My new favourite coin pic

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by akeady, Jan 31, 2019.

  1. akeady

    akeady Well-Known Member

    Like some others, I've been tinkering with taking photos of coins and am finally moving in the right direction - this is a denarius of Augustus - RIC 199 (Caius riding reverse) which I've had for nearly three years and I'm kinda stunned by how well it came out in this photo' last night :D

    upload_2019-2-1_1-31-46.png

    The reverse is a bit more worn - maybe cabinet wear with this side up!

    The lighting has made the biggest difference - I got an Aputure Al-M9 LED light, which fits into the flash hotshoe. I'm using an Olympus OM-D E-M1 with 60mm macro lens. The only post processing was on my 'phone - a crop and a click of "Google Photos" Auto Adjust - and I removed the background in Gimp (poorly, it seems) and scaled it by 50% as it was too large for the post.

    Thanks for letting me share!
    ATB,
    Aidan.
     
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  3. Orfew

    Orfew Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus

    A great photo of a stunning obverse portrait.
     
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  4. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

    That is a marvelous image and a beautiful coin! Great job :)

    Edited: you need a little practice with the background remover. There are speckles in the fields and some of the darker spots at the edge of your coin were removed and replaced with white. Your photography (the hard part!) is wonderful-- the digital editing needs a bit of work.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2019
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  5. Clavdivs

    Clavdivs Well-Known Member

    Great photo.. and amazing coin.
     
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  6. akeady

    akeady Well-Known Member

    Thanks - yeah - I got lazy :D I did fix it up when I saw what I'd pasted, but when I tried to edit the post, I couldn't change the pic, so I left it. The original photo' is much larger and looks better. The background was a piece of anti-static foam (why? - I don't know, it was black and lying around), which wasn't selected well - I'll raise the coin and use a plain background in future!
     
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  7. alde

    alde Always Learning

    That's a great photo of an awesome coin. Can you tell us a bit more about your light and your setup?
     
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  8. AncientJoe

    AncientJoe Well-Known Member

    That's a wonderful picture - congratulations! I'm especially jealous that you took it last night... I'm only able to photograph during the day when partly cloudy: I've never had much success under entirely artificial lighting.
     
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  9. akeady

    akeady Well-Known Member

    A bit of the reverse of an example of RRC 442/1a (a denarius of Mn. Acilius Glabrio). The reverse has Valetudo standing facing, head left, leaning on column and holding serpent.

    upload_2019-2-1_2-10-54.png
     
  10. akeady

    akeady Well-Known Member

    Thanks - I'm a night owl (it's 2.15AM now, I have to hit the hay) and really hit or miss with photography until recently - I think it's the LED light that's made the difference.
     
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  11. akeady

    akeady Well-Known Member

    The light is one of these - https://eu.aputure.com/products/al-m9-1
    It just attaches to the camera hotshoe. The rest of the setup is just the camera on a tripod (I'd be better off with a copy stand, but don't have one) pointing down onto a coffee table, with the coin raised up on some random bits and pieces and in this case left on a silly little bit of black antistatic foam because I wanted a black background (since removed!). I control the camera from my 'phone and used auto focus and manual settings for aperture and exposure and that's about it.
    ATB,
    Aidan.
     
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  12. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    The super close shot is really excellent. It would help to see the overall shot with the background as shot. You need to take care not to remove detail that is not background and often the best answer is to make the background easier to remove. How you do that depends on the color of you background as shot.

    I like the light but it is out of stock and across the ocean from me so......
     
  13. akeady

    akeady Well-Known Member

  14. jamesicus

    jamesicus Well-Known Member

    What is the best way to change the white background of a coin photo to black using an iPad app?

    Added: up to the present I have been simply re-taking photos on a black background, but now I am old, sick and lazy and I do not want to re-take a whole bunch of pics.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2019
  15. jamesicus

    jamesicus Well-Known Member

    Great photo @akeady!
     
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  16. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    I'd suggest shooting the coin on a simple background near the color you want in the end. Avoid a color that is present along the edge of the coin. Your coin had some black on the edge that the software could not tell from the black background. I prefer coins on black but if I want white, I shoot on a light background and clean it up as needed. I never like my white background shots.
    0ww2702a.jpg
     
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  17. jamesicus

    jamesicus Well-Known Member

    Thanks - I don’t like white backgrounds either. Please note the added information on my post.

    Another added note: I installed the “photo background remover” App on my iPad but I am not smart enough to use it - or it doesn’t work very well.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2019
  18. Ancient Aussie

    Ancient Aussie Well-Known Member

    Great photo of a fantastic coin.
     
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  19. Ken Dorney

    Ken Dorney Yea, I'm Cool That Way...

  20. alde

    alde Always Learning

    The results speak for themselves. It seems to do a great job of evenly lighting the coin. I wonder how it stands up to one of those ring flash/lights that goes on the end of the lens like a filter?
     
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  21. akeady

    akeady Well-Known Member

    I'd like to try one of those, but haven't, so far.

    ATB,
    Aidan.
     
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