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Taking photos of toned coins in NGC holder, which technique looks better?
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26 posts in this topic

Hello, I’m trying to figure out how to take a good photo of a slabbed NGC toner with my iPhone and came up with 2 different techniques that show promise. 
 

Which image looks better to you? The top or the bottom one? Thanks, in advance for any replies.

 

 

6CE4BAC2-B460-445D-AB1F-1B27BEF0191D.jpeg

91284837-EDBF-42F2-A0D2-9D632E690FDF.jpeg

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On 7/26/2021 at 12:16 AM, Mr_Spud said:

Hello, I’m trying to figure out how to take a good photo of a slabbed NGC toner with my iPhone and came up with 2 different techniques that show promise. 
 

Which image looks better to you? The top or the bottom one? Thanks, in advance for any replies.

 

 

6CE4BAC2-B460-445D-AB1F-1B27BEF0191D.jpeg

91284837-EDBF-42F2-A0D2-9D632E690FDF.jpeg

The bottom one has my 🐓 crowing.

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On 7/26/2021 at 1:55 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

@RWB  Certainly you are not suggesting my Roosters are wrong!

Not if they look as much like the originals as possible. Now if you find eggs in the slabs, then ya' got t' wonder....

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To add to the misery of plastic slabs, small coins - commonly dimes and smaller - are found sitting at angles in holders, and nto parallel to the slab faces.

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My personal preference is the second one as it has better contrast and I am guessing it shows the color more accurately.   However the second set could be improved, while very good the focus could be slightly better (albeit that may be as good as an iPhone can do), and it might be improved with slight diffusing to reduce the hot and cold spots.   Which set shows the coin more like it appears in hand?

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The coin in hand looks like more the 2nd picture under regular room lighting with overhead incandescent bulbs, but looks more like the first under fluorescent or just ambient lighting coming through the window. It actually changes in both lighting conditions if you rotate it. It’s got both great luster and nice color completely covering the reverse and just a little bit of toning on the obverse. A hard coin to properly photograph through the slab and that’s why I’m using it as a test subject to try and improve my photography techniques. I’m trying to figure out how to take great pictures using just an iPhone. 
 

i figure if I can figure out how to best capture the true look of the coin with tough to photograph ones like this, then it’ll also improve the easier ones too.

thanks to all for the feedback.

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Hold the coin in natural daylight and use a Kodak 18% gray card as the background. That will help you see the real color of the coin. The standard light color is 5500 degrees Kelvin.... Daylight LEDs are OK, too. Fluorescent lights are very deceptive.

Edited by RWB
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Thanks, I just ordered an 18% gray card off of Amazon. I’m using LED lights for taking the pictures, they can be set to match sunlight, or just cool white or just warm white. The first pictures were with it set to match daylight, the 2nd were with just cool white.

The 2nd was with using a new app that allows manual focusing that I’m just starting to experiment with.
 

The first picture reverse shot was also the new manual focus but layered with an auto focus image that showed the color better but had no luster showing. I was seeing if I could get the best of both worlds and have the color show up evenly lit but still have the luster show through. The obverse was just with autofocus with the light mimicking sunlight. The reverse was an overlay of one image on top of the other. It was about 80% this image

 

6495D5B0-84ED-44BA-B71E-5A5E39DAE8F0.jpegAnd about 20% this image blended together using photoshop express. 

 

E0463CEA-87D8-42EE-8A69-395F71FA07D9.jpeg

Edited by Mr_Spud
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The 2nd image with manual focus and cool white (bluish) LED was much easier to take and didn’t involve overlaying 2 images, so I’m glad people liked that one better. I think I’m on the right track pursuing that technique.

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Are you using an external lens for the iPhone for these? Are you processing them in another editing software (which one)? I am dying to get more photos of my coins and until I get a camera set up these look pretty darn good from your phone. 

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On 7/27/2021 at 8:22 AM, Woods020 said:

Are you using an external lens for the iPhone for these? Are you processing them in another editing software (which one)? I am dying to get more photos of my coins and until I get a camera set up these look pretty darn good from your phone. 

No, I’m not using an external lens, just the iPhone. I’m using an iPhone 12 Pro, but before that I was using an iPhone 6s and getting decent results too.

im using the 10 second timer so the camera doesn’t shake and placing the phone on a wide mouth bottle to hold the phone level to the coin. Then I use an app called Xircle to crop the coin into a circle shape with either a white or black background. For raw coins or PC slabs with larger coins the autofocus works pretty good if you touch the screen until it locks the focus on the coin, but for smaller coins in NGC slabs it’s tough to get the phone to focus on the coin because it detects the slab. That’s why I’m experimenting with manual focusing using Camera +2 app. But autofocus still works good enough in most cases. Here’s an example using autofocus on a larger copper coin in a PC slab


 

 

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57EEC74B-69E1-4F3D-AAAE-72A13649C43B.jpeg

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On 7/27/2021 at 5:17 PM, Mr_Spud said:

Here’s my original setup, before I upgraded the lights a couple of times

49DA1F14-E36E-43B7-B9C0-365EE62A1610.jpeg

A magnificent set of hardware, but you know the rules.  If it's got anything to do with sources of light, thet must be pre-approved by the Hon. VKurtB first.   :facepalm:

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On 7/27/2021 at 6:38 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

A magnificent set of hardware, but you know the rules.  If it's got anything to do with sources of light, thet must be pre-approved by the Hon. VKurtB first.   :facepalm:

I don’t know enough about these QUANS lights. I do know the hobby is in the midst of a lighting crisis regarding coins, even if they don’t presently realize it. The best light is full spectrum light, with a continuous spectrum. All fluorescent lights use emission spectra, which lack MOST wavelengths. I am still trying to understand the spectra of LED’s, but the one thing I do know is that there are no widely accepted standards for them, at least for consumer use. That is a problem.

Presently, incandescent is the “gold standard” for lighting coins, but there is a building “green” consensus to eventually ban all incandescent lights. Try to buy a 100 watt incandescent bulb these days. It ain’t easy, and the ones you can find are miserable in quality.

If LED’s can be created that have a full spectrum, then they can be the eventual answer. But I have doubts that true color reproduction will ever be seen as a valuable thing as far as the “green” ideologues are concerned.

Here is a brief synopsis of where we are at present with LED’s:

https://www.shimadzu.com/an/literature/rf/jpa415028.html#:~:text=Light sources that emit visible light%2C such as,to which different wavelengths of light are emitted.

We have created a problem for color fidelity that we haven’t solved yet, or even come close. 

Edited by VKurtB
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Definately you can get drastically different effects with minor differences in lighting. Fun for art images like the picture below, but not so good if you are trying to capture an accurate image.

same coin, different lighting

 

 

 

644A26A5-3A32-4094-A65C-56B4E10BBC97.jpeg

Edited by Mr_Spud
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I don't know about all that but if I am interested in a coin and am handed photos of both the obverse and reverse taken by member Buffalo Head, someone's got a sale.

I do not need to know the seller, I do not need to contact him and I don't need to have it in my hand, encapsulated or raw.

My Cousin Vinny ordered me to get with the times and "adapt."  And that's exactly what I've done.

Have I made any mistakes?  Yes.  In fact, I am prepared to make a bold assertion.  Though I may be a mere chiffonier, I challenge the entire membership (which allegedly is comprised of individuals with an aggregate of 150 years of numismatic experience) to affirm the French 20-franc gold rooster 🐓 bearing cert# 607 7 279-005 (with numbers spaced for easier reading) and NGC-graded MS-67, presently offered on eBay for over $1,200, is as advertised. PCGS refused to cross it, and quite frankly I have serious concerns it qualifies as an MS-66.  My crime?  I rarely look at the 📷 photos of coins I buy. (That's something you do in a pastry shop: "Ohhh! That looks scrumptious!). Instead, I rely on the grade bestowed upon it by a recognized TPGS graders.

NAYSAYERS:  With all due respect, I don't understand your beef.  You got your money 💰 back, right?

QA: That's irrelevant!  It was quickly returned to stock, on-line, its recent history cloaked in anonymity.  As far as I am concerned, this is no different from counterfeiting. The evidence is there for amateur and expert alike  to examine.  Take a good look.  I know what MS-67 🐓's look like.  I've got a flock of them.

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