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azda

Photography

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Looking for any tips on how to get good photos of coin sets in their cases and capturing the Details like DNW and other auction houses do. I cannot for the life of me get anything near what i want, perhaps ist the camera but i can take individual coins pretty well with it, but sets such as my 1911 and 1927 are pretty poor for my liking and usual Standards.

Should i just remove them from the box and do them individually or has anyone any good tips as i'd prefer to leave them cased and do them.

Thanks in advance

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Perhaps, this is one example where the DLSR with a decent lens has an advantage. It allows you to be that bit further away thus letting more light on to the subject.

Personally, I photograph the coins individually and then arrange them into one image with the individual coins positioned where they would be in the proper case (like below).

PS-1953-R_zps701430d5.jpg

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You could take them from the box and photograph them individually or i always find shooting them with a high above light source and being fairly far away from them using a macro lense works. This was one i took the other day using the second method i mentioned

post-8074-0-50721800-1411909006_thumb.jp

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this is one where i photgraphed the coins individually

post-8074-0-69428000-1411909150_thumb.jp

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The first and last pics are great, i don't have a DSLR camera so obviously shooting individually is what is required. The next question is Then, what software are you using to arrange them individually?

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We use photoshop for that

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Ok, we'll it seems i have to purchase that.

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I use Paint Shop Pro, but there are many free packages around. Paint.NET is free and by all accounts is very good.

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Ok, we'll it seems i have to purchase that.

Photoshop Elements gives you most of what you need in photo software and is less expensive than the full package.

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I use a DSLR on a tripod. As I do not have a macro lens or specialist lighting, I use my 17-55mm lens with the f/stop as high as it will go and the standard flash unit in the camera. I then use Photoshop Elements to crop the photo and adjust lighting and contrast as needed.

This is an example:

Exposure time: 1/60 sec

F-stop: f/25

ISO: 250

Focal length: 55mm

fqhn.jpg

Edited by jaggy

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You could take them from the box and photograph them individually or i always find shooting them with a high above light source and being fairly far away from them using a macro lense works. This was one i took the other day using the second method i mentioned

Which macro lens do you use? I have a Nikon DSLR but it would appear that there are several macro lenses available from 40mm all the way up.

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You could take them from the box and photograph them individually or i always find shooting them with a high above light source and being fairly far away from them using a macro lense works. This was one i took the other day using the second method i mentioned

Which macro lens do you use? I have a Nikon DSLR but it would appear that there are several macro lenses available from 40mm all the way up.

We use at present a Tamron 90 mm Macro lens

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Any chance you could try and resend that E1 image of your's, it never came through, and I'd very much appreciate a copy of it?

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Any chance you could try and resend that E1 image of your's, it never came through, and I'd very much appreciate a copy of it?

Hi yes of course could you DM me your email address and i'll do it know

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You could take them from the box and photograph them individually or i always find shooting them with a high above light source and being fairly far away from them using a macro lense works. This was one i took the other day using the second method i mentioned

Which macro lens do you use? I have a Nikon DSLR but it would appear that there are several macro lenses available from 40mm all the way up.

We use at present a Tamron 90 mm Macro lens

Regarding the light source, is that a single source at as-close-to vertical as possible or multiple sources?

I've heard good things about the 5500k 'daylight' bright white bulbs; also the Jansjo lamps which I have used but always struggle with silver and the light being too reflective.

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You could take them from the box and photograph them individually or i always find shooting them with a high above light source and being fairly far away from them using a macro lense works. This was one i took the other day using the second method i mentioned

Which macro lens do you use? I have a Nikon DSLR but it would appear that there are several macro lenses available from 40mm all the way up.

We use at present a Tamron 90 mm Macro lens

Thanks ....

Did a bit of 'googling' and it turns out that the longer the macro (i.e. over 100mm) the better. Problem is that the longer the macro the more expensive. I think I need some of those non-coin investments to produce.

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Much more important than the camera, is the type of lighting used - there was another thread which showed the best set up, but if I remember right, it involved two lights on opposite sides, angled downwards (I think the consensus was that you needed to experiment, in order to find the best angles?) I think our friend Brandon had quite a big input to this.

There's a lot of nonsense talked about cameras : one thing's for absolute certain, you don't need a DSLR just for coins! For the following reasons:

1. DSLRs will (arguably) become redundant within a few years, replaced by the 'mirrorless' system cameras now doing as good a job as DSLRs

2. You're capturing images for the web (or insurance man) not for printing, so you don't need huge sensors and massive resolution

3. Any decent compact will do, the trick is to get close enough, and for that:

  • if it's an interchangable lens system, a macro lens is very useful, but VERY expensive
  • for any system, the 'close up' Raynox lens attachments are very high quality and effective
  • a camera with a macro setting (many do - but none are as good as a dedicated macro lens, but probably good enough for our needs)

But to repeat : the bottom line is that lighting is more important than camera for getting good results.

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With regard to software: If you are looking for a high power free software for photo editing, you may want to give "GIMP" a look. GIMP stands for "Gnu Image Manipulation Program" and has a lot of bells and whistles. It's built to run best on Windows platforms, but I would suppose it would run okay on a Windows emulator through an Apple machine.

With regard to lighting: I've been shooting with LEDs for 3 years, and I am very happy with them. I know others are perfectly happy with CFLs (compact fluorescent), incandescents, and halogens. The light type isn't as important as how you use it. Always set your white balance to your light source, keep your lights high and close to the camera, and deflect and/or diffuse your lights so that their point sources are large enough to light the full coin. You may want to take a look at this little thread I put together a couple years ago. It's not the end-all, be-all but it might help a little.

Other thoughts: You will get the best results if you photograph each coin individually so that you can modify the lighting, etc. to suit each particular coin's needs. I do like the recompilation look that has been shown above by Nick and mhcoins. Those are very nice images.

Smaller non-DSLR cameras are capable of taking very good images of coins for posting on the web, for insurance reasons, and for general enjoyment of your coins from home when they are locked up in a deposit box somewhere. A DSLR set-up allows you to take images of a coin by completely filling the camera's digital sensor with the coin's full diameter. This means a maundy pence through a crown can both be shot in images with dimensions of 3000 pixels square (or larger). For most, this isn't necessary unless you are also interested in die markers, varieties, etc. For web use, most coin images get resized down to 500 to 800 pixels square for each side of the coin anyway.

Best of luck.

-Brandon

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I use a DSLR on a tripod. As I do not have a macro lens or specialist lighting, I use my 17-55mm lens with the f/stop as high as it will go and the standard flash unit in the camera. I then use Photoshop Elements to crop the photo and adjust lighting and contrast as needed.

This is an example:

Exposure time: 1/60 sec

F-stop: f/25

ISO: 250

Focal length: 55mm

fqhn.jpg

Hi Jaggy,

Very nice image of a small coin!

Just a few thoughts...you will get slightly sharper images if you use an f-stop of around 5.6 to 11, possibly up to f-14. Opened beyond that, macro images will show softness (blurriness) due to diffraction. Also, if your camera is mounted very solidly with no vibrations, you will get sharper images if you set your ISO down to 100. If your tripod is really sturdy, a slightly longer exposure can actually sometimes increase the sharpness of macro photos because the shutter slap isn't as pronounced.

Cheers,

-Brandon

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Just a few thoughts...you will get slightly sharper images if you use an f-stop of around 5.6 to 11, possibly up to f-14. Opened beyond that, macro images will show softness (blurriness) due to diffraction. Also, if your camera is mounted very solidly with no vibrations, you will get sharper images if you set your ISO down to 100. If your tripod is really sturdy, a slightly longer exposure can actually sometimes increase the sharpness of macro photos because the shutter slap isn't as pronounced.

Cheers,

-Brandon

I know this isn't a photography forum (ithough I do belong to one) - but shutter slap (aka mirror slap) just isn't a feature on mirrorless system cameras. They have the advantage of being that much smaller, and that includes lenses as well as sensors, because the lens (sans mirror) can be that much closer to the sensor reducing the size of both with no detriment to resolution. This is why I predict that DSLRs are in their dog days now, and it's only the likes of Canon and Nikon - with decades invested in their systems - that will delay the inevitable. I'm not even sure if Panasonic have a DSLR anymore, and also Fuji and Olympus are working hard to make the mirrorless systems the de facto standard.

There, I've said my piece!

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I use a DSLR on a tripod. As I do not have a macro lens or specialist lighting, I use my 17-55mm lens with the f/stop as high as it will go and the standard flash unit in the camera. I then use Photoshop Elements to crop the photo and adjust lighting and contrast as needed.

This is an example:

Exposure time: 1/60 sec

F-stop: f/25

ISO: 250

Focal length: 55mm

Hi Jaggy,

Very nice image of a small coin!

Just a few thoughts...you will get slightly sharper images if you use an f-stop of around 5.6 to 11, possibly up to f-14. Opened beyond that, macro images will show softness (blurriness) due to diffraction. Also, if your camera is mounted very solidly with no vibrations, you will get sharper images if you set your ISO down to 100. If your tripod is really sturdy, a slightly longer exposure can actually sometimes increase the sharpness of macro photos because the shutter slap isn't as pronounced.

Cheers,

-Brandon

Brandon

Thanks for the tips. Still have a lot to learn with this photography malarkey.

Peckris ... to avoid requoting your post. You may well be right re: mirrorless cameras. But I already have my DSLR (which I did not buy just to photograph coins) and I already have a couple of lenses. So that is a 'sunk cost'. I learned long ago that it is very hard to keep up with technology but if what you have works .......

Charles

Edited by jaggy

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Peckris ... to avoid requoting your post. You may well be right re: mirrorless cameras. But I already have my DSLR (which I did not buy just to photograph coins) and I already have a couple of lenses. So that is a 'sunk cost'. I learned long ago that it is very hard to keep up with technology but if what you have works .......

Charles

Oh, [he said, backtracking fast :D ] I've nothing against DSLRs! They are capable of the best quality, I'd say, though mirrorless systems are their equal now. If you are able to heft a DSLR and its lenses (I'm not) then why not? Having said that, I'm amazed at the number of DSLR owners who now have a very capable 'second' camera, usually pocketable, that they carry around at all times. The latest iPhone is dam' good, but also the trend begun by the Lumix LX5 (compact, fixed zoom lens, 'enthusiast' cameras - the Fuji X100 also comes to mind, though as it's a fixed focal length lens only, I struggle to see how it would be as flexible as most other cameras).

Horses for courses. I still maintain that DSLRs will be replaced by mirrorless systems, but there are photographers out there who still use SLRs and film! And why not...?

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I use a DSLR on a tripod. As I do not have a macro lens or specialist lighting, I use my 17-55mm lens with the f/stop as high as it will go and the standard flash unit in the camera. I then use Photoshop Elements to crop the photo and adjust lighting and contrast as needed.

This is an example:

Exposure time: 1/60 sec

F-stop: f/25

ISO: 250

Focal length: 55mm

Hi Jaggy,

Very nice image of a small coin!

Just a few thoughts...you will get slightly sharper images if you use an f-stop of around 5.6 to 11, possibly up to f-14. Opened beyond that, macro images will show softness (blurriness) due to diffraction. Also, if your camera is mounted very solidly with no vibrations, you will get sharper images if you set your ISO down to 100. If your tripod is really sturdy, a slightly longer exposure can actually sometimes increase the sharpness of macro photos because the shutter slap isn't as pronounced.

Cheers,

-Brandon

Brandon

Thanks for the tips. Still have a lot to learn with this photography malarkey.

Peckris ... to avoid requoting your post. You may well be right re: mirrorless cameras. But I already have my DSLR (which I did not buy just to photograph coins) and I already have a couple of lenses. So that is a 'sunk cost'. I learned long ago that it is very hard to keep up with technology but if what you have works .......

Charles

I totally agree with the "if you have something that works" my camera is an olympus 8.0mp camera and have had no problems with it until now when i wanted to do the cased coins, so will buy some software and see how we go with that.

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Peckris ... to avoid requoting your post. You may well be right re: mirrorless cameras. But I already have my DSLR (which I did not buy just to photograph coins) and I already have a couple of lenses. So that is a 'sunk cost'. I learned long ago that it is very hard to keep up with technology but if what you have works .......

Charles

Oh, [he said, backtracking fast :D ] I've nothing against DSLRs! They are capable of the best quality, I'd say, though mirrorless systems are their equal now. If you are able to heft a DSLR and its lenses (I'm not) then why not? Having said that, I'm amazed at the number of DSLR owners who now have a very capable 'second' camera, usually pocketable, that they carry around at all times. The latest iPhone is dam' good, but also the trend begun by the Lumix LX5 (compact, fixed zoom lens, 'enthusiast' cameras - the Fuji X100 also comes to mind, though as it's a fixed focal length lens only, I struggle to see how it would be as flexible as most other cameras).

Horses for courses. I still maintain that DSLRs will be replaced by mirrorless systems, but there are photographers out there who still use SLRs and film! And why not...?

I know a pretty eminent photographer who would agree with you. For me the key is not the camera body but the lenses and what they allow you to photograph whether it be macro, wide angle or telephoto.

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