Photo advice

[penny man]

Here are a couple photos of a toned 1958D. Looking for advice on lighting.

[duece2seven]

What's your issue specifically? Your lighting looks great to me! You might raise your contrast a bit and you may be ever so slightly out of focus. Coins like this play with my head sometimes. It's like the uneven toning makes it tough to level outeeverything else.

[jfines69]

Nice pics... I would also go with a dark back ground!!!

[penny man]

Ok I should have been a little clearer with my goals here; I am currently at the point where I know I can get better pictures with my current setup but don't really know how. I know I need do do a little more work on experimenting with focus by adjusting the coin-to-camera distance, but I'm not super concerned about that at the moment. My concern with these images is that the toning does not "pop" the way it does in hand, and I am thinking that some lighting adjustments could help to fix this. My options with both camera settings and post-processing are very limited as I am taking and uploading these photos on my iPod Touch. I will try re-shooting with a black background and mess with the focus it a little bit here, and will post the results.

[jfines69]

Looking forward to the next set of pics!!!

[duece2seven]

Ray recommended the Helicon download for imaging, focus, etc. They give you a 30 day free trial and a long term license ranges from $20 to $50 per year depending on what program you choose. They offer a "stacking" program that Ray uses. Haven't tried it yet but his results are phenomenal.

[penny man]

Ok so I tried a dark background and it didn't work. It caused the camera to interpret the coin as lighter than it actually is, resulting in bad lighting hotspots, which disappeared when I switched the background back to white. I would imagine that this is anissuevthat could be corrected with a white balance adjustment, but I have no way to adjust the given that I'm using an iPod. I still have to work on the focus issue and will post pics once I have that worked out.

[kloccwork419]

You won't be doing any stacking with ipod pictures. I'm guessing your hold it while taking the pic. Ypu need several from the same distance without moving. I would switch to the black background. Diffuse the lighting and shoot in macro but that's about all you will do with just an ipod.. the black background should make a huge difference

[penny man]

You won't be doing any stacking with ipod pictures. I'm guessing your hold it while taking the pic. Ypu need several from the same distance without moving. I would switch to the black background. Diffuse the lighting and shoot in macro but that's about all you will do with just an ipod.. the black background should make a huge difference
I am using a kind of crude stand; just a stack of plastic tubes with the iPod rubberbanded on top. The iPod has no macro setting, unfortunately it's all automatic. How would you recommend diffusing the lighting? Right now I have paper towels over it but it's not enough.

[kloccwork419]

Try tissue paper or coffee filters. Try doubling them or whatever you have to do. Check this out http://m.imore.com/heres-how-take-fantastic-macro-shots-your-iphone

[penny man]

Ok here's my latest attempt. I think I may need another layer or two of coffee filters over my lamps, but it is diffused enough to negate the hotspot problem I was having earlier.

[jfines69]

Those are nice pics for an ipod!!!

[penny man]

Here's a couple pics of another coin; this is my attempt at capturing both luster and toning in a single photo. I used this coin because it is much more lustrous than the coin I was shooting before.

[jfines69]

Pics are coming along great... That is a pretty coin!!!