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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Denis Richard, post: 4877985, member: 112673&quot;]I realize most of the members here are not photographers and likely have no interest in becoming one, but if you one of the people that is interested and wants to raise your game, to aim for pro quality coin images, here&#039;s a short summary of the tips and techniques for raw coin photography, from a professional coin photographer, that will take your images to the next level. Take from it what you want. </p><p><br /></p><p>This Ancient Roman Sestertius Commodus is well worn with a range of colour and texture. Zoom in to to see the detail. </p><p>[ATTACH=full]1178216[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>To take this image I used the axial lighting / studio strobe set up shown below. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1178218[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This set up offers many advantages.&nbsp; 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. </p><p><br /></p><p>I should note that&nbsp; to make this effective, your studio strobe should have at least a 300w&nbsp; modeling light. Dimmer lights will not give you the brightness level to see, and take full advantage of the subtle light control this system provides so well. Also, the diffuser on the left is movable. Positioned at the light face, it provides high contrast light, and as it is moved to toward the coin, softens the light. This is more important than you may think, as I adjust it for almost every coin. </p><p><br /></p><p>In the shot below, the diffuser was close to the coin, adding more fill to the shadows.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1178219[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>A 105-macro lens 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- a 60mm means you&#039;re closer to it, leaving less room for light control when focusing at your minimum focus distance.&nbsp; My 105 lens has a min. focus distance of 12&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>I suggest using a full frame camera, but that&#039;s a much bigger investment. It&#039;s not required, but it depends on what you want to do with the final images. </p><p><br /></p><p>**Very important** Make sure the camera’s film plane and the coin face are parallel!&nbsp; Use a camera bubble level. Lay it on the&nbsp; back of the camera to make sure the film plane is level. Of course, you need to make sure the coin is level too. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1178235[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Depth of field is just a few millimeters, so don’t waste any of it. Don’t focus at the closest 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 focus stacking often enough to include it here. </p><p><br /></p><p>Keep the coin off the background. Place the coin on a pedestal. I use a clear plastic cap from one of my wife&#039;s pump hairspray bottles.</p><p><br /></p><p>Use a rock-solid copy stand- much easier to work with than a tripod and doesn’t get in the way. </p><p><br /></p><p>Use a camera remote trigger or cable release. Even with a fast shutter speed, you don&#039;t want camera motion during capture.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1178237[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>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 &amp; 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. </p><p><br /></p><p>Make sure the 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.&nbsp; I&#039;m not that worried about the white balance because I use a studio strobe that is already daylight balanced, so I set mine to &quot;Flash&quot;. Even with that, I shoot in raw, so I can change the white balance on any image, at any time, by need or desire. If yo9u are using other kinds of light the colour differences will be considerable. </p><p><br /></p><p>To mitigate that problem, use color correction tools and software during capture and editing- I like the x-rite color checker passport. Second, I use a colour management software, X-rite Color Checker Passport, to create a colour profile for my axial lighting setup that I apply to all the images taken with it. This keeps all the colours accurate and consistent.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is a shot of the x-rite Colorchecker passport I use for colour management. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1178233[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>You include it in the photograph of your lighting scenario and create a .dng file from the image with the software. The software knows what the colours on the board should look like, and adjusts the image colours to match them based on your lighting set up. Once the profile is made, apply it to the image, and any other images taken in the same lighting conditions. Since my axial lighting set up is the same every time, I only have to do this once. It&#039;s easy and effective. There are a lot of videos on YouTube about it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Because I&#039;m using a colour correct studio flash, my colours are pretty accurate right out of the gate, however, if you&#039;re not using studio lights, which I believe many of you aren&#039;t, the difference will be more pronounced.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1178242[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Tether your camera to your computer if you can- 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 method offers a lot of opportunity to capture exactly what your coin looks like in camera, so less processing is required. Not all cameras support tethered shooting so check your camera&#039;s manual or company website. </p><p><br /></p><p>This is not an in-depth guide, but an overview, so if you have any questions, please let me know. I&#039;d be happy to help.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1178239[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>For a lot more coin image examples, check out my Instagram page at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hipshotphotography/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.instagram.com/hipshotphotography/?hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://www.instagram.com/hipshotphotography/?hl=en</a>&nbsp; or my web page at <a href="http://www.hipshotphotography.com" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.hipshotphotography.com" rel="nofollow">www.hipshotphotography.com</a></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1178245[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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