Pictures of toned coins

WACoinGuy

I just got a beautifully toned coin yesterday, but I'm having trouble getting the colors to show up when I try to take a digital picture. Does anyone have any tips for getting the toning to show through in pictures?

jbsteven

use a Reveal light bulb

FC57Coins

You're asking the $64,000 question. As JB says reveal bulbs work well, but sometimes they impart too much glare and it's hard to get the right "look" to the coins. Flourescent lighting will bring out the colors of the coin, but sometimes they also dull the luster. I try to use a combination of both lights. The trick for me is to move the coin around in the light and see where the best "look" comes from, then shoot the coin at that angle, and correct the picture with software afterwards.

Good luck!

Stuart

In the limited coin photography that I've done, I have found that natural reflected sunlight works well (during the day) -- especially more diffuse indirect sunlight on a cloudy or hazy day.

I have only done this with raw coins, and have alot of experimenting yet to do for photographing slabbed coins, especially indoors in artificial light...

WACoinGuy

Moving the coin around to different angles helped a lot! Here's a picture I just took from a different angle that shows some color. I may try to get some Reveal bulbs this afternoon to see if they also make a difference:

nepbrs44

Use Ott Lights...they are the closest thing to natural light and very easy to work with

mgoodm3

Toned coins are pretty easy to get decent pics raw. Slabbed are tougher because of the glare off the slabs. If you get an even glare you can get rid of most of it with software.

FC57Coins

WACoinguy:


You're getting the gist of it now. From there you need to see what your editing software can do to correct the lighting/color and aspect of the coin so that it looks as close to normal as possible. I have an ott lite too and it works great.

WACoinGuy

What's an ott light? Is that a particular brand?

nepbrs44

<< <i>What's an ott light? Is that a particular brand?

>>

Ott-Light

I use 2 OTL-13TCG

cosmicdebris

See THIS THREAD for some great tips.

airplanenut

Reveal bulbs result in too much red... I just use soft, white light... works like a charm:

greghansen

Take it outside. Photograph in natural lighting...like this one:

nederveit

Greg, that is absolutely gorgeous!!!

Stuart

I took this one inside but using diffuse sunlight coming in through the translucent window shades that we have in the house.

relayer

I need the full power of the sun.

Ryana

FC57Coins

One of the things about which ever lighting you wind up using is that you need to ultimately do some correction with whatever software you're using to correct the picture so that it looks as close to the coin as you can get it. This particular coin was a tough customer, but by correcting the aspect and the colors, I managed to come out with a pretty real depiction of it.