Photography questions...

tmot99

I am having difficulty with photos staying in focus. I am using a Nikon D70 with a 105mm macro lens. I have tried both auto focus and manual focus, but I can't get the whole coin in sharp focus. Any ideas?

The second question is a lot of my photos are turning out yellow. I assume a lot of this is due to the light source I am using. What does everyone recommend for light sources? I've used shaded sunlight, direct sunlight, a flashlight, and a desk lamp. The best was direct sunlight the worst flashlight.

Help! Does anyone offer a coin photography class? Maybe at a major show?

numonebuyer

Do you have a tri-pod? Put the camera on the tri-pod and point the camera down towards the coins and focus as best you can. Then use the tri-pod riser mechanism to bring the coin into perfect focus. It was the way I used to take pictures before I got my microscope. Macro lenses can be a little tricky. Auto-focus never seemed to be created with coins in mind.

Russ

What color background are you using? Black is best for forcing the camera to focus on the coin.

Russ, NCNE

tmot99

Yes, I do use a tripod. Even with manual focus, only part of the coin appears to be in focus. Maybe it's just that I am looking at large images and if I look at smaller size ones, I won't notice.

Barry

Assuming you are using a tripod, you may be too close to the coin. As it is a 3D object, your camera may be locking autofocus on to a field and a raised device is out of focus. One solution is move further from the coin. Another solution is go into Aperture Priority mode and set the aperture to f7 or greater. This will increase your depth of field.

Regarding color, set your white balance to custom. The instructions are in the manual.

mgoodm3

I use the same setup. I use manual focus for everything using the little green light at the lower left to help with the exact focus. If you are shooting at any angle at all, portions of the coin will be out of focus. Keep your focus point somewhere in the middle of the coin. Depending on how much angle you are shooting at you'll need to go to a higher f-stop to get a good range of focus (things not in focus in the viewfinder will be in focus on the pic, if done right). I shoot in "A" mode which allows you to set the aperture to whatever value you would like and the camera will set the shutter speed to get the right exposure.

At close range (filling the screen with nickel and smaller) the depth of focus is extremely narrow and you may need to go up to an aperture of f16 or better to get good focus on the picture. With bigger coins and more distance the need is less. If you shoot straight-on to the coin you can get away with f4.5 for bigger coins and f2.8 for large coins.

mgoodm3

Didn't answer the yellow question. You need to get the White balance right. That can be accomplished with one of the settings that they have listed. hit menu, look at the screen, go down to white balance. hit the rightbutton on the cursor button. that will bring up your choices. Incandescent will work with most normal lights. You can measure the white balance use the preset function, by hitting the down button several times. leave the "preset" setting highlighted. hit the menu nutton twice and you should be ready. you can now measure whenever you want. Hit the WB button next to the screen once. Hit it again and leave it pressed for a couple seconds. a "PRE" will show up on the LCD on top. Set you lights up like you are goin to shoot, put a piece of white paper in the field and hit the shutter release. If you have enough light it will give you a "good" message on the LCD. This is all on pg. 52-3 in the manual also. if you got the good message you're done. put your coin down there and shoot. You can reset the WB any time you want by hitting the WB button twice like previously said.

Feel free to PM me about anything about the camera, I'll answer if I can.