We all know this. And sometimes even with the best photographer mistakes can occur, which leads to bargains for us. I recently bought this Antoninus Pius As for my inventory. I bought it based on the photo, graded by the cataloguer as VF, but in hand looks closer to EF. When it arrived I immediately knew it had to stay with me and go into my collection. My quick and crappy cel phone photo followed by the auction photo. Mine shows it more like it really is in hand.
Isn't that great when it happens? you bid on a coin based on so-la-la photos. Then you finally get it in hand, and it is so much better. Numismatic Heaven! (my score on this is 50:50)
We often face the problem of what makes a good photo. Is it possible to have a photo that is too good or too accurate. It certainly is if the goal is to sell a coin that has minor flaws that can be overemphasized by sharp detail and harsh lighting. Color photos were rare a few decades ago but now we have to balance accurate color balance with fair and accurate detail. A small coin as viewed in hand at a coin show or in the average living room will not show small details like scratches in the same way as a unfortunately accurate digital photo. This coin shows quite a bit of surface texture even in the hand photo that might be easy to overemphasize in a 'studio' image blowing up the coin to ten times its normal size. The auction photo looks like it had the contrast toned down to cancel out the glare from the glossy surfaces. I see things about both images that I prefer so this would certainly be a subject I would want to rephotograph several times before getting something I considered both fair and accurate. I keep telling myself not to buy coins I know will be hard to shoot but I am a slow learner. I want detail when it is in my favor but not so much when that detail could be called faults.
Obviously, your photo presents the coin with a color/patina I would expect to see in hand and clearly suggests sharper details....and one I'd be far more interested in than that of the sellers photo---Congrats!!
that's a fine coin. it went beyond your expectations and a seller would rather have that than you getting it and not be impressed. there's no customer like a happy customer
I always have to ask myself just how much I alter a coin image in "postproduction." For example, when I photograph silver coins, 100 W bulbs leave a kind of golden glare on them. I typically have to take the hue down about 20% to make silver look like silver. My rule of thumb is to try to make the coin look in the image like it does in my hand. So I have to use digital artifice to try to approximate reality. But I suppose that's true for any photographed image. The first time I took students to Rome, our Vatican guide was standing in front of Michelangelo's Pieta, and he told all the students to put away their cameras and look at the sculpture. "The camera is a liar," he said. That has always stayed with me.
Why would the auction house tone their photo artificially to make the coin look green when it is brown? I had the same experience lately with a green auction photo of a brown patina bronze. When I looked at the auction description again it even said brown patina. Do they just apply a green filter to some bronzes? I tried multiple different lighting set ups and every one makes my coin look brown.
I must take issue with the title of this thread. While photography is a crucial enabling factor for carrying on numismatic pursuits on the internet, the photo does not affect the value of a coin - what it affects is the potential sales price, something else altogether. I only make this seemingly picky distinction because I see the absolute concentration so many who call themselves "coin collectors" or enthusiasts upon "How much money can I possibly make (heh, heh, heh...)?" as having something quite a bit less than than a purely positive or optimal effect on both the "amateur" (collector's) and the "pro" (numismatist's) aspects of the pursuit. Whether or not you are also a dealer in addition to being either one (or both) of the above, really doesn't make any difference whatsoever in the actual value of the coin. Actual "value" consists of so many more factors than the amount for which something can be sold. I feel that this widespread absolute concentration on potential profit tends to overlook all but that one, single and narrow facet of a coin's value.
For every coin image improved in post production there are a hundred made worse by people who don't understand the controls of the camera and wreck what could have been a reasonable photo. Most cameras have what is called 'automatic' settings which is just another way of saying 'let the camera guess because you are too lazy to think'. Some auto settings work pretty well and some suggest that the camera programmer was not aware of terms like color balance, focus, contrast and brightness. I love my Canon cameras but they have never been very good at recognizing situations lighted by 2800 degree Kelvin tungsten bulbs. Many people like their human faces warm and rosy so this is not so much a problem as it is a feature. Auto settings are made to err in a direction pleasing to 99% of the people who use them and a thousand times as many people shoot smiling children than do patinated ancients. The fact that people get as good photos as they do is a bit amazing. If you want good photos of anything, start by reading the instruction book and learning what the camera maker will allow you to change that might improve your results.
I buy from bad photos all the time. It has made me hundreds if not thousands. These two made me about $450:
