What is the most / least collected pre-decimal denomination?

[Peter]

I've ticked most boxes.

An easy series like double florins has been released as the condition was not good enough.

I've also dabbled with the darkside.

Darkside? I am intrigued Peter?

The darkside equally is for foreign coins to us Brits....

[Justin]

I've ticked most boxes.

An easy series like double florins has been released as the condition was not good enough.

I've also dabbled with the darkside.

Darkside? I am intrigued Peter?

The darkside equally is for foreign coins to us Brits....

Never! You wouldn't........oh yeah I did that too!

Well I think I will start a new poll on Monday, which will be simpler and contain more questions. What denomination did you start collecting and the second, which is your favourite, if I can add a third it will be what are you or have you been primarily collecting over the past 12 months.

Does this sound better?

Also I don't think it will give me enough room for all the denominations but we will start at the top and see how many I can add. I will try to get most things in I hope.

Regards

[Peter]

I've ticked most boxes.

An easy series like double florins has been released as the condition was not good enough.

I've also dabbled with the darkside.

Darkside? I am intrigued Peter?

The darkside equally is for foreign coins to us Brits....

Never! You wouldn't........oh yeah I did that too!

Well I think I will start a new poll on Monday, which will be simpler and contain more questions. What denomination did you start collecting and the second, which is your favourite, if I can add a third it will be what are you or have you been primarily collecting over the past 12 months.

Does this sound better?

Also I don't think it will give me enough room for all the denominations but we will start at the top and see how many I can add. I will try to get most things in I hope.

Regards

The penny boys will win Although as long as they keep off my farthings.

I have a few pennies that would spank them.

[Accumulator]

I have a few pennies that would spank them.

Pictures speak a thousand words! Bring it on Peter.......

[Coinery]

I have a few pennies that would spank them.

Pictures speak a thousand words! Bring it on Peter.......

I did wonder just how long it would take for a pennyman to arrive...

[Colin G.]

I do find it quite amusing that we can't even get a consensus on how to build a poll on a forum...what hope do we ever have of agreeing on grades, it does explain a lot

Edited May 26, 2013 by Colin G.

[Peter]

I have a few pennies that would spank them.

Pictures speak a thousand words! Bring it on Peter.......

I've got a major task it setting up a system for good photography (better than ebay quality)

I have bought cameras and LED lights...now practice

[Nick]

I have a few pennies that would spank them.

Pictures speak a thousand words! Bring it on Peter.......

I've got a major task it setting up a system for good photography (better than ebay quality)

I have bought cameras and LED lights...now practice

In my experience, you'll want to keep LED lights as far away from coins as you can manage. Most decent cameras will make use of even a small amount of light, as long as it exceeds the minimum required - the only issue is white-balance. In this respect, I have found that low-power Compact Fluorescent bulbs make an almost ideal light source.

Edited May 28, 2013 by Nick

[RChris]

I have a few pennies that would spank them.

Pictures speak a thousand words! Bring it on Peter.......

I've got a major task it setting up a system for good photography (better than ebay quality)

I have bought cameras and LED lights...now practice

In my experience, you'll want to keep LED lights as far away from coins as you can manage. Most decent cameras will make use of even a small amount of light, as long as it exceeds the minimum required - the only issue is white-balance. In this respect, I have found that low-power Compact Fluorescent bulbs make an almost ideal light source.

Can anything beat natural daylight?

[Rob]

I have a few pennies that would spank them.

Pictures speak a thousand words! Bring it on Peter.......

I've got a major task it setting up a system for good photography (better than ebay quality)

I have bought cameras and LED lights...now practice

In my experience, you'll want to keep LED lights as far away from coins as you can manage. Most decent cameras will make use of even a small amount of light, as long as it exceeds the minimum required - the only issue is white-balance. In this respect, I have found that low-power Compact Fluorescent bulbs make an almost ideal light source.

Can anything beat natural daylight?

When I use natural light, coins look horribly contrasted. The colour is cold and nothing like reality.

[Paulus]

I have a few pennies that would spank them.

Pictures speak a thousand words! Bring it on Peter.......

I've got a major task it setting up a system for good photography (better than ebay quality)

I have bought cameras and LED lights...now practice

In my experience, you'll want to keep LED lights as far away from coins as you can manage. Most decent cameras will make use of even a small amount of light, as long as it exceeds the minimum required - the only issue is white-balance. In this respect, I have found that low-power Compact Fluorescent bulbs make an almost ideal light source.

Can anything beat natural daylight?

When I use natural light, coins look horribly contrasted. The colour is cold and nothing like reality.

I couldn't agree more, I really struggle in natural daylight, too hard to control perhaps?

[TomGoodheart]

I couldn't agree more, I really struggle in natural daylight, too hard to control perhaps?

Interesting. I don't have any lights (apart from the normal ones in each room of course!) and so use daylight for my photos. OK, I do edit the photos for colour balance so they look as close as I can get to 'real life' on my laptop screen. But I only use MS Paint (which is a pretty simple programme with few options other than making the image a bit warmer or cooler) and generally I'm happy enough with the results.

Here's my last effort, mid edit. Taken in daylight with a compact camera using the close-up setting. The background is just an ordinary brown envelope and I've started to mask out around the coin with Paint.

[Coinery]

My approach is similar to TG's, I take my photo on a background which interferes with the white-balance the least (which is the function we all need to perfect) and then play around with the image in a software program to achieve the closest 'representation' of the coin I can!

Sometimes my images are pleasing and are uploaded as-is, though, mostly, I fart ass about for hours and settle for a compromise of contrasty colours that are close.

I haven't the mental resources available at this point to understand my setup as an expert would know it...I mostly (always) just bodge my way through as best I can!

[Rob]

What happens to white balance when you typically don't use any white in the pictures. I know someone (TG?) said they didn't like my green background, but I use it because it gives the lowest failure rate to my eyes. If I use a white background, it was problematic before and so presumably would be again

[jaggy]

I prefer to take coin photos in overcast light because I want to minimise any shadow.

I place the coin on a sheet of white paper and take the photo as close as my autofocus will allow. I do use the flash and I set the aperture manually. White balance is set at auto and ISO at 200.

After taking the photo, I import it into Photoshop elements. I crop it and adjust the lighting. I do not touch the colour.

[Coinery]

What happens to white balance when you typically don't use any white in the pictures. I know someone (TG?) said they didn't like my green background, but I use it because it gives the lowest failure rate to my eyes. If I use a white background, it was problematic before and so presumably would be again

White balance raises its ugly head whatever the background.

I also use backgrounds that give the lowest failure rates which, for me, involves 2 background colours, dependent on whether the coin is silver, bright bronze, or lustred, etc.

I started using that old text background because it was the most effective, colour wise, but it made it difficult to cut the coins out with software afterwards, which I decided to start doing for tonal consistency of backgrounds across the website, recent additions list, etc.

So I now use matt black and white for photography. As an indicator, the white background can be anything from blue, green, right through to pink, by the time I've played with the image in a photo suite! I then cut it out in Serif Plus and, hey presto, the background is brilliant white for all my images.

[Rob]

What happens to white balance when you typically don't use any white in the pictures. I know someone (TG?) said they didn't like my green background, but I use it because it gives the lowest failure rate to my eyes. If I use a white background, it was problematic before and so presumably would be again

White balance raises its ugly head whatever the background.

I also use backgrounds that give the lowest failure rates which, for me, involves 2 background colours, dependent on whether the coin is silver, bright bronze, or lustred, etc.

I started using that old text background because it was the most effective, colour wise, but it made it difficult to cut the coins out with software afterwards, which I decided to start doing for tonal consistency of backgrounds across the website, recent additions list, etc.

So I now use matt black and white for photography. As an indicator, the white background can be anything from blue, green, right through to pink, by the time I've played with the image in a photo suite! I then cut it out in Serif Plus and, hey presto, the background is brilliant white for all my images.

That sounds like too much time required if all you want to do is load up a few images of coins for sale. As nice as perfection is, time has a cost. It already takes a few hours to add half a dozen coin images to the site given the vagaries of auto-defocus, flash working or not depending on the levels of light available, camera shake. Needless to say, it acts as a drag on the enthusiasm for listing things. I have to confess that I thought it would be much easier and take less time to take decent pics and upload them than it does in reality.

It would be better if these clever cameras (which do everything except make a cup of tea), could adjust the image to give a standard colour. i.e. they know what 6000K white or whatever looks like, and every picture taken should be corrected, or at least correctable to this or these pre-set standards. I can see that you would need more than one reference point to cover absent reference colours. They must have some digital value corresponding to a particular shade of a colour which can have a specific number of bits added to or subtracted from it, or is that an unreasonable presumption?

[Coinery]

What happens to white balance when you typically don't use any white in the pictures. I know someone (TG?) said they didn't like my green background, but I use it because it gives the lowest failure rate to my eyes. If I use a white background, it was problematic before and so presumably would be again

White balance raises its ugly head whatever the background.

I also use backgrounds that give the lowest failure rates which, for me, involves 2 background colours, dependent on whether the coin is silver, bright bronze, or lustred, etc.

I started using that old text background because it was the most effective, colour wise, but it made it difficult to cut the coins out with software afterwards, which I decided to start doing for tonal consistency of backgrounds across the website, recent additions list, etc.

So I now use matt black and white for photography. As an indicator, the white background can be anything from blue, green, right through to pink, by the time I've played with the image in a photo suite! I then cut it out in Serif Plus and, hey presto, the background is brilliant white for all my images.

That sounds like too much time required if all you want to do is load up a few images of coins for sale. As nice as perfection is, time has a cost. It already takes a few hours to add half a dozen coin images to the site given the vagaries of auto-defocus, flash working or not depending on the levels of light available, camera shake. Needless to say, it acts as a drag on the enthusiasm for listing things. I have to confess that I thought it would be much easier and take less time to take decent pics and upload them than it does in reality.

It would be better if these clever cameras (which do everything except make a cup of tea), could adjust the image to give a standard colour. i.e. they know what 6000K white or whatever looks like, and every picture taken should be corrected, or at least correctable to this or these pre-set standards. I can see that you would need more than one reference point to cover absent reference colours. They must have some digital value corresponding to a particular shade of a colour which can have a specific number of bits added to or subtracted from it, or is that an unreasonable presumption?

Time is money, it's true, but not as costly as having a stunner of a coin not selling on account of a poor image, so the effort is worth the cause I reckon.

In actuality my backdoor route to an uploaded image has developed from not being able to do it properly in the first place. Timewise it's not as bad as it sounds...10 seconds for the shot...open the image in my photo program and adjust colours, tone, saturation, etc. (1min)...open up in Serif and cut it out (1min)...save as JPEG to PC (10 secs) X2 = under 5 mins per finished ob and rev.

Photographing coins IS the world's biggest pain in the arse, though! Apart from Boy George, that is!

[TomGoodheart]

My understanding is that automatic cameras adjust the white balance across the whole field of the photograph. In other words it averages everything out to a (pre-set) shade of grey. Consequently if you have a white background then a coin will appear darker than in real life.. and a black brackground will give a lighter coin.

Using a 'mid-grey' (I seem to remember that in the old days of manual photograpy you could buy a sheet of graded paper the correct tone) should end up with a more life like tone to the coin. The problem is that cameras are too bloody smart! And the electronics don't work like our eyes. So normal North-facing daylight will result in a bluish colour cast etc.

Yes, cameras are programmed to adjust for this. But manufacturers probably don't imagine you want to photograph a coin (which can be very reflective or dark and dull). They are all geared up to people photographing their friend's faces (or arses) to post to Facebok.

Like Rob, I do spend quite a while tweaking my images, partly because I'm like that and partly because if I'm sticking it on ebay the time (which I have and because it's not a business, is effectively 'free') to end up with a good photo is a small cost to me compared with the money I hope to get from selling the thing.

[Nick]

My understanding is that automatic cameras adjust the white balance across the whole field of the photograph. In other words it averages everything out to a (pre-set) shade of grey. Consequently if you have a white background then a coin will appear darker than in real life.. and a black brackground will give a lighter coin.

Using a 'mid-grey' (I seem to remember that in the old days of manual photograpy you could buy a sheet of graded paper the correct tone) should end up with a more life like tone to the coin. The problem is that cameras are too bloody smart! And the electronics don't work like our eyes. So normal North-facing daylight will result in a bluish colour cast etc.

Yes, cameras are programmed to adjust for this. But manufacturers probably don't imagine you want to photograph a coin (which can be very reflective or dark and dull). They are all geared up to people photographing their friend's faces (or arses) to post to Facebok.

Like Rob, I do spend quite a while tweaking my images, partly because I'm like that and partly because if I'm sticking it on ebay the time (which I have and because it's not a business, is effectively 'free') to end up with a good photo is a small cost to me compared with the money I hope to get from selling the thing.

You still can. It's 18% grey that is the 'standard' shade for accurate WB calculation.

[Peckris]

My understanding is that automatic cameras adjust the white balance across the whole field of the photograph. In other words it averages everything out to a (pre-set) shade of grey. Consequently if you have a white background then a coin will appear darker than in real life.. and a black brackground will give a lighter coin.

Using a 'mid-grey' (I seem to remember that in the old days of manual photograpy you could buy a sheet of graded paper the correct tone) should end up with a more life like tone to the coin. The problem is that cameras are too bloody smart! And the electronics don't work like our eyes. So normal North-facing daylight will result in a bluish colour cast etc.

Yes, cameras are programmed to adjust for this. But manufacturers probably don't imagine you want to photograph a coin (which can be very reflective or dark and dull). They are all geared up to people photographing their friend's faces (or arses) to post to Facebok.

Like Rob, I do spend quite a while tweaking my images, partly because I'm like that and partly because if I'm sticking it on ebay the time (which I have and because it's not a business, is effectively 'free') to end up with a good photo is a small cost to me compared with the money I hope to get from selling the thing.

You still can. It's 18% grey that is the 'standard' shade for accurate WB calculation.

You could try turning the auto WB off (if the camera allows) and setting it to the 'right' value for the type of coin you're shooting, using a mid-grey background. Even better if you could save that setting for future use.

[Nick]

My understanding is that automatic cameras adjust the white balance across the whole field of the photograph. In other words it averages everything out to a (pre-set) shade of grey. Consequently if you have a white background then a coin will appear darker than in real life.. and a black brackground will give a lighter coin.

Using a 'mid-grey' (I seem to remember that in the old days of manual photograpy you could buy a sheet of graded paper the correct tone) should end up with a more life like tone to the coin. The problem is that cameras are too bloody smart! And the electronics don't work like our eyes. So normal North-facing daylight will result in a bluish colour cast etc.

Yes, cameras are programmed to adjust for this. But manufacturers probably don't imagine you want to photograph a coin (which can be very reflective or dark and dull). They are all geared up to people photographing their friend's faces (or arses) to post to Facebok.

Like Rob, I do spend quite a while tweaking my images, partly because I'm like that and partly because if I'm sticking it on ebay the time (which I have and because it's not a business, is effectively 'free') to end up with a good photo is a small cost to me compared with the money I hope to get from selling the thing.

You still can. It's 18% grey that is the 'standard' shade for accurate WB calculation.

You could try turning the auto WB off (if the camera allows) and setting it to the 'right' value for the type of coin you're shooting, using a mid-grey background. Even better if you could save that setting for future use.

If you are using the same light source, the WB setting should be the same regardless of whether you are shooting bronze or silver.

[Peter]

Although the owner of 3 Nikon DSLR'S a Cannon power shot and a high speck Samsung I'm still rubbish.

Too much camera shake.

[Nick]

Although the owner of 3 Nikon DSLR'S a Cannon power shot and a high speck Samsung I'm still rubbish.

Too much camera shake.

Get yourself a tripod, or decrease the shutter time. Both of these help to reduce the effects of camera shake. You can easily reduce the shutter time by using A or P mode (Aperture priority or Programmed Auto) and then choose a small F-stop number (ie large aperture => short exposure time).

[Peckris]

Although the owner of 3 Nikon DSLR'S a Cannon power shot and a high speck Samsung I'm still rubbish.

Too much camera shake.

Get yourself a tripod, or decrease the shutter time. Both of these help to reduce the effects of camera shake. You can easily reduce the shutter time by using A or P mode (Aperture priority or Programmed Auto) and then choose a small F-stop number (ie large aperture => short exposure time).

Or even use S (Shutter) Mode and just adjust the shutter speed!