Tested out my new picture setup for the first time tonight.

I personaly think Black backgrounds help with coins what everyone take?

 

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Great Pics!

 

Merc, those pics and your set up are very good! That's a very nice low-budget photo stand!!! The light positioning is great, and the luster on the wheatie is superb. Now you get to try to move on to taking some pics of your slabbed Mercs. the plastic makes things a bit more complicated, but you are creating beautiful photos!!!

-Brandon

 

1) Use a white background, besides telling the viewer about your white balance, the reflected light helps.
2) The camera is not perfectly perpendicular to the surface, I can detect a slight angle.

Does your camera have image stablization? You should be able to freehand your pictures. I have NEVER used a tripod nor a stand, just my hands.

 

I disagree. A tripod or copy stand is imperative for good numismatic photography. Even the make-shift cardboard box stand will give you better pictures than any free-hand or image-stabilized shot, in my opinion and experience. Especially if you use the 2-second or 10-second time to avoid shake from pushing the shutter button.

BadThad, I'm not sure what you are looking at but the most recent pictures posted have superb white balance and the background is white...though I'd use a sheet of paper instead of a padded mailer. And, just an ironic note, but your avatar picture has poor white balance and is also taken at an angle.

 

ohhh I like the wheatie pics.

 

I agree RE the copy stand thing. I'll be buying one probably in the next couple weeks. Got a big paycheck and bonus D) coming this Friday, so that should cover whatever it'll cost me. I was using a timer for this too, going to pick up a remote cheap off amazon tonight.

I was using a paper towel as the background, not a bubble mailer. I was also using another paper towel to diffuse the light, haha. I'll get around to making those things you showed me, or something better, this Friday.

 

Must be "quilted"!!

 

Keep the pictures coming

You have posted some really nice photos. (Now we all need to work harder at taking our pictures so they will be as nice as yours).

LostDutchman once told me that it is important to make the finished photo look like the coin.

 

I plan on cleaning all my slabbed coins out of my SDB this Friday to take some pics of them while I work over the weekend, since it's always slow. So expect lots of more pics in this thread, and maybe another thread or two as I work on the Merc Dimes.

 

There will be light reflection from the slab plastic. Do not get discouraged. You will probably need to carefully adjust the angle of the slab to the camera & adjust the lighting. It is normal (I think) to allow the lighting to create hot spots on the slab insert near the coin but you will need to crop the coin after taking the photo to get rid of the hot spot(s).

 

I've noticed that on raw pics I've seen posted elsewhere, slab glare overwhelms pretty much everything else but the coin when it's done properly. I'm looking forward to the challenge of getting good pics of my DMPL Morgans.

 

The Nickel I posted earlier in this thread is in an NGC slab, graded MS67. With three lights, and if you add some directionality to those lights (e.g., with reflectors or diffusers for one or 2 of the lights) then you will have no problem getting stellar photos through the plastic. I use something I bought on eBay called "Slab Renew" to buff out scratches in my really bad slabs before taking pictures. One bottle of the stuff will last you a VERY long time.

 

My understanding is that Slab Renew is just plastic polish, and any headlight polish you can get at wal-mart will do the same thing. Most of my slabs are in pretty good shape, save for a couple.

 

That's probably true.

 

Imperative for ultra high quality pictures, not imperative for general web use.

On the "ironic note", I often use angled pictures to capture toning and to give different perspective. That's the advantage of taking hand-held pictures. When the camera is angled the white balance will not be correct, but it captures the colors nicely.

 

I'm not too into toners, although I do have a few nice ones. I'll be posting more pics here in a little bit, of a variety of coins. Worked on my setup a little more tonight, taped everything together...

It's a bit more level now, much better than before, but not where it needs to be...



Fancy light diffusion.



What the display looks like...

 

Alright, so here's the pics I took tonight...

Overdipped merc dime I paid melt for;



Prooflike '63 I also paid melt for;



AU/MS Walker also out of a melt price bucket;



Yet another coin plucked for melt;



Roll find, nicest Buff I own;



Another roll find, RPM-001, EDS. At least I think it's EDS.




And grabbed a beat-up proof roll find to play with;

 

Setting look fine to me, but I might make one suggestion. Abe looks better with his face lit up. In fact, it looks to me like it would photograph better if you turned the coin 180 to shoot it. If you notice, Kennedy, Washington, Roosevelt, and Mercury are all facing the light while Abe has his back turned to it.

 

Keen observation. Something to try next time I get a chance (Probably not for a while, my evenings are booked for the next 5 days or so.)