I have said that cleaning and collecting are two different hobbies. There is another related hobby that I do instead of cleaning. That is coin photography. Tonight I got out a 40 year old lens and bellows and adapted it to my digital SLR to give a try at photos taken way too close for any sensible use. So far, I'm not any better off than just cropping from a regular photo but yo can't advance if you don't take first steps. The equipment I found in a box allowed me to fill the frame with a 5mmx7mm section. The depth of field was close to zero. My rig was not as stable as I had hoped so I lost some sharpness to motion. These results will give me a lot of room for growth. I decided to splurge and spend $13 on a macro focusing rail which should make it easier to get sharpness where I want and could even allow trying focus stacks with this rig. I shot five coins I happen to have at hand - recent purchases not yet taken to the bank. It would help a lot to select better coins for this purpose. between now and New Years I plan to select a few sharper coins that might be good for this purpose. One possible use for super close photos is a game we used to call Whatsits? where you take close photos and others try to guess what the subject was. It has been a while since I did this with friends as made obvious by the fact that one we did was the grooves on a record (ask your parents if you don't know the word). Can anyone recognize anything below? All are coins I have shown here in the last month or two. These are not cropped and show clipped corners which can happen when you use too many extension tubes. Sharpness is better on some than others but this is where I am as of the moment.
Not to change the subject, but can you recommend me a good USB microscope/camera for taking pictures like that without necessarily spending a fortune? I'm just getting started, so not looking for anything too fancy, just something decent at a good price I suppose Bluetooth is acceptable too in liu of usb
i know the last one is the counter stamp on your "wrestlers" stater, i think the griffon my be a republican reverse.
Besides a 'face' I see on the first and knowing the last (the counter-stamp, as Chris posted).......I'm lost LOL
Face of Roman. Horse left. Owl Facing Standing Griffon right Janiform c/m from the Aspendos wrestlers.
Correct on both. A second try convinced me to not expect much until I get the focus rail that may allow focus stacking. Lighting change made some things better and others worse as is usual for such tests. It certainly increased the detail in fine scratches on the surfaces. The countermark shifted focus to the other side pointing out I needed to pay more attention to the surface of the field of desired sharpness being parallel to the sensor. That is often a problem on reverses of coins with a high relief on the other side. Focus stacking would improve that also so I suspect that image is as far as it will be going until the rail arrives. The other reshoot is not a horse.
The second time I cropped out the black corners. These are the two correctly IDed by chrsmat. The Roman and owl need more information. The new shot really shows the double striking of the countermark I missed on the regular image.
This is a fun game! 1: no idea who that is 2. goat, but I don't know which coin 3. goat head left, with Voldemort's face on the back of its head?? 4. already answered 5. already answered
Yes to goat on #2. #3 was IDed above as an owl but not whose owl. Hint: not Athens. This would be impossible except that all were shown here recently. None of us memorize every coin posted so the question is which coins attract any interest and which ones just get the standard 'nice coin' posts but no real interest.
Go to amazon's usb microscope/camera. They have prices from 15.00 up to 1500.00$.Be sure to check out compatibility with your computer.
I bought a similar one today. Hopefully I can take some shots and explore coin surfaces with reasonable enough detail, and worse case scenario if it doesn't fit my purposes, I could use it to magnify bugs and plants for my 5 year old son so he can learn about these things.
Probably not. These are very cheap no thrills digital microscopes. They are good enough to let you examine tiny details on a coin surface at ultra high magnification, but you won't be taking award winning photographs with their cameras.
My new toy came in the mail today. It was a focus rail that makes it easier to make small changes in distances between coin and camera as needed for focus stacking images. I reshot the Republican Molo goat and the countermark on the Aspendos with four images stacked into one. They are sharper. I need to select some better subject coins now that I have the tool needed to do the job. Photo #1 was a face of Philip I from an Alexandrian tet.
