New micro camera

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Look I can only speak from my personal experience. As any one will tell you that photographs anything, lighting is everything. Basically had the same problems as you're having. Tried a variety of lighting options. Could not achieve the desired photo that I wanted. But one of the best things I did, was purchase one of these book lights I opted to get the one with the two lights. Yes they are LED. But I found that a little frosted scotch tape, put over the light solves the glare problem. A single light works great for taking out the shadows when trying to photograph errors. And I found the double likes work great for a full coin shot. And another little trick is to try reflective lighting. I prefer using a piece of white paper that I can position around the coin, and use the book light and reflect the light back on the coin. You know what they say don't knock it into you try it.

 

Why does it matter to you anyway? Correcting for white balance is Photography 101, and standard procedure. It doesn't matter what color lighting you use, as long as it's all the same color.

 

It doesn't matter to me, just trying to "simply" guide the OP in the right direction with the "correct" lighting and possible equipment, not going into a SCIENCE DEBATE.

 

The "correct" lighting has nothing to do with its' color temperature. Incorrect white balance should be able to be corrected before the shot is taken, or it can easily be corrected in postprocessing. As long as you choose the right lighting, which has nothing to do with color temperature.

 

Whatever professional terms you want to use, lighting is the most important part of photography, I would say.. And I'm simply telling him to get the correct lighting. That's why taking pictures of coins on a table when your yellow kitchen light is shining on the coin and then you use a flash don't turn out so well. You guys are taking the more technical approach. We are saying the same thing, in two different ways.

 

That's the best way to make it impossible for any camera or postprocessing procedure to correct color, and what I'm telling people not to do for that reason. Multiple color temperatures is not correct lighting.

And using a flash is an even greater mistake.

 

Can we all agree just to get a light box like I originally said? lol

 

Exactly, and I edited that as you were typing it.

 

No. Not me. I never had much luck with light boxes and coins. Too hard to adjust the light where it's needed.

 

Well for less then 15 bucks shipped I will be giving it a go.

 

It's what I get for being a quick typist.

For the record: Go ahead and spend the $15 on a light box. That's a cheap education, and they're of use in a couple niche use cases. Once you learn what they don't and cannot do for you, it'll be a lot easier to correct your technique in the ways that actually do improve your photography.

 

They had one that comes with two lights but I wasent willing to spend $45 on something I wasent sure was going to work right. The one I got was $11 and has a built in LED light strip which I may or may not use.

 

The trouble with light boxes is they shine light all over the coin without casting shadows. This is good for some product photography, but for coins it critical that you have shadows around the edges of the devices (bust, lettering, date/MM, etc) or these features are difficult to make out clearly. You can of course modify a light box to give the desired shadow detail, but you will end up masking off most of the box, and just having light come mostly from above. This is actually harder than coming at the problem from the other direction, ie from lights that need diffusing, but you can get there either way...

 

And what kind of setup do you use?

 

Thanks cam. My thoughts exactly.

Thanks for input Dave. But I would much rather the pic be ready to use as soon as I take it. My computer does not have any adjustment programs and it can be time consuming being that I am starting to photograph my entire collection. Besides I didn't take photography 101. Lol

 

I'm starting to gather that there is a lot more for me to know than just visual adjusting the light. The suggestion Dave made about keeping it one color and adjusting with a program may be the best advice. However that would involve me spending more money on a program. Why does this have to be so complex!?

 

It'll look something like mine (I'm sure because he built the one I'm posting):



Modified microscope stand mounting a bellows, with a Canon dSLR and employing film duplicating lenses. For the record, I personally use a camera I bought for $84 used, and a $65 lens. Not exactly expensive.

You have to figure out what types of light your system can correct for, something I really didn't want to go to the effort of translating and finding out.

It may be that the system and software can only properly compensate for the color temperature of whatever lighting is included with it. Or it may not.

There's no need to pay *money* for postprocessing software. Too many good candidates are Open Source and available for free. The problem, though, is one of complexity. If you're going to employ a very low budget and therefore be using equipment not really well-suited to the concept of "quality," it's going to be kind of complex to learn the corrective steps needed downstream to make up for the limitations of the equipment. Graphics programs capable of cleanly correcting hue and saturation involve learning a whole 'nuther skillset on their own.

If you're willing to spend a couple thousand dollars, this all becomes very easy.

 

Post your coin photography set-up is a thread that many have contributed to. It helped me just to read through it. There are a number of points made about lighting and white balance.

I have the same questions as you. I have one of the less capable digital USB microscopes. When I use it, it automatically tries to adjust the color to be balanced. This is terrible for photographing copper. It senses the image as too red, then shifts way over to the blue side to have a "normal" balance between colors. The net effect is that it just bleaches the red out of the image.

I went to www.lighthouse.us and found the catalog listing for the scope. When I clicked on the link to download the manual, it did not work. We really need someone to be a guinea pig and try this out. (no, not me)

 

Dave is right, I use a setup very much like his. For lighting, I usually use a pair of diffused Jansjo LED lights. Sometimes I use an EKE ringlight for higher magnification shots where it's tough to get the Jansjos placed for best lighting. The ringlight changes color quite a bit as you change the intensity, so you can dial in pretty much whatever color temp you want (within reason...and lamp life).