Sirius Black's Photography Discussion! How can I improve? UPDATE 7/19 at bottom

SiriusBlack

I've been practicing my coin photography and editing skills!

I finally got a set of 4 Ikea JANSJÖ lights. I modified them with the cap ends of the square half dollar roll holders to diffuse the light. I think they're still to harsh and am going to try to diffuse a bit further next round. The camera was a Sony A6300 with a Canon 50mm FD macro lens adapted to it. I think for future, I'll switch back to using a Canon digital body with the 100mm f2.8L macro I can borrow from work. I tried to use a bellows as well, but discovered that for anything larger that a small cent, it was just too close. Great for details but not for whole coins.

Editing has been done in Adobe Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC. I built the templates off of what TrueViews look like. I'm not 100% satisfied but I think they are a good start. How can I improve the design?

@robec Has been a huge help, giving me suggestions on everything from how to set up my lights to editing and problem solving. I've got a long ways to go, but I think I've improved greatly so far with his help, so thanks to him!

Rather than making new discussions every time I take more photos and try new lighting, I'm going to contain them to here from now on. Please give me suggestions and critiques so I can continue to improve!

OldEastside

Looks very respectful to me, have you shot any through holders yet ?

Steve

bolivarshagnasty

More light on the brown copper.

morgansforever

Pretty tough to pick apart a runway model, your images look great. A dime is the right of passage and fills my 24" monitor, job well done!

SiriusBlack

@OldEastside said:
Looks very respectful to me, have you shot any through holders yet ?

Steve

These were all raw. I tried one Lincoln through a holder and it looked terrible. I got frustrated and moved on to the raw coins. I need to try again but I decided starting out with the most difficult coin first was probably a bad decision!

MattTheRiley

I like the actual images of the coins. The backgrounds are too distracting, IMO. I would go with a plain grey or black background instead.

SiriusBlack

@bolivarshagnasty As in these are too dark, or I need more lights because it looks flat?

@morgansforever Thanks very much!

SiriusBlack

@MattTheRiley Noted, thank you! In addition I just realized I lightened up the first two images, but not the Large Cent so it shows darker. EDIT: I've updated the files so they're all the same brightness now. Is the background still distracting to you?

bolivarshagnasty

@SiriusBlack said:
@bolivarshagnasty As in these are too dark, or I need more lights because it looks flat?

@morgansforever Thanks very much!

As in too dark. More lighting to brighten the surfaces. At least that's what I'm seeing on this IPad screen.

bugbit

Ok I'm jealous. They look great

SiriusBlack

@bolivarshagnasty I've updated the original post with the proper file that is lighter. You're probably correct that it's still to light but take a look if you get a chance and let me know if this is an improvement.

@bugbit Thank you!!

Gluggo

I agree Rebec is wonderful. Might I asked why you went with 4 of the Jansjo? I have heard of using 3 but not 4. I take it you are positioning them on all 4 corners? Is the light positioned right next to the camera lens looking down? Are you using your camera on a manual mode controlling your F stops? If so mind sharing your numbers? I don’t have the skill set to shoot on manual yet but would be nice to pre set my camera in an attempt to shoot raw. Any pictures of your set up and thank you for sharing.

jtlee321

Very nice!!

@SiriusBlack said:

I finally got a set of 4 Ikea JANSJÖ lights. I modified them with the cap ends of the square half dollar roll holders to diffuse the light.

I see what you are talking about. I started out using the cap ends of half dollar tubes as well. I discovered that the Coinsafe brand half dollar tube works fantastic. With these you don't use the cap, rather you use the tube end. This pulls the diffusion material away from the light source by about an inch and a half. This gives nice diffused light yet still maintains a small source to help the luster pop, without giving too much in the way of hot spots.

SiriusBlack

@jtlee321 I didn’t realize there was another brand of the half dollar tubes. I’ll look for those because that extra distance mighty be just what I need! With the caps right against the light face it’s not being very effective at diffusion.

@Gluggo I bought 4 but after talking with robec I started using just 3. That’s working better for me so far. I shoot manual. My shutter speed varied depending on the position and distance of the lights, but my f-stop was f8 and my iso was 100. I just adjusted my shutter speed until the in camera meter said I was at proper exposure. I did under expose a few to see if that would help with the shiny highlights but the spot on exposures turned out to be better. I don’t have the ability to tethers camera to computer so I had to just shoot what I thought was ok and had to wait to use the store computer the next day. I can definitely see a benefit to being able to tether to a computer and see your shot right there, live. I might go in early or stay late at work sometime and try doing the photos there. The lights were generally near the lens, but I did move them around a lot to see how the light changed on the coin. I don’t have any photos at the moment of the set up. I’ll try next time, they will help me repeat my process too!

asheland

Very nice pictures!

Peace_dollar88

I think they look phenomenal!

Gluggo

Thank you sirusblack and keep up the fantastic picture taking.

jtlee321

Yes, keep it up!! It's all about experimenting and seeing what works. If you have any studio photography background, apply portrait lighting theories to the coins. Meaning, don't just light the coin, but light the subject matter on the coin.

Paradisefound

Is this what you mean by reflect the lights of from?

@jtlee321 said:

..........Meaning, don't just light the coin, but light the subject matter on the coin.

Paradisefound

@SiriusBlack
They look perfect to me

SiriusBlack

@jtlee321 Like using shadow to show contour on the face, avoid dark shadows under eyes, main light on face, hair light or rim light behind to show separation, that kind of thing? I can see how some of those could be useful now that I think about it! I was trying to use one of the lights to feather a little light on the toning on the Columbian Exposition medal, I think I got the top, but when I got the bottom lettering it also filled in under the chin and looked flatter to me. It’s a lot of fun trying!

@Paradisefound I wish I had a set of those Profoto lights. They’re killer to work with!

@asheland and @Peace_dollar88 Thank you very much!

jtlee321

@Paradisefound said:
Is this what you mean by reflect the lights of from?

@jtlee321 said:

..........Meaning, don't just light the coin, but light the subject matter on the coin.

No, he's using direct light that is diffused. What I was talking about is light the subject on the coin. Say we are talking about a Morgan Dollar, you light Liberty from the front of her face and slightly above with a main light. Then you use fill lights to show off the rest of the surfaces.

jtlee321

Here's an example of my typical lighting for a Morgan Dollar. I use 4 Jansjo lights for these larger coins. Smaller coins I usually end up with 3.

Here is my main light set up at about the 10 o'clock position and it is physically closest to the coin providing the most illumination.

Here is my first fill light, it's almost equal in intensity as the main light. It's located at around the 7-8 o'clock position. This is to help fill the cheek and under her chin as well as show the luster band around the date and above her forehead.

Here is my second fill light. This one is located at around the 12 o'clock position. This is used to highlight Liberty's upper hair and cap as well as show luster bands in front of her eye and at the back of her cap.

Here is my third fill light. This one is locate at around the 2 o'clock position. This one is used to highlight Liberty's lower hair curls and back of the cap. It shows a luster band coming off of the lower hair and off the top of her head.

Here is an image with all 4 of the lights on. Light is cumulative so having four lights at a lower intensity will add up and really fill in the exposure.

I don't want to come across as telling you what to do, you obviously know what you are doing. This is simply to illustrate what I was talking about in regards to lighting the subject on the coin rather than to simply light the coins surfaces.

ricko

No suggestions from me (obviously ).... The pictures look fabulous ... Cheers, RickO

savitale

These look great. Your setup is working. Raw coins are easier though. It’s time for you to step up to slabs.

messydesk

Columbian: Best shots of the group. The lower obverse is a bit dark, and you're losing the texture in hair and face probably because of lights opposing each other and filling in shadow detail.

Roosevelt: Your lights are too low, causing the fields to be a little dark and a dark area on the portrait with no cheekbone detail. On the reverse, same thing. When you adjust your lights for the reverse, be especially careful not to fill in shadow detail on the torch. In general, make sure your lights are not symmetric over groups of parallel lines where you want to show separation.

Large Cent: The color shows well, assuming that's the color of the coin, but the surfaces could benefit from a light being a little higher. You'll also pick up some of the remaining contour detail of the face this way. Also, the left reverse is darker than the right reverse. Is this coin lacquered?

MattTheRiley

@SiriusBlack said:
@MattTheRiley Noted, thank you! In addition I just realized I lightened up the first two images, but not the Large Cent so it shows darker. EDIT: I've updated the files so they're all the same brightness now. Is the background still distracting to you?

Better, but still slightly distracting. For me, it's the strong angular lines on the top left and right corners that pull my attention away from the coin, towards the corners of the frame.

SiriusBlack

@jtlee321 Thank you very much, this is extremely helpful! When I was learning the basics of using lighting years ago, my friend that was teaching me would constantly show me images and make me reverse engineer where the lights were based on how the image looked. Where the catch light was in the eye, hair lights etc. Seeing your example here broken down is really helpful!

@ricko Thanks for the compliment all the same!

@savitale Thanks! I tried a slabbed coin first and it was a disaster, so I switched to raw. I’m definitely going to try the slabbed coins again though.

@messydesk Thank you for taking the time and making suggestions. I’ll give them another round to try and improve. I kept trying to get the Half on the columbian with no luck but I’ll keep trying. I should have taken a photo of each set up so I could remember where to start from. I wasn’t sure about height or what was causing the darker fields so I’ll try higher next time. The slabbed Lincoln Cent that looked so terrible I didn’t edit or show it was taken with the lights at lower angles and nothing was working. I’ll try higher. Yes, the large cent is lacquered which was driving me crazy with all the shiny points.

@MattTheRiley Got it, thank you. I think those are bookcases in the underlying shot. I’ll keep trying to find something more suitable.

SiriusBlack

I’m trying to photograph some new coins and rephotograph a few and I’m struggling. My lighting seems to be to harsh no matter what I do. I’m blowing out my highlights every time.

I don’t have a computer at home so I can’t show a processed image til tomorrow or Tuesday but here are a couple images of my set up to give you the general idea. I know people swear by the ikea lights and they do ok for me with the dirty/ circulated coins but whenever I try some AU or above shiny stuff it’s harsh.

I know softness is relative to the size of your light so closer to the coin, making light larger should be softer than further away effectively making your light smaller should make it harsher but I think even with the little coin holder diffusers I made they’re still to harsh close up. Do I make some larger soft box kinda attachments for the coins?

Where am I going wrong?

Camera is a Canon RP with 100mm f2.8L macro. Shooting in raw.

ctf_error_coins

I personally have never liked "soft" light from a lightbox. I need highlights and shadows.

I use two quartz lights way farther away than you are using your lights.

I shoot raw and do quite a bit of post-production on every coin in photoshop. My raw files are huge and I can pull out so much information from them.

SiriusBlack

@ErrorsOnCoins Do you find when you pull the lights back that you run into issues with your lens being in the way? Or do you physically keel them lower, just further?

ctf_error_coins

I use a 100mm so I have some working distance.

Light can't be too high overhead because of shadows.

I run my lights at 10:00 and 12:00 with one light about two feet from the center and the other about three.

This way I can go low for more detail or way up high for slab shots. Or anywhere in between depending on the coin.

SiriusBlack

@ErrorsOnCoins Ok I’ll dabble with that a bit, thank you!

ctf_error_coins

I also rotate the coin to find the best lighting. I straighten the coin out perfectly in Photoshop with the ruler tool.

I shoot coins from flat to different degrees of tilting to find the best light.

SiriusBlack

@ErrorsOnCoins I place the coins on an 18% grey card so I can spin it around and see the differences, plus it helps me color correct later. I’m colorblind so I need. A reference to start with

ctf_error_coins

Also, I have 10 inch reflectors on my quartz lights if that helps.

SiriusBlack

Makes them more directional I would guess.

ctf_error_coins

Softer for sure.

SiriusBlack

That would make sense as well. The larger the light source the softer it becomes, hence 5' octobox are softer than 3'

ctf_error_coins

Soft because of the 10 reflectors but still direct light hits the coin without diffusion, it's a good mix.

blu62vette

I have never used any type of diffuser. I think that hurts the overall depth on the coin and minimizes blemishes that need to be seen.

Nothing says the lights need to be right on the coin, inches from it. Back them up and let the light flow.

SiriusBlack

@blu62vette That is true too. I'm not a fan of super flat images either.

I think one thing I am struggling with is that when I look at everyone photos they are typically of MS or Proof coins with a lot of luster and often some color/toning. My coins on the other hand are typically circulated coins with marks, dirt, grime, and no luster. Maybe I am being unrealistic thinking I can match the fancy TV's I see of peoples high end coins!