Your opinion on these photos,,,,,,,, Please,,,,,,
GRANDAM
Posts: 8,595 ✭✭✭✭✭
I purchase a camera copy stand from @rmpsrpms recently.
I just took these two photos and am wondering what you think? They were shot with my I-Phone 13 PRO and I believe that they are the best photos I have ever taken of a silver coin. The color and the texture is VERY accurate in the photos. 
It seems I need to work on the lighting to get rid of the darkness and shadows on the lower part of the coin.
I am just getting started and hope to get better with the system.
GrandAm 
8
Comments
as a first step, nice!
Not too bad. Like you said lighting. I have heard many people say they use 3 lights.
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Looks like a pro job! Have fun perfecting ☺️
don't forget about post-processing. a lot can be fixed there, quickly, once you do it a few, ummm, thousand times.
How DID you DO that?
Yes, HOW?????
The lighting is a little uneven. Too bright at the top, too dark at the bottom. For a phone, they're not bad, and they should be quite good if you work on the lighting.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
there are MANY paths. some people use 1 program for all but i use 3.5.
MS paint - for several functions (NOT the newer version of ms paint that was upgraded)
photoscape - really only round crop out the background quickly
paint.net - for several features, rotate images quickly
windows photo gallery - a download that comes with silverlight (this is the .5)
tbh, the really fastest thing for me is the ctrl + c and v for copy paste. i must've done the above tens of thousands of times and there are STILL tweaks to be done but i will look for a vid i did a LONG time ago and see if it is still up on youtube.
believe me, once you do it a few times, you'll be shocked how quick and easy it is.
If all you have is your phone and/or iPad like me you can use Xircle app that does nothing else but crop any picture into a circle, including coins. It’s super easy. Then, if you want to put them next to each other, Photoshop Express app does it easy if you click on collage, takes seconds.
Mr_Spud
Thanks spud.
Don’t be shy. Please post a couple of your amazing works. They are really motivating to me and I’m trying to learn more. Some of the purple background 😉🙀🦫
🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶
@Jzyskowski1 said:
Some of the purple background
Ummm….it will probably derail this thread, but I think you mean this one. These are a couple of my iPhone pictures on a background template I made. After I made a whole bunch of circular coin pictures with Xircle and put them next to each other using the Photoshop Express collage thingy, I found that they could automatically be entered into coin templates in a standardized uniform manner with almost no effort
Mr_Spud
🌝
Mr_Spud
@GRANDAM ... Excellent first photo's with the new equipment. Not only did my first pictures not look that good... the one's I take now are not nearly as good as yours. Cheers, RickO
Interesting coin?
Not bad at all, like mentioned.
Also, if your not aware. Learn how to crop, as well. Working with outlines and borders. I can tell. You'll get the hang of it.
"Jesus died for you and for me, Thank you,Jesus"!!!
--- If it should happen I die and leave this world and you want to remember me. Please only remember my opening Sig Line.A little editing with Photoscape (I use the pay for, but all effects here are in the free one)
Thanks for the tips,,,,,,, haven't had time to shoot any more photos,,,,,,,
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Nice photos!
Money-well-spent: A copy stand makes it sooooo much easier to get repeatable-quality photos.
Maybe-you-already-know: For great close-up details, the iPhone 13 Pro has a Macro mode. With the factory default settings, Macro mode should automatically engage when the camera is close enough.
Lots more info on youtube, like this: How to use Macro mode on iPhone 13 Pro!
Enjoy!
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I like the high res. it puts out. Good job on your part also.
Now comes the fun part, Lighting.
Think out side the box.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uery6TPHr_E
How to Edit Photos on iPhone Camera Roll.
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I've had that Copy Stand for about 3 weeks. Very pleased!
My basic setup uses $15 gooseneck floor lamps with Reveal bulbs...
...and a Samsung S22 Ultra.
Slabbed coins are the most difficult. But with LOTS of trial-and-error...
For even better lighting, I'm going to try a 3rd lamp -- with lamps positioned at 4-, 8-, and 12-o'clock.
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I have received many good tips.
Thanks for posting that photo. I am going to reposition my lights to the way you have yours,,, maybe that will help with my shadows,
Thanks for all of the good advise.
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3-o'clock & 9-o'clock are the starting positions for my lights.
Then if necessary, I move them around; different angles & elevation for the lights, too.
And sometimes a different angle for the coin itself is helpful -- especially to highlight a specific feature.
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I was thinking that the lights needed to be below the camera to prevent shadows.
Good photo
After trying different types of lighting for iPhone pictures, I ended up going with these cheap Quans gooseneck led lights after @LanceNewmanOCC said the following “ experiment with more distances of camera to coin and position and heights/anlges of lights. get everything set up and look at your phone screen WHILE slowly moving the lights around like a air traffic controller and/or a crazy person waving their arms in slow motion. the goal? look for the sweet spot(s).” Also @TurtleCat said “ What I’d recommend to try is have the lights as parallel to the camera lens as you can and rather than adjust the lights right off,” This was in a post I made about lighting for iPhone pictures. With 2 Quans lights I was able to do what both of them said. Here’s what my setup looks like now, I don’t use a copy stand, I just use a plastic bottle (250cc PET bottle like the ones you get vitamins in) that holds the phone perfectly parallel to the coin and use the built in timer on the phone set for 10 seconds. I start off with the lights somewhat parallel to the camera lens and then angle them different ways as needed until the coin lights up just right. The Quans come with little diffuser covers that I remove by unscrewing them.
I sometimes still use some Small Ottlights higher up and off to the sides to make the whole area a little bit brighter, but those 2 Quans lights made a huge difference.
Here’s the picture that’s the setup picture above ended up looking like
Here’s a couple more with that setup showing what these lights can do with other types of coins
Mr_Spud
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looks great!
about the only tweak i'd make is that you want to try for as close of a ratio to 1:1 as you can get from a rectangular screen. this means you want the edge of the viewable screen to be as close to the edges of the coin as possible w/o compromising quality. so basically either get the coin and camera closer together or zoom in a bit.
@Lakesammman
I have started experimenting with using a scissors jack to move the iPhone up and down, it especially works great for focusing with a macro lens because you can turn the screw and adjust the focus like with a stage microscope. Below are close up pictures of the same V nickel I showed above in the light setup post
Mr_Spud
nice!
only seen those posted here a couple/few times. a great substitute perhaps in lieu of using fingers on a screen for zoom!
not sure which is better for macro, for these setups. it is either zoom in, depending on the resolution of each camera/phone, may cause pixelation too quickly OR be zoomed out "seemingly" too far but then enlarge during post-processing. it is a matter of testing each one for the best result.
of course, at the end of the day, we can only expect so much from camera phones, no matter their quality unless someone is a tried and true expert in a few areas. the quality in the post above is pretty darn good.
edited to add, for close-ups, it may be a good idea to shoot an image, move the jack up a smidgen, shoot, then back down a bit and shoot. i found not matter how hard i tried over the years, it is easy to be a bit out of focus unnoticeably from looking through the screen but then when looking at the images on a pc or whatever, seeing blur that would have been preventable. so a person will have to weigh shooting a bunch of extra images vs getting some poor images and having to re-shoot.
was this struck over a lincoln cent? i can see the ghosted (silhouette) letters on the reverse.
@LanceNewmanOCC said: “was this struck over a Lincoln cent?”
Yes it was https://groveminting.com/newmarket/commemorative-tokens/113-2021-double-die-overstrike-of-the-1955-lincoln-cent.html
Mr_Spud