Sometimes a strong lighting angle can bring out a coin's best appearance.

The lamps that I use for my coin photographs are too bulky to allow placement near the camera lens so I have to experiment with different angles in relation to the plane of the coin's surface. I have a couple of small LEDs lamps on order that will allow me to get close to a perpendicular angle, but until they arrive I have to make due with what I have.

I've read advice that for coins with portraits, you should try to light the face in a natural way -- as if lit from above by sunlight. Here's my best attempt at that on a young Catherine the Great from a 1764 Rouble minted in Saint Petersburg.

To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.