Fun with lighting (coin pics).

Russ

Same coin, minor change in lighting. Now, I've only been at this a short period of time. Imagine what an experienced and skilled photographer can do with coins when selling them on eBay.

Russ, NCNE

coinguy1

Hi Russ,

Your experimentation confirms some of what I have seen on Eaby. There is one seller in particular, of proof Walking Liberty halves and Mercury dimes, whose images ALWAYS make the coins appear to be cameo or deep cameo. And, they are not. I bought one and returned it after I was unable to tilt and rotate the coin in such a way as to replicate (or even approach) the Ebay images. He was fairly nice about it. But in his Ebay descriptions, he goes into a lot of detail about how he images the coins in an attempt to make them look correct but I don't think he is being straight. I'm sure this is but one, of way too many such examples.

kranky

That's just from playing with the lighting - not tweaking the image, right?

If you ever have a proof coin you'd sacrifice in the name of science, wipe it lightly with a cloth (in one direction) to put a few hairlines on it and see how easy it is to orient the lighting so they are either visible or not.

Morganluver

Yep, that's why truth and honesty are always the best policies, unless of course you never want a customer to buy from you more than once.

Russ

Kranky,

No tweaking, just lighting. I have a hairlined to hell cameo that I've shot, and it looks perfect in the scan. I posted it here a while back as an example. I'll try and find the scan.

Russ, NCNE

FC57Coins

Russ:

Where is your light source in relation to the coin when you take the pics that look cameo? I've tried dinking the light as well, and it always seems that the best shots of the coin wind with a reflection of the light on the slab.

Frank

Russ

Found it!



The above is completely striated with dozens of nasty hairlines in both the fields and the devices. Again, no editing, just angle and lighting.

Russ, NCNE

tjkillian

I had an 1875 Twenty Cent Piece that had its holly life dipped out of it, but when I took a picture of it, it looked like a very nice high-end AU coin. I had to describe it so terribly to avoid getting the coin back. It was a hideous coin, yet the picture made it look great. Picture do lie.

Tom

Russ

Oh, for clarification, the coin in the first post is a cameo, PCGS slabbed 69CAM to be precise. The comparison was to show how easy it is to hide the mint frost that appears in the right and left fields, and the bottom periphery.

Russ, NCNE

kranky

Thanks for digging that up, Russ. Sure can't see the hairlines in that photo. It would be interesting to see the coin lit so the hairlines are visible to illustrate the difference.

Russ

Kranky,

It's buried in one of my rolls somewhere now, otherwise I'd do some more shots of it with the lighting that would show it's true stripes (get it?).

Russ, NCNE

kranky

If you run across another hairlined proof sometime, it would be informative to demonstrate that effect. Hairlines are often hard enough to see up close and personal!

RLinn

Russ, thanks for the lighting lesson.