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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Stork, post: 3095760, member: 71642&quot;]I&#039;m not a super experienced photographer, but I did graduate from a cell phone to an old Canon Rebel XS fixed on a modified microscope stand with bellows/duplicating lens.&nbsp; My set up can handle up to (almost) 70 mm diameter coins and medals. </p><p><br /></p><p>Lighting is probably the biggest modifier for me and generally I find my set up serviceable, but felt like playing a bit today.</p><p><br /></p><p>My standard set up for lights is:</p><p>1. In the basement with a couple of &#039;daylight&#039; equivalent lights in the sockets and no ambient light otherwise</p><p>2. 3x gooseneck Ott lights (switched from Jansjo Ikea lights which are also nice).</p><p>3. Diffuse the lights a bit with something blocking over (paper, white felt, something)</p><p><br /></p><p>Basic method--wiggle the lights around until I get a few shots that look reasonable.</p><p><br /></p><p>Today I tried two things. First I added a little more diffusion with a white translucent barrier all around the coin. Did a great job of killing the hot spots but made the coin look very flat.</p><p><br /></p><p>Next I got a couple of super cheap (cost and quality) makeup mirrors from Wal Mart. A &#039;3X&#039; magnification so not so useful in gazing at one&#039;s pores...but nice to have on a stand. I used these to bounce two of the three lights off of and onto the coin, using the third light in it&#039;s normal glory (slightly diffused with afore mentioned white felt).</p><p><br /></p><p>The coin itself is pretty nice. Lightly toned obverse, and more on the reverse. Flashy and with a decent amount of luster remaining. The reverse shows the typical circular tab toning found on many of these...I suspect this was a more heavily toned one that was lightly dipped, but isn&#039;t super white like some are found.</p><p><br /></p><p>The look with my standard lighting:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]782277[/ATTACH]</p><p>I did bump the exposure up a tad on it, but otherwise unmolested.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The least satisfactory effort is the one with the full diffusion barrier. I think this might work well for my more matte medals, but all this did was make the coin look dull and lifeless. Had to tweak the color a bit on the obverse, it came out too warm. Still a bit off but closer than the unmodified photo.[ATTACH=full]782279[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>And, finally, the one where I bounced the light around with the mirrors.[ATTACH=full]782280[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>A fun bit of relatively easy modifications and nice to see how much just a shift in lighting can change.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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