Question on photo technique

kieferscoins

I bid on this dime on ebay because it looked like it has some nice toning. Now looking again, It looks like the wood grain directly behind the coi brings out more colors in the coin. Is this intentional or has anyone tried this before with different background colors? Would the coin look the same without the woodgrain?

Cameron Kiefer

dwood

I think it will look esentially the same, but background definitely affects the perception on ANY shot. Still, that coin looks to have some nice tome to it.

kieferscoins

Thanks. I think it is a good bargain @ $51.00 but only bid up to $55 because of my concern.

Note: Since I posted this on the forum anyone can bid without feeling bad. I already have a MS-64 but bid because of the toning.

Cameron Kiefer

ANACONDA

Whenever you look at something small and dark surrounded by something bright white, your eyes (pupils?) have to make a compromise with regard to exposure to properly expose the entire scene, so to speak. The coin will look a little too dark and the surrounding area will be over exposed to some degree.

Whenever you look at something small and white surrounded by something dark....same thing.....your eyes have to make a compromise with regard to exposure to properly expose the entire scene, so to speak.

Cameras are the same way. You can program them to expose the thing that appears in the center dot or the central area or to try to compromise between everything.

The best thing is to show white coins on white backgrounds and dark coins on dark backgrounds. That's the good thing about pcgs slabs - you can set them on something of the approximate same color and it will show through.

White commems look great in NGC slabs and copper coins don't.

Interestingly enough, i was visiting with Victor McCawley from Oklahoma (one of the best copper guys around) and this very topic came up this past Sunday. I suggested to him that he set his raw coins on darker inserts (slipped into the other side of the flip) as the coins would "show up" better - like the raw coins that were setting in dark red and black velvet trays, which did look so awesomely inviting.

(as a plug for him....he had a 1794 Cent in NGC MS 64 Red Brown that i coveted.)

adrian

kieferscoins

Great post ANACONDA. Thanks for the insight.

Cameron Kiefer