My first forey into numismatic photography

Being jealous of all the amazing coin photos here, I decided to attempt a few of my own. Having first read through the coin photo forums here and elsewhere, I dragged out the old digital camera and other sundry items.

Canon PowerShot A3400, Check.
Light box I got some years ago to photograph hand-spun yarn that I never got around to, Check.
A few desk lamps, check.
Tripod, Check.
Coins, well I got a whole lot of those, check.

Verdict: I do really need a light stand. I now have one on order from Amazon. Lighting is key. So is patients.

Still trying to get the camera lens reflection from showing up in the proof coins.

 

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Very nice! I am just starting to play with photographing coins as it is apparently difficult to get all the detail needed. What does the light box look like that you use?

 

They came out pretty well.

 

Not bad for a first effort.

 

Very very nice for a 1st real attempt. My biggest issue is the woman keeps stealing my lamps (ok maybe i stole one or 2 from her 1st hehe) My other big problem is I lack the space to set it up semi-perminent.

 

The little women purloined my two goose neck Verulux's but that's OK. I'll just order another two......

 

Sometimes it is about the photos, other times it is about the coin. I love your first coin, and I also used to own a magnificent coin with a ship sailing on a rainbow sea. Please excuse the photos, they are Heritage images from a decade ago.

 

Good job! How much of the toning did you catch on that proof?

 

Here's the lightbox and set up:

 

Looks almost like something out of Victoria's Secret........:devil:

 

The two proof coins are not toned. But the mirror surfaces are very dificult to capture without also getting the lens reflected. I took maybe 4 or 5 photos of each coin. With each photo I changed the "brightness" setting. Starting from -1 and working my way up to +1.

Another hard bit was getting the "golden" zloty coins to show the right color. It seemed a trade off between clarity and the right color. Will experiment more in coming days. I do have so many coins to test with

 

There's also an iPad app called softbox pro, that I was experimenting with that turns your iPad into an illuminated flat panel. Here's a screenshot of the apps control panel that you can hide away with a tap.

 

They're actually very good for someone who has not shot boatloads of coin images.

 

To be honest, I used to do a lot of photography in art school bazillions of years ago before the digital era. So I know a little bit about f-stops and aprature. But really, it's 80% in the lighting.

I think they will improve a lot when I get a proper copy stand and am still playing around with the illuminated surface.

An informative link:

http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents/coin_photography.htm

 

95% lighting......

 

I was thinking 80% lighting, 10% lens and 10% coin

 

The sailing ship above is actually on a holographic sea. Challenging to capture.

 

See now I understand that. I thought it was some sort of fortunate toning.

 

Yes, I know.

I think you will find as you progress that direct lighting is more useful than diffused lighting for most coins.

 

I gathered that. Next I want to try Axial lighting. Sounds like you can get amazing results. But I think different coins might prefer different lighting. Still have lots of coins to capture.