has posted that I 100% used assemble this. I love the pictures i have been able to get using this even though I really know nothing about photography.

The camera is a Sony a6000 which takes great pictures of things besides coins and is simple to use. I bought a $30 set of extender rings and a $30 led light ring which by chance is a friction fit on the lens.

 

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I am using my phone to upload this so I will do it in separate posts.

Next I got an old CD spindle, a piece of black velvet with a hole in it and a cardboard box that I use as a spacer.

 

Putting it together with cheap lamps with daylight led bulbs and a tripod it looks like this. I made a cheesy copy stand from wood but it was rickety and not adjustable so I went back to the tripod. I will try again to make something that is height adjustable next time.

 

I shoot on manual mode which let's you adjust the shutter speed. Getting close to the right exposure seems to bring out the true colors better than using photo shop to try to adjust it later. You can get a decent idea from the view finder how it will look.

 

Anyway hope this helps someone.

John

 

Here is the photo I took while making this thread. This is a Byzantine coin I have not attributed yet.



I did this at night using just the ring light and room lights. This is very close to the color of how the coin looks in person.

 

One last thing is that I have used both a 10mm extender ring and a 16mm extender ring (one or the other). Both seem to work, one seems to give more magnification? Maybe Doug or someone can clarify how the choice affects the photos?

I am sure using a dedicated macro lens would be even better especially if I wanted really extreme close ups of some part of a coin(?) I am just after overall pictures like I show here.

 

Photo is pretty awesome.

 

Thank-you John. It is identical to mine.
I use different (black) lamps with flouro bulbs, a different (adjustable) camera stand and a Canon (not Sony) camera, with the (variable) LED light ring (friction fit), so it is all different but all the same.

 

I have the same camera!

How do you get your backgrounds so uniform looking? Photo editing?

 

Photoscape is a great, free software for backgrounds and displaying coins.

 

I guess I don't know what I'm doing with it then. It's too much effort for me to circle crop two coins then fill in the background with the paint brush to make it all black.

 

I have looked for the 'replacing backgrounds' in Photoscape but I cannot find it.
Are you ble to point me in the right direction please?

 

Absolutely, what you want to do is open Photscape, select "Editor" and then select the coin you are wanting to use. Ensure that it shows up in the right side as an image. At the bottom left, you will see tabs for "Home", "Object", "Crop" and "Tools". Select Crop. If the image is distinctly round, you can select "Crop Round Image" the color select option is the color that will fill the background. Mouse and click the area you want to crop until you have the circle you want and then select the option "Crop" it is above "Save Cropped Area". Once you've done that, you'll see your newly cropped image with that background. Be sure to save the new photo. I like to save as a new file in case I screw it up and need to go back to the original.

The next thing you can do after cropping both the obverse and reverse is look at the top tabs "PhotoScape" "Viewer" "Editor" etc and select "Combine". At the very bottom left of your screen, you'll see a gold star, two revolving arrows (meaning refresh) and a folder with a magnifying glass. Click on the middle one with the two arrows and click on "refresh". This will ensure your newly saved photos are updated. On the right side, you will see the tabs "Down" "Side" and "Checkered". Select Side. This will put your two images side by side. Then click and drag the obverse side into the grey area labeled "Drop your photo here" do the same with your reverse image. Zoom out and they should be side by side, same size, cropped and looking nice. Save the new file.

For the finisher, go back to the editor and refresh the files like before by clicking the two arrows. Select your newly combined image to edit. Look for the "Filter" tab below the "Sharpen" tab. Select it and almost at the bottom of the menu, select the "Reflection" option. 10% is usually a good percentage, so go ahead and click okay. Save your image and voila!

 

If you download photoscape, I gave the step by step on how to do this. Feel free to public or private message me if you need better instructions.

 

Good work! I still maintain that it i easier to shade the background when shooting than to do the paint out being careful not to cut into the edge of the coin. That is why I have that tube of black foam around my dowel (cd spindle in your case).


While my main rig has adjustments from use of an old enlarger frame I have had for 50 years (Durst M600), the idea of the wood frame is added stability. If your was wobbly, you used too small wood. There is nothing wrong with 2x4" but I used scraps of oak flooring just because I had them.


The whole idea of the wood stand is to not be adjustable. Adjustments are made by having more than one size cd spindle or placing spacers under the one you have. Books work.


If you must have adjustability as I wanted for my super close rig, consider a focus rail as shown below. Mine is a cheap Chinese one from ebay (4 way macro focussing rail) but you can spent a few hundred on ones with better machine finish. It is not necessary for normal whole coin shooting.



The above image shows use of both extension tubes and bellows for close focus. To focus closer, you just need to move the lens farther from the 'film'. 10mm gets you close, 16mm closer and 26mm even closer. I own enough various extension devices to focus on the front glass of the lens which is totally useless. A dedicated macro lens like the 100mm Canon I use gets you no closer. It is just more convenient to use and the optics of the lenses in this class tend to be excellent. You can add tubes to a macro lens. Another recent thread here showed an Aegina obol shot with 68mm worth of extension tubes on the 100mm macro. You can get carried away if you choose.

If I were to suggest a camera rig with price being no object and impressing the neighbors being of prime importance, I would get a full frame dSLR like the Canon 5DmkIII with a 180mm macro lens (Sigma or Canon) and at least one set of Kenko macro extension tubes. I'd mount this on a wood frame made of exotic hardwoods for impressing people or Home Depot 2x4" pine for stability (select straight ones). There is no metal stand as strong as a well made wood one because metal vibrates much worse than wood.

Did I mention that you can get carried away on this. The difference between a great camera and great lens and a regular dSLR is real and can be seen on large images. Of course few of my coins really need to be blown up to 20x30 inches (larger is possible but I have not done that yet. It may be a lot like being obsessive about the difference between MS68 and MS69 coins and the costs involved go up in a similar manner. Photo is a hobby. Some practitioners are prone to excess. I enjoy my excesses.

 

Can I ask what sort of bulbs you guys are using for side lighting? I have just ordered a couple of lams that will take screw in bulbs. In the "old" days, I could buy a 40, 60 or 100 watt bulb, and I knew what I was getting. Nowadays, we get "equivalent" bulbs measured in lumens and I usually find the lights horrible. The lamps come with 5w led bulb, and I have bought a couple of daylight bulbs to try out. I am in the UK so things may be different in the US. The current lights I use are halogen, the colour is all wrong.

 

I use CFL bulbs, watts shouldn't matter, diffuse the light with paper or toilet paper/tissue if needed.

 

[QUOhaving the co="Jwt708, post: 2424061, member: 32619"]I have the same camera!

How do you get your backgrounds so uniform looking? Photo editing?[/QUOTE]

By having the coins on the spindle the velvet background is 3 inches lower and therefore way out of focus. This makes any details in the velvet blur and run together. I don't do any editing of the background due to laziness and this system getting good enough results.

I use "daylight" spectrum led bulbs that are $15 at the home improvement store. I got 40 watt equivalent ones.

 

I use the a big CD spindle as well with black poster board around it with a rubber band to make adjustments. I cut one image and add it to another but often times there is a visible seam where the two images were joined. It really drives me crazy.