Photographing My Coins & Not Happy with What I Did

I use an iPhone 4 to take shots, and then crop.

If you can rest the phone on an object @ least 6" high, you can probably get shots good enough that almost all detail can be viewed by others here...

 

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The aperture is what is important here. With a 1.2 lens, the focal plane is razor thin. At a larger aperture, the lens stops down and more area will be in focus. At F16 with that lens, you are in focus out to infinity

 

Use a GOOD f2.8 Macro. You can focus to about 1" if you know what your doing.

 

Should have added "and a tripod"

 

This is the lens I use (and it's about as GOOD as it gets) and I know what I am doing. All lenes have minimum focal distances. Can you force it to focus closer...maybe sometimes, but the results won't be great and they will be inconsistent.

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/.../lenses/ef/macro/ef-100mm-f-2-8l-macro-is-usm

Here's a coin I photographed just yesterday...I think it looks pretty good. You don't need this nice of equipment to get good results but you need to use what you have properly.

 

Was not trying to be condescending. The equipment you are using is very good. I have been doing macro photo for several years and you can focus at very short distances but most individuals do not have a bellows system. Perhaps I misunderstood your question/statement.
Phil
Semper Fi

 

Before I had a true macro lens, I would use a normal 24-70 lens...a nice one, but a normal 24-70 walk around lens. I found I got the same kind of results the OP is getting if I was invading the rated minimum focal distance of the lens. Perhaps you have a system that works for you...but lenses have this focal distance listed for a reason. He says he's shooting at 4 inches and his lens is rated at a minimum distance of 7.28 inches. So...I suggest he back off to 8 inches and see what happens. At f/11 with a tripod and no movement there is no reason why the images won't be crisp.

 

Agree

 

I really could go on and on, but I'll start with this -

• USE THE SELF TIMER. Even on a tripod, pressing the shutter button is enough to cause a vibration that will translate to blurry images. The 2-second timer is usually enough.
• I believe the 'sweet spot' for your lens is f/8, I'd suggest trying that. (a search on Nikon forums will confirm or dispute this, could be f/5.6 or f/11)
  
• Minimum focusing distance. Give yourself some room, and without question focus manually, using live view (10x if Nikon has it, I'm a Canon guy)
• Use the lowest ISO your camera allows, and adjust your exposure time to compensate, not your f/stop.

I use an older Canon 50D, and a medium format Mamiya 120mm f/4 manual focus lens with either 2 Walmart LED desk lamps, or a ringlight (depends on my mood, and if the lamps are producing what I want), liveview 10x, 2sec timer on a solid tripod. I shoot in RAW only.

I shot this last night with the desk lamps (not happy, going to re-shoot), it's a 100% crop of the reverse of a Norfolk commemorative. No adjustments have been made, other then jpeg conversion from RAW. I'd say its pretty sharp.

 

f 7.1 ISO 64 1/160

 

Lots of good advice above. As a professional coin photographer, I appreciate the journey and challenges to getting great coin images- to help, here's a short summary of the tips and techniques for raw coin photography that I've developed to take images like these;








First, I recommend you use axial lighting with a studio strobe. You can easily shoot at f14, which for my lens is a nice depth of field spot, and the lowest native ISO, which for Nikon is 200, and use the maximum sync shutter speed your camera allows. My camera is 1/200 shutter speed. This lets you to ignore all the ambient light in the room and direct only the studio light for maximum quality depth of field and many other light control benefits. High shutter speeds mean sharper images.

Your 60mm lens is ok, but a 105-macro lens is better as it allows you to be farther away from the coin but still pull a 1:1 image. Farther away is also better because you can get more light to the face of the coin- your 60mm means your closer to it, leaving less room for light control when focusing at your minimum focus distance. I read somewhere above that your lens's min. focus distance was only about 7 inches? My lens has a min. focus distance of 12".

I suggest using a full frame camera, (the D90 has a cropped sensor) but that's a much bigger investment. It depends on what you want to do with the final images.

**Very important** Make sure the camera’s film plane and the coin face are parallel! Depth of field is tiny as it is in macro so don’t waste a millimeter of it.
Don’t focus at the highest point of the coin; you’re wasting focus As a general rule, focus about 1/3 of the way into the area you want in sharp focus.
With thicker coins beyond the single image depth of field range, use focus stacking and combine the images. I use that often enough to include it here.

Keep the coin off the background. Place the coin on a pedestal. I use a clear plastic cap from one of my wife's pump hairspray bottles.

Use a rock-solid copy stand- much easier to work with than a tripod and doesn’t get in the way.

Use a camera remote trigger or cable release. Even with a fast shutter speed, you don't want camera motion during capture.

SHOOT IN RAW - is in all caps because I can’t stress enough how important that is for quality and editing the image. For me, image editing in ACR & Photoshop should take only 3 to 10 minutes a coin, depending on several factors. I edit hundreds of coin images every week and I have created a set of Photoshop Actions to keep my workflow focused, minimal and consistent.

Make sure you White Balance is set to your light source. If you don’t know the color temperature of your light source, all the more reason to shoot in raw- you can adjust it there.

Use color correction tools and software during capture and editing- I like the x-rite color checker passport.

Tether your camera to your computer- shoot through Lightroom at minimum, so you can preview your images as soon as they are shot. I use “Control my Nikon” so I can use live view for precise focusing, when necessary, and a host of other valuable features.

This is not an in-depth guide, but an overview, so if you have any questions, please let me know. I'd be happy to help.

This shot below was not axial lighting, but a diffused lighting technique I use for certified slabbed coins, shot through the plastic case, of course.




For a lot more coin image examples, check out my Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/hipshotphotography/?hl=en or my web page at www.hipshotphotography.com

 

@Denis Richard

Great images.

1. I'm not a professional photographer nor do I aspire to be one.
I just want an image that shows what my coin looks like.
I know that many (most?) of my images don't accurately show what my coins look like in hand.
Where I miss is mostly toning and overall impression.

2. I would like to see what you can do with a 19th century coin in a grade of F or VF with all its circulation characteristics.
Coins of the grade that many of us happily include in our collections.
Those are the type of many of the coins in my collection.

I use Photoshop Elements for cropping and resizing my images.
I gave up trying to get the images to look like what they do in hand.
I've got no training for that and no inherent nor artistic sense of how to apply the various capabilities of Photoshop.
My abilities seem to be limited to:
-- take an image
-- crop
-- resize
-- save
-- repeat on the next coin.

I'd post some of my images but you wouldn't be able to compare to what the coin really looks like, i.e., how my image changed the look of the coin.

 

I really think if you back off to about 8 inches, are using a tripod, and use a timer...your images will improve dramatically. I think the main issue you are having is you are too close to the coin.

 

I'd be happy to help in what ever areas you are interested in improving, to get closer to the "in hand" look you desire. I have spend countless hours in that pursuit. Like people, not all coins are super models. Most aren't, and I do have the advantage, with the sheer number of coins I photograph, to choose the supermodels from the crowd for posting.

"I would like to see what you can do with a 19th century coin in a grade of F or VF with all its circulation characteristics."

With respect to my comment above, I've included both sides of a Germany Thaler, 1871B, EF-45, and a Great Britain 1/2 Penny, 1841, EF-45, as a brief sample. These are regular coins for me.

 

All good advice, but real improvement won't come moving the camera, but rather with improving the quality and direction of light on the coin.

 

He stated above he's shooting from 4 inches away from the coin. I agree lighting is really important...but I would start with backing up to the minimum focal distance of his lens and seeing how it looks.

 

Agreed. That would be the place to start.

 

Your images are probably the most beautiful coin photographs I've have seen. The Two Pence is breath taking. Thanks for sharing the pictures and the advice. You inspire me to get my equipment out...

 

I was given, some time ago, a Sony A330. It has live view, 10,2 megapixels and functions as in the fotos. (after seeing the fotos it looks like it needs a bit of cleaning). As i use a Canon point and shoot or my phone normally i have not the first clue how to use it, what settings to choose. I know it has a manual and auto focus option, a timer and a memory card and an HDMI out port.
What advice can you give me so i can start experimenting with it. I have just fully charged the battery.

 

Thank you for the kind words. Here's to more coin photography and photographers!