New Photography Set Up - A Large Guess the Grade
FlyingAl
Posts: 3,504 ✭✭✭✭✭
I recently just added a second lamp to my photography set up that I use by sharing some of my dad's old camera gear. I had been making do with one lamp but I wasn't always pleased with the results, especially for coins with cameo contrast. This resulted in some coins looking too cameo or not enough compared to what the coin in hand actually looked like. I must say, I am very pleased with today's results and decided to do a large GTG with some of the coins I imaged. Some I had previously imaged with one lamp and had posted here and others (coins not posted) are brand new. All of the images here are brand new.
I chose a selection of coins from high to low grade, as well as designations. I hope it's fun for you to have a crack at some of these. Good luck! You are welcome to try as many or as few as you like, totally up to you, but I think everyone would like it if we all tried to grade all eleven.
I threw some quick edits together (which accounts for the rough edit on the first image, I need to redo that one 
), I personally prefer slab shots rather than those with edited backgrounds. It feels more like the coin is in hand to me anyways.
Coin #1-1942 cent 
Coin #2-1942 nickel
Coin #3-1942 half
Coin #4-1942 cent
Coin #5-1941 quarter
Coin #6-1938 quarter
Coin #7-1942 Dime
Coin #8-1942 quarter- I wasn't pleased with how the color looked and reverted to one lamp for this one. It is the only one out of the eleven where I liked the photos less with one lamp.
Coin #9- 1942 quarter 
Coin #10- 1940 quarter
Bonus: 1913 nickel, a hint: You need more than a grade for this one.
Coin Photographer.
Comments
Excellent Photos - both your 1942 proofs are 64 RED.
WS
Not too good with grading proofs especially from photos but I will say all the proofs probably grade 63 or less The Buff looks 65 or 66 and looks like FS 1802
Successful BST with ad4400, Kccoin, lablover, pointfivezero, koynekwest, jwitten, coin22lover, HalfDimeDude, erwindoc, jyzskowsi, COINS MAKE CENTS, AlanSki, BryceM
Good pictures, but I think you want to set your white balance. The pictures are a little off in that respect I think.
Also you may want to move lights up (higher) and in (closer to vertical) and position more towards 10 and 2 (looks like you are at 930 and 330)
“We are only their care-takers,” he posed, “if we take good care of them, then centuries from now they may still be here … ”
Todd - BHNC #242
You could possibly try MacroLink White Balance Grey Cards Custom Coloration. The cards work great and you sure can tell the difference in colors. Amazon has them for maybe 7-8$. I started using them after my son in law showed me how it improved his images. Maybe a little more light needed? Possible slight under exposure?
Without a doubt, your pictures look good.
Nice coins, good pictures.... I commend your choice of 1942 coins... It was a VERY good year
Cheers, RickO
I know some of the grades so I won't comment but I really like that cameo cent!
The 1913 Buff I am stumped on, I would say MS65 but not sure what else
Collector, occasional seller
need a higher resolution?
@pursuitofliberty The lamps are a bit yellow so I manually adjusted the white balance in Adobe Lightroom which could be why it seems off. How do you normally adjust it? The only one that seems a bit glaring when I look at them is the first 1942 quarter, but the rest seem pretty close. Any advice appreciated!
@derryb The images I uploaded are 4000x2000 pixels at print quality so they should be pretty high resolution. I’m not sure I could get any higher honestly.
Coin Photographer.
I like how they are so focused and crisp that you can see the almost microscopic flow lines in the metal on them.
Mr_Spud
You may have shot at high res but the size of the uploaded pics tells me they were not uploaded to the forum in high res. Normally an uploaded high res pic will be much larger when viewed on the forum. Larger is better.
Here are the grades:
1-PF61 RB
2-PF67
3-PF66
4-PF64 RD CAM
5-PF67
6-PF65
7-PF64
8-PF65
9-PF65
10-PF64
Bonus- 1913 T1 DDR FS1802 Unc Details Cleaned
Sorry for making this one so big, hindsight is 20/20
Coin Photographer.
Right click on the image. Select open image in new tab. Click on image in new tab. "+".
Looks about as big to me as any image uploaded to this sight.
didn't know that trick! Nice pics now that they are larger.
@derryb I think the forum software limits the size of the image on a desktop to fit the borders of the screen. I can zoom in on my IPhone but I can’t on my desktop so I can get the full resolution images on my phone, but if you’re on a desktop you probably didn’t have that functionality until @FullHorn posted that handy trick.
There was a thread about this from a while ago, I’ll have to find it.
Coin Photographer.
Here’s the discussion on the resolution: https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/12053369#Comment_12053369
Coin Photographer.
High res upload: