Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'coin photography'.
Found 5 results
-
Welcome to my first Journal Entry! I've been wanting to do this for a long time now but didn't know what to put. I know that's what journals are for in the first place is just to write, a way to get stuff off that wet pink ball of noodles in your head. Maybe I should've been here way earlier? Either way, here we are now let's get to the meat and potatoes of why we are here now! So I may tend to hyper fixate onto new things every now and then. I have always been an artist, as a young kid I was very good at drawing but I'm not sure where that has since gone. But this year I found beautiful photos of coins showcasing their extraordinary characteristics. I'm talking about colors I never knew possible to be on coins! The Blues, The Reds, The Purples, Greens, Yellows, Golds, and everything in-between and above and below! I thought to myself, "WOW! How silly.. There's no way that a coin can actually look like that, that's the saturation turned WAAAY up to get those effects." Well I sure was wrong. I found myself stumbling into a world of coin's I'd never ventured into. I did not know just how amazing some coin's could really tone. Then I went down into a rabbit hole of how to store coins for certain types of toning effects and etc. But I didn't care too much for those over the edge, overly fake looking tones. Nonetheless I wanted to be able to capture images of those types of coins for myself! Now did I have any coins in the first place that were as miraculous some of the pictures I had seen? No.. But! I do search lots of bank rolls, mainly quarters and some Lincoln cents. So I have the ability to run into some pretty coins! Now this whole wanting to become a coin photographer idea literally just bloomed out of one of my journeys on the internet. It didn't really fall into place until I seen a camera and accessory kit on Wal-Marts website. My budget also tells me this is not possible and just let it become a fantasy. Well who knew my wife's credit could qualify us for Affirm which is a get now pay later financing program that Wal-Mart and tons of other places use! So... I got it.. Wow I'm sorry my whole ADHD way of telling stories is or just thought process is all over the place. Ah! Yes! So we got it! "It" is a Canon EOS Rebel T7 with a whole kit and caboodle. Just tons of stuff this kit came with which was a plus. Now I have only ever taken photos with my cell phone or a normal digital camera, NOTHING like this. So I'm still learning and playing with it I think I've owned it for a little over a month now. It's great I absolutely love it and love learning new things so it's been a great journey. Well now I got the camera, do I have those beautifully toned coins to take these amazing photos of? Negative. Or what about the know how or the setup to even do it? Erm, yeah no we don't.. But there we went back into the interwebs! Also we got some really great info from a user known by the name of Robec, he may be here but I met him on Coin Talk's Chat Boards. This is where I fell into another problem. The setups that some of these people had to get these amazing over the top photos costed a small fortune! I mean some of these Copy-Stands themselves can run upwards of THOUSANDS of dollars! *There's the main topic of this journal entry!* Then not just the stands but the lights, the editing software, the macro lenses, the objective lenses, the focusing bellows holy cow I was in over my head! BUT! You can get some really great photos using what you got and I tell you what, if there's something I'm really good at its working with what you got you know what I mean guys? *Hehehe* So I just went back to the basics and started with the stand. You need a stand to get your camera held in the right position, held steady, and a number of other factors. So I began brainstorming and came up with what is now my new Copy-Stand. I was going to say it's not the prettiest but honestly I really like the look of it. So its a 3/4", 16"x 12" particle board. A 3/4" Pipe Flange, 12" 3/4" Pipe topped with a End Cap. I then gave it the 'Ole Rattle-Can Special in Flat Black. I looks really great! Now I needed something to hold my camera into place! I found a photography company called, "SmallRig". SmallRig - DIY Camera Rigs, Stabilizers and Other Camera Accessories What I ended up buying is a smart clamp, I also got it off Amazon too. I was really happy when I got it in the mail today and unboxed it to find the quality of the product is outstanding. Its made of sturdy metal, when all setup and the cameras attached and its fitted onto the pipe its snug as a bug. The next thing to work on is getting lights either mounted or just around because I'm sure I'll need to move them around a ton. Here's what it looks like all said and done: Thanks if you made it this far in reading my all over the place story telling. It's how my brain works. Feel free to show what contraptions you all have created. Any advice given is always great. Until my next Ramble! Happy Hunting ~ TheColoradoNumismatist
- 5 comments
-
- 3
-
-
- coin photos
- coin photography
- (and 2 more)
-
~Coin Photography~ So I have recently purchased a Canon Rebel T7 18-55MM Kit. This came with all the bell's and whistles. Here's what we got. Canon EOS Rebel T7 DSLR Camera EF-S 18-55 IS II Lens Canon Brand Camera Battery & Charger Shoulder Strap TeeZee Tech Kit: 58mm Professional 4 PC HD Macro Close-Up Lenses +1/+2/+4/+10 58mm 0.43x HD Professional Wide Angle Lens with Macro 58mm Pro Series 2.2x HD Telephoto Lens Pro Series HS 3Pc. Digital Filter Set: Ultraviolet Filter, Circular Polarizer Filter, Fluorescent Filter Really Nice Shoulder Camera and Lens Case Rapid Travel Charger Replacement Camera Battery 2, 64Gb Memory Cards 2.0 USB Card Reader Tripod Screen Protectors Table Tripod mount A Few Other Thing's As Well So yeah, we got quite a lot of stuff that came with our camera. Now, the only really camera that I've had before this was just all my different cell phones over the years which right now is the iPhone 13 Pro. So don't get me wrong my iPhone takes great photos.. But I just wanted something more. I looked on Facebook market places for people letting go of cameras for cheap and then took to the internet and through some basic searches for beginner DSLR's came across the Canon EOS Rebel lineup. So next we went to the Wal-Mart website, mainly because of the Affirm financing option, and we came across this set. So this is what we decided to buy. I've had this camera for 1 full day now so not long at all and let me tell you, this camera is FAR more advanced than your normal point and press cameras or cell phone cameras! So there's been a lot of YouTube watching on familiarizing myself with this camera and all the settings and how the manual modes work. I'm not just trying to use this camera to snap pretty photos of coins of course so that's why this camera is good for all thing's. But what I would like to know is: Who's taking photos of their coins? What setup are you using? (Camera, Lens, light box?) What settings are you using? Can you help me? Haha! So yeah, here I am, Nice camera and a VERY basic knowledge on the camera itself. So Photographers! Please use this new post as a thread to help out new photographers and on how we can take the best photos, without giving away too many trade secrets! Thanks in advance everyone, look forward to talking to you all very soon! Happy Hunting ~ TheColoradoNumismatist -
Coin Photography as Macro Photography
Revenant posted a journal entry in When I’m Wiser and I’m Older
I wanted to share a bit of new vs old photo results. Both the coin images are of the obverse of the 1876. I set up my equipment the same way I usually do for macro photography of miniatures and other really small objects. I have a 105 mm f/2.8 VR Macro lens for my D600 and I added the 2x teleconverter so I could shoot really close in to the coin - having the coin fill most of the frame for really high resolution images - while still staying far enough back that I didn't get in the way of my light. I set up 2 speedlites. I initially was going to use both and have them behind the diffusion panels of the shadowbox but that was killing the luster in the images. I ended up just using one speedlite with a 1/128th full power setting undiffused. That gave me the results I liked the best. Using a small LED flash light to shine a little light on the coin made it much easier to autofocus with the lens. It's fairly dark in the shadowbox and the 2x teleconverter limits the effective aperture of the lens, making it hard to get enough light in for the autofocus to succeed without a little help. The circle of light projected by the flashlight also made it easier to keep the coins positioned consistently when swapping them out. Since the light from the small flashlight is so week it doesn't significantly impact the final image - the much more powerful speedlite dominates in the 1/100 of a second in which the image is taken. Hopefully writing all of this down here will give me something to reference and help me remember later when I want to do this again. I'm including a picture of the set-up on the floor of the room I use as a home-office for now. I suppose it might be easier to do these things if I just set all of this up on a table and didn't force myself to flatten myself out on my stomach on the ground but... hey, I'm still fairly young (31) and don't have trouble getting back up... yet. I was able to basically stand the slabs on their edge with them leaning ever so slightly back on the back of the shadowbox in some cases. I think the new shots have much better detail, especially in his hair, beard and the field of the coin. They also look a lot sharper overall. I'm not sure how this compares to how most others do it. Most of my camera equipment - except for the macro lens itself - was purchased for portrait and event photography and I generally find myself putting the same equipment to use here. I'd love to get a really nice lens-mounted ring-flash one of these days. I think that would provide the best and easiest lighting for something like this. But so far I just haven't been able to justify the cost. -
Over the last few weeks, I haven’t had much time to write blogs. This is because I’ve been working on my photography skills and, in particular, axial photography. I have learned a lot, and now I have several excellent examples of coins photographed using axial photography. The first thing I did was to craft a holder for my glass reflector. Then I reinforced the edges of the glass with electrical tape to prevent the glass from accidentally shattering. For the holder, I used a cardboard box top sliced at 45 degrees towards the light source to hold the glass pane. The holder cost me nothing to make. However, it did cost my wife a glass pane from one of her pictures. Next, I made a diffuser for my light source cut from the side of a plastic milk jug. To prevent side light from illuminating the coin, I used a single-use pair of sunglasses from my eye doctor when she opened my iris. Conveniently, the sunglasses roll up like a tube. Finally, I used a lens hood I already owned to prevent side lighting from interfering with the camera lens. Folks, this is an excellent example of professional photography on the cheap! My set-up picture shows a portion of the light shine through the glass onto the back of the holder. The images of the camera’s viewfinder show the reflected light from the glass illuminating the surface of the coins. Since there is less light to work with, the film speed is ISO 400. The aperture is f4, and the shutter speed is 1/125. If this is done correctly, the area of the picture around the coin will be mostly dark. All you want to see in the viewfinder is the coin! Since plastic holders have reflective properties of their own, they can be challenging to work with. Therefore, axial photography works best on raw coins. Notice the haze and a hot spot in the viewfinder picture showing a 2011 French proof coin mounted in an NGC holder. This is light reflected from the surface of the holder interfering with light reflected from the coin. The 2004 and 2017 raw quarters only show light reflected from the quarters. Incidentally, the quarters are from my change dish. I have spent a lot of time learning to edit the photographs of certified coins to remove the interference from unwanted light. To reduce the effect of unwanted light, I have found the milk jug diffuser to be helpful. However, the quarters needed very few edits because of limited or no interference from unwanted light. I am also posting a raw 1856 Belgian 5 centime coin commemorating the 25th-anniversary reign of Leopold I, King of the Belgians. The coin is struck in bronze to illustrate the use of axial photography on heavily toned bronze coins. I hope this blog sheds a little light on axial photography. I always say that the proof is in the pudding. For your viewing pleasure, I am posting several pictures using axial photography. The 2011 French 10 euro proof coin commemorates the author of Les Miserables, Victor Hugo. The reverse inscription is roughly translated, “Cossette looked up, she saw the man coming to her with this doll as she saw the sun coming.” The reverse of this coin was incredibly hard to photograph because of its surface characteristics. The obverse, however, makes for a pleasing picture. Notice the mirror fields on axial photographs resemble the in-the-hand look of proof coins. Photos of proof mirrors typically show black when taken by direct light. The reverse of this coin has a frosty flat field showing black contrasted by the mirror of Victor Hugo’s image etched into the design. Other pieces for your viewing pleasure are a 1937 Spanish peseta and a 2019 Great Britain five-pound coin featuring Una and the Lion. Enjoy, Gary.
-
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Preparing an NGC Submission
coinsbygary posted a journal entry in CoinsbyGary
There are some things I don’t particularly care to do. When it comes to those things, I usually procrastinate getting them done. Preparing submission forms to send coins and medals to NGC for grading is something I always procrastinate. I just don’t like itemizing the submission form, looking up the market value, separating my medals from my coins, modern vs. classic, etc. Then packing them up and running to the post office is such a pain in the neck. Well, today I finally said, “This is the day” and I grabbed the first item to be submitted. The first item in my submission is a 55mm 1876 William Barber classic, Centennial Medal struck in white metal. Since I just recently finished experimenting with my lighting, I thought, “Why not try a few of those new techniques on this medal.” Well, that’s all it took to successfully kick the submission can down the road a little farther! The first set of pictures was so-so in that they did not significantly improve on the pictures I already had. Then I had the hair-brained idea to try something that I typically have a hard time getting just right to see if I might get lucky. Why not? After all, the alternative was to get back to work on that submission. Besides, the best time to take pictures of coins is in their raw state and this would be my last crack at it. This medal though not classified as a proof has mirrored fields. Why not try to see if I could get the full effect of those mirrors in my picture? The best possible placement for lighting is perpendicular to the object you are photographing. As you can see with my set-up, that is kind of hard to do given that the camera is in the way. There are two workarounds that are quite effective in redirecting the light to simulate a perpendicular lighting source. The first is axial lighting as described in Mark Goodman’s excellent book on coin photography entitled, “Numismatic Photography.” The second is to tilt the coin towards the lighting source. I chose the second as the easiest thing to do. The tricky part in this is to minimize the reflections and there WILL be reflections. Now I used a soft cloth to tilt this medal toward the lighting source about four degrees. Then I tried my best to position the reflections to a place on the medal where they are not distracting. On the obverse, the reflection was under the date 1876. On the reverse, it was in the middle of the 13 radiating stars! Perfect, I thought, because the reflection made the center of the stars look like the sun! Now when you tilt a coin relative to the camera you will run into issues with focusing the camera and distorting the shape of the medal. Because of the tilt, the camera will see the round medal as slightly oval. To improve the focus, I moved the camera farther away from the subject effectively making the image smaller relative to the frame. Then I corrected the oval camera distortion using Photoshop Elements 2019. Please notice the picture on the back cover of Mark Goodman’s book showing the coin tilted towards the light to see that his set-up is similar to mine. Now I use lights on both sides of the medal but since the medal is tilted towards the one, it is tilted away from the other. Thus, the lamp tilted away has little or no effect on the picture. I am posting two pictures of my medal. The one that has darker fields is a picture showing the medal perpendicular to the camera. The other one with the lit-up fields is a picture showing the medal perpendicular to the lighting source. I just had to post this! Now back to my submission? Nah, but I will get to it soon unless I run into more distractions! Gary- 8 comments
-
- 1
-
-
- medals
- william barber
- (and 2 more)
