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SionGilbey

Photos of coins

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I'm looking for some advice on coin photography.

What set up should I use?

I have a Fujifilm FinePix J32. 12.2 MP, with a decent macro mode.

I have a tripod, albeit not a very good one.

I have a good scanner with a high resolution mode.

What camera do you use?

Do you use some kind of specially set up rig?

Thanks in advance,

Sion

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Hi Sion

I think the setup and lighting is more important than the camera. I use a Canon PowerShot A480, mounted on a little 8" tripod, pointing straight down, and two lights - a 6400K daylight bulb, and a yellower halogen angle poise. Position at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock, but not so close as to cause glare on the coin. The idea is, the blue of the daylight bulb cancels out the yellow of the halogen.

I raise the coin to the point where it fills the screen without using digital zoom. Move the lights as high as you can without the camera casting its own shadow on the coin. Lights too low and the light will rake across the surface of the coin and the shot will be unattractively grainy. Break the "No digital zoom" rule if you have to, just to get the lights higher, particularly with small coins. Threehalfpence have to be the most difficult coins to get right.

Once you're happy with the lighting, set the camera up. Super Macro if you have it. I use ISO 100 (lower the better - too high and grainyness creeps back in). Exposure slightly up, just a fraction - the smallest increment over 0 you can get. Shutter timer to 2 sec. No flash.

Then, get a piece of white printer paper and slide it over the coin so all you can see on the camera screen is white. Get the camera to recalibrate its white balance on that, then take the sheet away. I use a black background under the coin as it reduces stray light bouncing all over the shop.

All set.

Once you've taken the photos and imported them, take the time to crop and rotate, and maybe even remove the background. I replace it with a jet black one but that's just taste I think, not science. The results will probably be enormous files. I resize down to 1000x1000 pixels to deal with that, but I'm toying with the idea of increasing that to 1500x1500 maybe. Disk space is cheap.

hope that helps!

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oh. and get everyone to stop walking up and down the bus and making it rock while you're trying to keep the camera steady on it's tripod.

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oh. and get everyone to stop walking up and down the bus and making it rock while you're trying to keep the camera steady on it's tripod.

I'll keep that in mind :P

I'm going to follow a lot of your advice but maybe adapt it a little for space reasons.

Digital zoom is no good as it looks grainy, I just crop, it's worth the small amount of lost resolution to get rid of that horrible graininess.

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oh. and get everyone to stop walking up and down the bus and making it rock while you're trying to keep the camera steady on it's tripod.

I'll keep that in mind :P

I'm going to follow a lot of your advice but maybe adapt it a little for space reasons.

Digital zoom is no good as it looks grainy, I just crop, it's worth the small amount of lost resolution to get rid of that horrible graininess.

I use a tripod with the camera pointing down to the coin on a flat surface below.

I use daylight (by far the best light).

I use maximum MP (for cropping after)

I don't use macro close-up as the camera would cast a shadow on the coin, I use 'macro zoom' which means the coin can be a foot away at least. Then I crop, which you can afford to also, as 12MP gives you plenty of scope and you still get a good sized image.

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017.jpg

Here's the setup I use for coin photography - the daylight bulb is at the top of the picture, the halogen is the black one pointing down but not directly at the coin (thanks John, for that tip!).

Tripod cost me about £12 from a proper little camera shop in Ciren.

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I use the same camera as Declan and put the coin in natural daylight. I set the camera to Auto and let it rip. Not as professional as Declan but it seems to work 9 times out of 10 :)

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I see you use a black background... is this better than white? Or any other colour?

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I use black or light blue and they both seem okay. Best advice is try what you have to hand and see which, if any, you favour.

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I use black or light blue and they both seem okay. Best advice is try what you have to hand and see which, if any, you favour.

Using the advice in this thread, I've set up my little coin-photo-thing.

Unlike declan I only have one camera so I can't take a picture of my camera actually on the tripod, but it's lens is pointing down.

rig.jpg

product.jpg

There's a little glare from the light and the CD-case backdrop is entirely copied from Declan.

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I have to say I'm not entirely happy with the CD case thing. It's a nice black for the purpose of taking the photo, but it's a very hard plastic and I live in fear that it's harder than bronze, and especially copper. So I place the coin carefully, and let the software do the rotation - never turn the coin on the plastic! I'll have to get hold of a small piece of black cloth - natural fibres, not nylon, or velvet or something like that to ease my worries.

I remove the background in postprocessing and replace it with jet black anyway...like this:

5337.jpg

that's a tip from one of our prominent members but for the life of me I can't remember who, so no credit claimed!

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Some good tips here.

I struggle with images having to discard at least 60% of all the pictures I take. Problems include the examples below:

1. Getting pictures in focus, particularly on proofs because autofocus frequently doesn't. Example (best of 3 attempts). Does anyone else apart from John and myself use autofocus?

In the hand, the colours of the first coin are not as strong as but similarly iridescent to this, though you would never think so.

c1450-P1169exPeckRogers.jpg

2. The second image shows the problems with different background colouring which presumably is due to the flash not having cooled down to room temperature before the second image is taken. Taking pictures requires a balance between time and quality. I don't have 10 minutes to waste between flashes which would be required to give it time to cool, so tend to live with this one.

3. Many images look as if the coin has been harshly polished despite looking good in the hand - such as this. The coin isn't a proof and does have wear, but the impression should be clear. To overcome this I try to shield the flash using a sheet of translucent paper, but it is a bit hit and miss. Overexposed or underexposed are the usual results in a combination with problem 2. This is the worst of the 3 with problem 1 a close second.

Clearly lighting is all important, but I find natural daylight too harsh. It washes out the colours to leave everything dark with a strong shadow from the window and in high contrast which is equally unattractive. Closing out the daylight and relying on the camera auto-focus leads to the problems above.

Having said all that, it is still better than a scan. These are scans of the second coin for comparison.

post-381-090800800 1305671181_thumb.jpg

post-381-002838000 1305671194_thumb.jpg

Edited by Rob

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I do use autofocus, Rob, (but not the setting that tries to look for a face), but I don't use flash. Daylight doesn't work for me either.

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I found that the sort of halogen lamp the Declan is using caused all sorts of problems with electronic equipment in the vicinity. Particularly if plugged into the same multiway adaptor or double socket as the rest of the gear. PCs locking up and other things needing resetting were the main symptoms. :unsure:

I finally figured out that the transformer in the base of the lamp could cause spikes on the mains either when starting under load or being switched off. I'm still not too sure it wasn't causing some sort of EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) as well. :blink:

It may have just been the one I had and it may have just been switching it on and off while the electronics were fired up but the problems went away when I binned it.

Cheers

Kris

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My camera is tripod mounted directly above the coin and perpendicular to the work surface. The light source (a daylight compact fluorescent bulb) is mounted as close to the body of the lens so as to reduce the angle of the reflected light.

The camera settings I use are:

- Aperture priority mode with aperture F/10 or F/11

- Autofocus

- White balance taken from a white sheet of paper

- +0.3EV exposure compensation

- Centre-weighted exposure metering

These settings give a shutter speed in the range 1/40 to 1/20 of a second.

If we are using a 1967 penny (which most of us will have) as a control sample here is a cropped example from my setup.

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1. Getting pictures in focus, particularly on proofs because autofocus frequently doesn't.

Getting good photos of proof coins is notoriously difficult, especially if there is some iridescent toning that you want to capture. You may want to investigate and experiment (if you have time) with an axial lighting setup.

As a quick (and dirty) experiment using a 1951 proof penny, I took two photos; one with a standard setup, the other with an axial lighting setup. The result (below) of the standard setup is singularly unimpressive.

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Obviously, some tinkering with the settings will be necessary to improve the detail in the final picture, but the axial lighting setup shows some promise.

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2. The second image shows the problems with different background colouring which presumably is due to the flash not having cooled down to room temperature before the second image is taken. Taking pictures requires a balance between time and quality. I don't have 10 minutes to waste between flashes which would be required to give it time to cool, so tend to live with this one.

I'm not sure that the difference in background shade is due to flash temperature. I think that the effect is due to the light metering that the camera performs to work out the exposure to use. Different sides of the same coin can reflect different amounts of light causing a different aperture or shutter speed to be used. If you look at the metadata held with the digital photo, it should tell you which settings were used.

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I wish I was into photography and then I could tell you what I use without going upstairs to have a look.

OK, Canon 400D; Sigma (bugger I've forgotten... ) ah yes, 1:2.8 DG Macro lens, tripod/stand normally using natural light. Curiously, I don't find reflection from the tripod to be a problem.

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My camera is tripod mounted directly above the coin and perpendicular to the work surface. The light source (a daylight compact fluorescent bulb) is mounted as close to the body of the lens so as to reduce the angle of the reflected light.

The camera settings I use are:

- Aperture priority mode with aperture F/10 or F/11

- Autofocus

- White balance taken from a white sheet of paper

- +0.3EV exposure compensation

- Centre-weighted exposure metering

These settings give a shutter speed in the range 1/40 to 1/20 of a second.

If we are using a 1967 penny (which most of us will have) as a control sample here is a cropped example from my setup.

Cripes they're good, Nick. I'll have to get the manual out for my camera and look up that aperture business, and the centre weighted thing. I understood the others.

Just the one light source?

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I found that the sort of halogen lamp the Declan is using caused all sorts of problems with electronic equipment in the vicinity. Particularly if plugged into the same multiway adaptor or double socket as the rest of the gear. PCs locking up and other things needing resetting were the main symptoms. :unsure:

I finally figured out that the transformer in the base of the lamp could cause spikes on the mains either when starting under load or being switched off. I'm still not too sure it wasn't causing some sort of EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) as well. :blink:

It may have just been the one I had and it may have just been switching it on and off while the electronics were fired up but the problems went away when I binned it.

Cheers

Kris

Kris, if your lamp caused an EMP you'd be in big trouble. They usually only come from the detonation of a Nuclear bomb...

It sounds like you're plugging too many things into one socket.

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1. Getting pictures in focus, particularly on proofs because autofocus frequently doesn't. Does anyone else apart from John and myself use autofocus?

2. The second image shows the problems with different background colouring which presumably is due to the flash not having cooled down to room temperature before the second image is taken. Taking pictures requires a balance between time and quality. I don't have 10 minutes to waste between flashes which would be required to give it time to cool, so tend to live with this one.

Yes I use AF (in macro zoom mode) which the camera seems to handle well enough - but then, I use daylight.

I'm not sure that the difference in background shade is due to flash temperature. I think that the effect is due to the light metering that the camera performs to work out the exposure to use. Different sides of the same coin can reflect different amounts of light causing a different aperture or shutter speed to be used. If you look at the metadata held with the digital photo, it should tell you which settings were used.

Yes, I agree. Flash temperature is pretty constant, whereas AWB or automatic exposure aren't. I've seen AWB variations in two consecutive shots of the same subject in identical lighting conditions.

Getting good photos of proof coins is notoriously difficult, especially if there is some iridescent toning that you want to capture. You may want to investigate and experiment (if you have time) with an axial lighting setup.

As a quick (and dirty) experiment using a 1951 proof penny, I took two photos; one with a standard setup, the other with an axial lighting setup. The result (below) of the standard setup is singularly unimpressive.

Obviously, some tinkering with the settings will be necessary to improve the detail in the final picture, but the axial lighting setup shows some promise.

I couldn't disagree more. Your second picture shows massively too much contrast (to my eyes) while the first one I thought "What's wrong with this? Seems good enough to me." It has good exposure, colour and the only thing missing is perhaps a little iridescence, but if shot 2 is the cost of getting iridescence, I'd happily live without it. (I must add - the thumbnails give the reverse impression, and the second shot looks good, but when I enlarge them, that's when I thought again).

Edited by Peckris

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Anyone who knew anything about electrickery would have a fit if they saw my setup here:

Long extension cable buried in a trench I dug under the yard, plugged into a single 13A socket.

Other end has two outlets, one goes to the outdoor freezer, the other holds a plug dangling through a hole I drilled in the bus floor. That plug goes to a 3-way, 2 empty, one to a 6-way.

That 6 way:

1) fairy lights

2) laptop

3) printer

4) speakers

5) empty

6) to another 4-way

that 4-way:

1) doubler driving halogen and daylight CFL

2) laptop

3) camera

4) long extension going back out through another hole in the floor on the other side of the bus - for outdoor power tools and charging up the bus batteries.

Combined with the propane and the woodburner, EMP would be the least of my worries!

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Just the one light source?

Yes. Just a single light bulb mounted sideways right next to the lens. The bulb is a daylight 30W energy saver, equivalent to approx. 150W incandescent.

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I couldn't disagree more. Your second picture shows massively too much contrast (to my eyes) while the first one I thought "What's wrong with this? Seems good enough to me." It has good exposure, colour and the only thing missing is perhaps a little iridescence, but if shot 2 is the cost of getting iridescence, I'd happily live without it. (I must add - the thumbnails give the reverse impression, and the second shot looks good, but when I enlarge them, that's when I thought again).

Personally, I use the first method for my own coin pics - iridescent or not. However, a photo should attempt to capture the likeness of a coin in real life which mostly they don't. More experimentation required to produce more natural looking iridescent proofs. I'm sure it must be possible.

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