gotta love this new camera ... Winged Lib' pic's

pursuitofliberty

Last week I took home a couple of boxes of coins from the bank and had a photo party. The camera is great, and lighting set-up I put together (thanks to a tip from AKrick) works pretty well I think. No editing neccessary because the colors are very close to exact right out of the camera. Now if the photo's could be self cropping ...

Ahh, but it's worth it ... it's so cool to be able to catch a glace of them anytime I'm at the computer, and I'm hoping to post pictures for all of my Registry coins within the next month.

Anyway ... here's a couple nice later-date gem Winged Lib's from my set;

JrGMan2004

Nice... What kind of camera did you get?

Baley

... and could you tell us about the lighting setup?

(great pics, nice coins)

pursuitofliberty

Thanks for the comments.

It's a Fuji S3100 (made in Germany) ... new model ... very nice, inexpensive (less than $300.)

AKrick replied to a question I had about lighting and I came up with a version of his theme. His was three of the same light and bulb type, basically positioned at 9, 12 and 3 o'clock arond the coin. Standard desk lamps with cool white bulbs.

I use two basic cheapy desk lamps with 40watt GE "Reveal" bulbs (although Rick tells me "cool white"'s are better, but I couldn't find them) at 9 and 3, with the 12 o'clock as my low powered desk halogen (50 watt bulb on the "low" setting).

Simple, easy, inexpensive ... and great pictures that are very accurate. Better than my eyes actually ... as I was cropping photo's, I found a few things I hadn't noticed before ... including a coin that was getting hazy (maybe it turned after I bought it) and a few that had marks that I hadn't really noticed in context before. A dime comes up cropped to the rim at about 500x500 pixels ... clear as a bell.

Anyway ...

mgoodm3

Nice pics. You start seeing a lot of things you never noticed before when you have nice big pictures.

earlwbollinger

Excellent pics, nice job and nice coins too.

ChuckC

BEAUTIOUS! what are they 66fb? 67fb?

AKrick

Todd,

Glad I could help you out but wanted to correct you on the type of bulbs I use. They are regular GE soft-white 60 watt bulbs, not the cool white you mentioned. I'm not even too sure what cool white's are. Below is the PM I sent you after you asked if I used some kind of custom lighting stand. Hope you don't mind me posting it here but thought it might help others. I've spent a lot of money on special lights (ott, reveal, etc.) and after all that I found the GE soft-white bulbs worked the best, at least for me.


Thanks for the compliment. No fancy stand used to take the pictures. Below is a quick pic of the type of desk lamp I use. Bought 3 of these at Fred Meyer's on sale. Can't remember the price but they weren't too expensive. I would imagine any type of adjustable desk lamp will do. No special lights needed. I use GE soft-white 60 watt blubs in the three lamps. Position them so they are as close to the coin as possible without actually reflecting off the coin as you can see in my pictures. I have the camera (a Nikon Coolpix 4500) on a tripod and positioned about 3 to 4 inches away from the coin. Sometimes if the coin in toned I'll slip a dime under one corner or side of the coin just to get a little tilt to bring out the colors if needed.



I really don't know much about cameras but seem to do okay with what I have. Don't think you need all that fancy stuff other people have to take a good picture. Just a nice camera and some pretty coins. Hope this helps and thanks again. It's always nice to get a compliment...

Here's a couple pics just to give others an idea of how I place the 3 lights I use.





Regards,

Rick

P.S. Great pics, Todd!!!

pursuitofliberty

Rick,

Thanks for clarifying that ... I should have re-read your very helpful reply ... I was winging it. Maybe that's why I couldn't find the bulbs I thought I was looking for ...

For everyone else, I give Rick my first ever "most helpful member" award for his help, because it made all the difference in my pictures.

Hmmmm ... I should call it something. The first ever Pursuit-of-Knowledge Award ... or something like that

Thanks again Rick!

As for the grades Chuck, both are 65FB coins (in OGH holders) ... and yes, I do believe both of these very well could upgrade if resubmitted correctly