Almost got the color right on my MS Sacs...

ursabear

Well, I've done lots of light angles on these, and have had some success with the actual color, without washing out the fields and blackening the devices.

The Goodacre Presentation Dollar
The Millennium Set Sacagawea
The 2001 P
The 2000 D
The 2002 P


Oh, and the "other little dollar, too."
Susan B in proof 69DC

mdwoods

Excellent photos of Sac dollars. You managed to capture the luster, and that is so tough. Very nice job. mdwoods

ursabear

Thank you, mdwoods! I take that as a high compliment.

wingedliberty

DCAM 99 SBAs are among my favorites. Their quality seems to be exceptional.

Brian.

cosmicdebris

Great pictures. Would you care to share any of your setup with us?

smprfi

When I first saw the title I thought "Here we go, another coin doctor."
Then I opened it and saw you were making reference to photography.
Nice pics they look great.

ksteelheader

Very good pics...........Keep up the good work...............Ken

ursabear

Thanks for the nice comments, all.

The more I tinker with photos, the more successes I have when using a piece of paper in addition to lights and a tripod.

For each of the photos that I've liked, I use a light piece of paper underneath the coin/holder. Most often white, sometimes just off-white. I typically have the camera at about 15 degrees to 20 degrees off straight overhead. My camera is silver, and always shows up in the proofs if I don't use off-center a bit.

For the proof coins, I use a Reveal bulb in a normal lamp over the coin and a small incandescent at a sharp angle to the coin. I put the camera on delay shot, and put a black piece of paper just over the camera and straight overhead of the coin. this makes the mirrors deep and black, without interfering with the light. I always have to remember to wipe the holder very well when doing this. Lint and fingerprints really show up.

For the non-proof coins with which I have been experimenting, I've been struggling with a problem where my coins seem to be cartoonish with my normal set-up. This weekend, I was trying to get some pictures into my registry set, so I started experimenting with a white piece of paper overhead. These MS Sac pictures were the result of setting up my normal light and tripod angles, then taking a white piece of paper and rotating it around over the camera, but over the coin at various angles until the image looked consistent and a little lighter. What I ended up with was a white paper at a 45-degree angle opposite the table lamp, and sort of "pointing" towards the coin surface - this paper is held right next to the camera, without getting between the camera and coin.