Experiment with my new light to help take better photos

gumby1234

Let me know what you think of these photos. The coin has clashed dies and die polish lines also holder has a lot of scratches. Very hard to photo this coin it has mirrored fields on obv and rev.

Mr_Spud

You’re getting better. Is that with your phone? Or a microscope?

gumby1234

@Mr_Spud Thanks this is one tough coin to photo.

TurtleCat

If you have the ability to change the shutter speed, make it just a bit longer. Or if you can only do exposure compensation then maybe set +2/3 and see how that helps…

Also softening the light will help. Put a coffee filter (bleached) or similar over the light to smooth the light out.

gumby1234

@TurtleCat its a cheap digital scope no shutter speed to adjust. I can try a coffee filter thou.

TurtleCat

That may help some. I’m guessing then it’s all auto exposure driven. What might help is if you create a dark mask for the coin. Basically black or gray construction paper with a hole the size of the coin. You’ll need several for different coin sizes but the dark paper color will trick the auto exposure to brighten the whole exposure some and accomplishes a similar result but with less precision.

gumby1234

@TurtleCat i can try that also.

gumby1234

So I took a few more photos using the same coin. Seems a bit better photos than yesterday, but still can't get it to look like the coin in hand. A professional is going to have to do this I think.