"Final" Numismatic Photography Setup

[Coppertop]

That looks so good ,I feel like it belongs in a centerfold or something lol

[pman860507]

Thanks pman and Coppertop! I'm no pro, just a collector who wanted to document his collection but was dissatisfied with my options and had to figure out the best way to do it, and I'm still trying to do better...Ray

I think you did very well. You dont take pictures though. You make art.

[BadThad]

Very nice! What I would expect for a $1500 camera and a $700 setup.....excellent work!

[ray_parkhurst]

Actually, the camera, lens, etc are not that important to getting nice photos. I did a shootout of a group of 15 or so 75mm lenses, all purchased on eBay from $15 to $50, and compared them with the $300 lens I used for these shots as well as a $2500 Printing-Nikkor. At 100%, you can definitely tell the difference between lenses, but the differences are much less than you might expect. Once the images are downsized to 800x800 (still quite big) the differences become miniscule to non-existent. Couple a $30 75mm lens to a $50 bellows, mount it on a $20 tripod, add two $10 gooseneck lamps, and you can produce the same shots I'm showing in this thread with a $120 setup (still need camera...).

But of course the big stumbling block for cost is the camera, since you need one with removable lenses in order to use a setup like I describe. But cameras are dropping in price...in fact I just picked up a Canon T2i new on Amazon for $499. At 18MP, it is higher res than my D7000 and has EFSC. Or you can buy a used Nikon D5000 for $300-400.

So you DON'T need to spend $2200 to get good quality photos. You DO need to spend more than a lot of folks feel comfortable with, though as long as the camera is used for general photography it might be justified.

[pman860507]

I wish that i bought a camera with a removable lenses, i can complain with my camera im sure if i got a decent tripod it would help a lot with my bury closeups.

I dont know if you said this i tried to read though it really fast but what lighting do you use.

[Roller]

Did you use a "stacking" program for the shots?

[ray_parkhurst]

I wish that i bought a camera with a removable lenses, i can complain with my camera im sure if i got a decent tripod it would help a lot with my bury closeups.

I dont know if you said this i tried to read though it really fast but what lighting do you use.

I use two Jansjo LED gooseneck lights from IKEA. I add some diffusion to them and also some black paper cut in a curve to shape the light "beam". Early in this thread there are pictures of the lights and the setup. The lights are around 100mm from the coin, at approx 10:00 and 2:00, at as high an angle (almost vertical) as I can get them before creating direct glare off the coin surface...Ray

[ray_parkhurst]

Did you use a "stacking" program for the shots?

No, all these shots are single images. The aperture is at f5.6 for these and this gives "just enough" depth of field. The lens I am using is capable of f4, and I have done stacking of similar shots with the lens set to f4. Even at f4 the DOF is enough that only 3 images are required...one focused on highest features, one focused on the middle features such as the throat below the jaw, and one focused on the field. The lens I'm using has flat enough field, and I've calibrated the flatness of the coin, such that I don't really need more than this.

All that said, here is the obverse of coin #2 with a 3-stack at f4 using CombineZP...Ray



If you compare this with the single image, you will see the following:
- slightly better sharpness across whole image
- Background is more out of focus since I only stacked the coin itself, and at f4 the background is out of the depth of field more versus f5.6
- lighting is slightly different. This was using an earlier variation to the "final" setup.

[jallengomez]

Ray-

Have you ever experimented with a macro and a ring flash for coin photography?

Jody

[ray_parkhurst]

Ray-

Have you ever experimented with a macro and a ring flash for coin photography?

Jody

I've tried using continuous ring lights, not flash type, on many occasions. I actually prefer a continuous ring light to other solutions for higher magnification shots (3x-5x for varieties, etc) since I'm looking for surface and device details and don't care much about "normal" coin photography factors such as luster, color fidelity, etc. But when you use a ring light for full-coin shots, the coin can look very "flat" because the illumination pattern greatly reduces local contrast. Ring lighting is touted as "shadow-free", which is not really true unless the light is quite close to the coin. But even though you may get reasonable shadow detail with the light far enough away from the coin, ring lights essentially kill any representation of luster, which is an expression of local contrast. Luster requires specular reflection to contrast with local shadowing on a micro (grain) scale, and a ring light creates reflection from all angles and illuminates the local shadows, thus goodbye luster.

...Ray

[coop]

The problem with rings lights are that the light floos the image and light and shadow which shows detail disappear.
Single light source:

Ring light:

[Roller]

Here's the rig Ray. Comments?

[coppercoins]

Roller - I would like to see some of the results you get with your setup. I have been watching this thread with a lot of interest.

[Amadauss]

I've tried using continuous ring lights, not flash type, on many occasions. I actually prefer a continuous ring light to other solutions for higher magnification shots (3x-5x for varieties, etc) since I'm looking for surface and device details and don't care much about "normal" coin photography factors such as luster, color fidelity, etc. But when you use a ring light for full-coin shots, the coin can look very "flat" because the illumination pattern greatly reduces local contrast. Ring lighting is touted as "shadow-free", which is not really true unless the light is quite close to the coin. But even though you may get reasonable shadow detail with the light far enough away from the coin, ring lights essentially kill any representation of luster, which is an expression of local contrast. Luster requires specular reflection to contrast with local shadowing on a micro (grain) scale, and a ring light creates reflection from all angles and illuminates the local shadows, thus goodbye luster.

...Ray

Good points on the ring light. In my pursuit of the perfect coin photo (almost there) I have tried several ring lights and agree with Ray on his points made. The ring lights do create reflection from all angles and illuminated the local shadows. I am playing around with diffusing the ring light (diffusing it with various methods) and so far no luck. Even tried a very bright ring light and then cut a styrofoam cup and placed that around the coin to see if it would help with calming the reflection but so far no luck. Going to try the ring light with the cup and then blast some more light from several directions at the cup and see if that might work. Nice set up Ray.

[Amadauss]

Ray, have you tried raising the f stop up to 8 or 9?