So how's this for a VERY detailed image of a Lincoln cent? (187K)

coppercoins

Took this today with the Nikon D-80 after running it through a whole battery of tests to get the exposure time, apeture, and white balance down just right. So what do you think?

added: This is still at less than half the original resolution of the photograph. This image is at 1000 x 1000 pixels. Original resolution would have created a 2800 x 2800 image.

Oney

Nice pic! Did you shoot against a white background? WHat were your settings? I have a D70 and have been experimenting as well.

Thanks!

BowTieCoins2

Nice!

foundinrolls

Exceptional!

BowTieCoins2

Very!!

ricko

Outstanding photo... very clear details... Cheers, RickO

scooter25

Very nice photo!

dtkk49a

You nailed it. Perfect.

coppercoins

Oney - the settings are going to depend on the lighting used. You have to set the camera differently every time you change your lighting....but...

For this particular light set-up and this camera, I have it set on F2.8 at 1/1000 sec., and the white balance is on fluorescent +1.

One thing I can tell you is that for this camera, having everything set to manual works far better than the automatic settings. I find that on automatic it tends to try lightening dark coins and darkening light coins when you let it choose the F stop and aperture. I set the camera to manual and found the right settings by running through all of them and finding the shot that most closely represented the coins. The above settings made it so that I didn't have to do ANY color or lighting editing to the image once in Photoshop. The ONLY thing I did was cut the coin out of the backdrop, paste it onto white, resize it, and save it.

My backdrop is black cloth...actually a sock. Reason for that is that I found a bean bag is best for taking photos in slabs, because the coins are NEVER perfectly straight in the slabs. Having a dynamically tiltable surface (a bean bag) gave me the ability to fine tune the leveling of the subjects so the photos would come out crisp from side to side and top to bottom.

Here's another set of photos taken using the same settings...with VERY little level adjustment and a very small amount of unsharp mask used to crisp things out a little after reducing the image by over half..

coppercoins

Another...the obverse on this coin is a little out of focus, but the colors are perfect.

drwstr123

Chuck-Sounds to me that you have another hobby. Excellent pic! Mike

fc

quality coin photos. good job.

coppercoins

Oh...by the way, the last two coins were in slabs...the Pilgrim is in NGC plastic and the 1913 nickel in PCGS plastic. I personally like the NGC holders better because they don't cover parts of the rim of the coin. PCGS holders cover parts of the coins and are sometimes unsightly and jagged...and there's nothing you can do to move those out of the way and see the rest of the coin.

dpoole

Really nice pictures, Chuck!

23Pairer

Great job CC! Have you thought of purchasing a 18%gray card to shoot on?

coppercoins

I have an 18% gray card, but for some reason trying to use a preset white balance doesn't give true colors in the coins. I went that route first, and it didn't work. I found that the fluorescent +1 white balance filter worked best, and actually made it so that with the proper shutter settings I didn't have to do any lighting or color editing out of the camera...and that's the optimum anyway. That would usually be the point of using a light meter and a gray card. I just found the presets in the camera on manual mode that made it work the best, which was spot on for what I needed.

slipgate

Nice photos! What lense are you using? Also could you tell me the other settings - f stop, mode, etc?

jonathanb

Very nice pics!

mgoodm3

nice pics.

robec

Very nice images, Charles. I don't have much to add. In my case I shoot a lot at f16-f22. This creates more depth of field. This comes in handy because it will focus the whole coin whether it's tilted in the slab or on a bean bag.

ModernCrapNut

<< <i>This is still at less than half the original resolution of the photograph. This image is at 1000 x 1000 pixels. Original resolution would have created a 2800 x 2800 image.

I don't know if you've ever tried it or not, but you can resize the image in your editing software and increase the number of pixels per inch and that will let you have great resolution without the large size.

Barry

Chuck,
I wonder if you've tried a smaller aperature (like F6 or 7)? I'm amazed you get such good focus with it wide open like that, but that's a Nikon lens for you.

tahoe98

i'm impressed.................very nice