Evening, Below is a solid sestertius from Antoninus Pius and a silver coin from Caracalla. Antoninus Pius sestertius struck in Rome after 145 ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P TR P COS IIII SC Roma seated left, holding Victory and transverse spear, resting elbow on shield decorated with head of Medusa which is set on prow to right; SC in exergue 30mm 25.5g RIC III 759 Caracalla 211–217 A.D. struck 216 A.D. in Rome. ANTONINVS PIVS AVG GERM P M TR P XVIIII COS IIII P P Serapis, wearing polos on head, standing facing, head to left, raising right hand and holding scepter 22mm 4.9g RIC IV 280d I hope you like these, I consider them solid coins in my collection because they look great, cover a part of my collection I view as important and did not cost a lot for their condition (and importance to me!) If you are here for the coins and not photography -- Please post your solid coins and feel free to ignore the below! I am finding it very difficult to get sharp pictures, these look great until you blow them up and then at times look worse than what I'd do on a point and shoot. These are taken on a kit lens at 55mm on a Rebel T6 body. Manual settings are F/11, 100 ISO and I took it using several exposure settings (these were 1/8sec for Pius and 1/13th for Caracalla) on a copy stand with a remote trigger (my Ipad). I'm thinking it's the lighting or I'm ready to upgrade the kit lens. As for the lighting perhaps it's not bright enough but when I don't diffuse my lights it looks to bright on the coin. For the Pius sestertius, if I could have a sharper image you can make out more detail on the reverse shield portrait and the Caracalla portrait looks out of focus when doing the same.
Nice coins and imagery IMHO. There are those on this forum who are great photographers and are willing to share their knowledge here; however, I've tried just about everything, and my images never get any better. I've given up trying and now use my smart phone for imagery. Besides, I'm in this hobby for the numismatics! ANTONIUS PIUS AE Sestertius OBVERSE: IDIVVS ANTONINVS, bare head right REVERSE: CONSECRATIO, four tiered funeral pyre surmounted by Antoninus in a quadriga, SC in ex. Struck at Rome 161 AD 25g, 31mm RIC 1266 (Marcus Aurelius), BMC 880 (Marcus Aurelius), C 354 CARACALLA AR Denarius OBVERSE: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG BRIT, laureate head right REVERSE: MONETA AVG, Moneta standing left, holding scales & cornucopiae Struck at Rome, 211 AD 2.28g, 19mm RIC 224
Is the depth of field too narrow? Yep. I'm in the same boat. For now, I've decided that this is about as good as I'm going to get: Antoninus Pius Silver Denarius Rome mint, A.D. 153-154 Obv: ANTONINVS AVG PIVS TR P XVII Rev: COS IIII - Annonia, standing, facing left, holding corn ears in right hand and resting left hand on modius sitting on front of ship RIC 231 18mm, 3.7g. Antoninus "Caracalla" Silver Denarius Rome mint, A.D. 213 Obv: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG BRIT Rev: P M TR P XVI COS IIII P P - Serapis, togate, wearing polos on head, standing, facing left, raising right hand and holding transverse scepter in left RIC 208(a) 19mm, 3.1g.
f/11 is on the border of diffraction limitations for a crop sensor camera so I might try backing off to f/8 and see if that helps. dSLR cameras can have calibration issues with focus displayed on the screen and focus delivered to the sensor. One way to 'fix' that would be to do focus bracketing of 3-4 images and see if you can find an offset that would help. Traditional wisdom suggests that ISO 100 is best but the way some cameras achieve that number varies so I might also try shooting at 200 or 400 to see what difference is actual. I use ISO 400 with my mirrorless RP because I prefer the tonal rendition there. The kit lens on the T6 is not at its best at the extremes so you might also try using something like 45mm and see if that helps. I have never owned a T6 but had good results with the original Digital Rebel before I bought a macro. If you have a telephoto, you might try using something in its middle range (~90mm) an see if that helps. Of course this is not good if the lens you have is not good. There is a lot of variation in some of the cheaper models.
I am still experimenting almost every day with my dSLR photo setup but have found the better pictures I get are with an AV setting of f/7-8, ISO 400 which seems to cope best without getting grainy and I use evaluative metering. I Always use a tripod and remote to avoid camera shake as well. Saying all that, I believe we are our own harshest critics but the best advice I have picked up is to treat every coin/subject as individual and not apply the same settings to all. And then there is the issue of light and direction and subsequent influence of it on your shot. Not enough hours in the day!
Question for both Doug and Jules: what resolution do you use for your finished photos? I shoot everything at 300 dpi, but since I don't print anything out, I save the final photo as a 72 dpi jpeg. Is there any point at saving it at 300 dpi if all you will ever do is look at the photo via a monitor?
I have no use for the concept of dpi which I consider a matter for book printers who are trying to print coins in exact size. I shoot each side at full resolution .cr3 and resize the combined pair to 1620x1080 .jpg for use on CT.
I use a 12” wide x 6” tall background at 300ppi and then place the photos side by side. This means I usually have to reduce the size of larger coins but not the smaller type coins I photograph such as obols which fit the background well. I figure that is a good file size and type whether I want to print or stay digital. Works for me! Nice coins @IMP Shogun . Here are my favorite A-Pi and Caracalla coins. Roman Empire Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161 AR Denarius, Rome mint, Struck ca. AD 140-143 Wt.: 3.01 g Dia.: 17 mm, 6h Obv.: ANTONINVS AVG PIVS PP TR P COS III; Laureate head right Rev.: AEQVITAS AVG; Aequitas standing left, holding scales and sceptre Ref.: RIC III 61; RSC 14 Galatia, Ancyra Caracalla (AD 198-217) AE Tetrassarion, Ancyra mint, struck after AD 212 Dia.: 28 mm Wt.: 16.59 g Obv.: ANTΩNINOC AYΓOYCTO-C; Laureate head of Caracalla right Rev.: MHTPOΠOΛEΩC ANKYPAC •; Octastyle temple with shield in pediment Ref.: BMC 33 var Ex Lanz 163, 7 December 2016, 378
Very nice coins, thanks for sharing. I do shoot a range of settgin I'm not too far away from taking the plateau as a stopping point with time being the big limitation. Can't make more of it!
I start with a blank of 9999x6666 pixels which gets cropped for every shot but insures that images are only resized once when everything is done. I guess I figure that you lose quality every time you do anything so it is better to do it all at once. 12" @300 ppi is 3600 pixels. My camera shoots 6255x4160 so every shot would have to be downsized before starting. I make no effort to shoot all images from one height so the picture of an obol and the picture of an obol can be close to the same size on the sensor. I realize this will not make my images useable for exact size printing but that is something I never do and it seems better to get as much detail on each one from the start and throw out excess as needed. In truth, it makes no difference when you consider that you are still over 300 dpi at 20". I have never made over a 20x30 print but, although under 300dpi, look good to me. In any event, none of my coins have the detail to be shown that large without revealing their shortcomings. Whole image resized to fit here: The part of the image that fits in this same 1620x1080 format: The above is not perfectly sharp due to camera, lens, coin and operator. There is nothing to do for that last one.
I’ve seen you post your set up before and I think it looks nice. I like the idea of using a wood camera holder to reduce vibration and suspending the coin above a dark background. I am sure this makes it much easier to crop! My set up is metal and I know I sometimes get issues with vibration. I may construct a wood set up at some point to test. I also shoot against a simulated 18% gray background. This might be useful for color correction if I did post-processing with the RAW files but honestly I usually don’t even take the time to mess with that and just use the jpg files directly. I should also clarify since I was unclear in my initial post that I shoot the initial images in full resolution and only downsize to the 12x6 in post processing. I use guides with the software I use to make sure the photos are scaled properly. I haven’t checked but I think my unreduced initial shots are probably similarly sized to yours before I crop and move the coin to the 12x6 background. Then I save only the 12x6 post-processed shots and delete the initial photo.
That is a question I struggle with. At first I didn't delete the RAW files but saved them along with the final paired JPG and reduced (CT friendly) JPG deleting only the 16 bit TIF intermediate which can be remade from the RAW. Now I save space by deleting the RAW files on the theory I could reshoot the coins if I decided the JPG's were not right. The fact is that 95% of all coins I shoot will never be revisited in that full size so I could drop back to saving only the reduced JPG's and lose little. my 1620x1080 reductions make decent 4x6 prints but I rarely ever print anything anymore and wonder what to do with hundreds of 4x6 prints made in the past.
I appreciate the feedback. My photography skills have improved quite a bit but it feels like golf, lots of improvement initially but frustratingly difficult to get really good at it. Or this is helping me train my patience to stay positive! Here is an Augustus As at F/8, F/11 and F/14. All with ISO 100. I don't really see a significant difference between F/8 (on the left) and F/11 (in the middle). F/14 (right image) does look a bit less sharp than the others. However, I did notice a difference when setting up these JPEGs from the original pics. I had previously been resizing each photo before making the JPEG and that may have been reducing the sharpness (based on the above convo's). These are made directly from the original image without re-sizing. I hadn't thought that it could be that, but it may be contributing. Here is the full coin I've nicknamed cauliflower ear for reference in the "keeper" shot out of the bunch: Augustus As struck 7 B.C. in Rome [CAESAR AVG]VST PONT MAX TRIBVN[IC POT] M MAE[CILIVS TVLLVS III] VIR A A A F F Legend around large S C 28.5mm 11.75g RIC I 436 One of my older coins I retook using my improved setup/skillset and it looks great at f/8 (to me anyway!): Gordian III ant, Jupiter struck 238-239 in Rome Radiate, draped bust right IMP GORDIANVS PIVS FEL AVG IOVIS STATOR Jupiter standing front, head right, with scepter & thunderbolt. RIC 85; C. 115
These are great results with the kit lens! While it won't match a top-end dedicated Macro lens in terms of image quality, I have found Canon's entry-level EF-S 24mm f/2.8 to be quite decent for coin photography. It has the added advantage of being extremely lightweight and compact; quite versatile too.
