Imaging Toned Silver... A question (W/ Image of Attractively Toned 1971 Canada Dollar)
ProfHaroldHill
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How do some sellers/posters manage to get the toning to show 'all the way around' the coin?
I can always get one quarter to one half, sometimes a bit more, to show, but the rest is always dark.
Would two light sources work?
I basically don't have any sort of photography set-up, I just place the coin on a canvas mint bag, hold the camera steady and take the pics. (Using an 8 year-old HP Cam w/ Tiffen macro lens.) The light is the bare 60 watt bulb on the ceiling. (Pretty hi-tech stuff, I know.)
The coin below has more color, (colors like at the top-left, seen nicely here) at the bottom, but if I move the camera to capture that part, another part of the coin 'goes dark'!
Thanks in advance for any tips/help/info!
I can always get one quarter to one half, sometimes a bit more, to show, but the rest is always dark.
Would two light sources work?
I basically don't have any sort of photography set-up, I just place the coin on a canvas mint bag, hold the camera steady and take the pics. (Using an 8 year-old HP Cam w/ Tiffen macro lens.) The light is the bare 60 watt bulb on the ceiling. (Pretty hi-tech stuff, I know.)
The coin below has more color, (colors like at the top-left, seen nicely here) at the bottom, but if I move the camera to capture that part, another part of the coin 'goes dark'!
Thanks in advance for any tips/help/info!
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Comments
1. Tilt the coin into the light source directly, ensuring the light is far enough to cover the whole surface of the coin. In my example below, the light source is to the right of my camera and the coin is tilted into the light by using an NGC slab. Because you're not shooting the coin straight down, it will not turn out completely round and you would have to work a bit in photoshop to adjust the image. Also, since the coin is at an angle to the camera, you'll have to make sure to set enough depth of field (Av) on your camera to ensure the entire coin is in focus.
2. Position the coin flat and shoot is straight down through an angled piece of glass that will reflect the light onto the surface of the coin from a light source positioned horizontally and parallel to the coin. You will need to play with the angle of the glass to get a hang of it and as previously mentioned, make sure the light source is either large enough, or far enough to hit the entire surface of the coin.
Here's one of my recent examples of the first method:
I've ensured the coin is round in photoshop and lightened it up a bit since the light source I was using was weak.
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8 Reales Madness Collection
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You can also use a Tupperware frosted bowl with a Hole cut in the bottom, place the bowl over the coin, bottom side up. Shoot the coin through the Hole using bright light that will diffuse through the Bowl , Or by using a white sheet like cloth over or in front of the light to Diffuse it.
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I use it all the time.
However, even there are a few tricks to it.
1 Camera lens should be diectly above and 90 degrees to the coins surface.
2 glaas pane should be clean at 45 degree to the camera / coin.
3 light source should be at a horizontal 0 degrees to the glass pane and shine directly on it. Glass acts as a prism and breaks the light 90 degrees down because of the angle it is set.
4 to keep the glass at 45 , cut 2 pieces of 2x4 and srew them on a piece of plywood. slide the pane in to it. voila, 45 degrees level. but leave a little wigglr room...
5 kightsource should be bnled by a normal reflector. use maximal 60 watt incancescant ( or experiment with leds and goose necks.
6 your camera MUST be on a steady mount, as sometimes your exposure requires LONGER than hand held times. use a time releases shutter. or and a trypod.
7 your camera settings are important, especially the White Balance.
I Have a complete setup description as a MS word or .pdf file. iof anyone would like to have it, just PM me.
have a great day.
H
If you want a picture of the color on a brilliant or proof-like silver coin, you need to eliminate the bright and dark spots on the coin. Diffusion is your friend for this. It will flatten out the light so that all parts of the coin are lit equally well. There are a few things in your setup, however, that will get in your way of a good picture. First, is the ceiling bulb being used for illumination. Very hard to reposition that light they way you want to. Also, being far away from the coin, it is a rather contrasty light source. Second, hand-holding the camera will be harder with diffuse light, because with diffusion, you lose some light and will need a longer exposure.
My first prescription is a shopping trip to WalMart. Two gooseneck desk lamps and a cheap tripod will set you back less than $50. Having two lamps will give you more even lighting for all your shots, so that you don't have very bright and very dark areas of your coins. For diffusion in this setup, take a sheet of white paper and tri-fold it so that it can be stood on end and surround your coin. Aim the lights at the paper and shoot the coin this way. You'll have a longer exposure, but very even lighting of the toning, which is what you want.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
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I just received 3 canadian coins from boardmember manorcourtman last week and imaged the coins so I can give you some examples of shots using no difussion and shots where I difussed the light so you can see the difference.
Non Diffused:
Diffused:
Non Diffused:
Diffused:
Non Diffused:
Diffused:
Personally I prefer non diffused shots since you don't have to adjust the contrast and usually the coins look more like coins and less like cartoons, but alas so coins including a lot of proofs or DMPLs etc are just so difficult to image you almost have to difusse or use the afore mentioned axial technique
<< <i>I recommend 3 lights, a copy stand, SLR with Macro lens. >>
that is exactly what i use with axial and without (1 light only if not axial)
canon software ,Canon digital SLR and a 90mm macro...
works every time... but key is still white balance settings..
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When adjusting contrast to reduce slight slab glare, pay attention to where the edges of the glare are, and use a mask that matches the shape of the glare to control where you make the adjustments (lasso tool with a large amount of feathering). After reducing the glare this way, you will always need to reduce the saturation.
In this result, I also have to do color correction in a similar manner, as the lower left fang is too purple.
Much better.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
In your adjusted examples messydesk the color is not that vibrant in hand and is much closer to what you see in my image with the "haze" so that's what I went with and understanding that these coins aren't for sale a slight embellishment is not really an issue regardless.
It's just comes down to personal taste really
<< <i>I don't have a problem with post processing to make a coin image look more like the coin in hand, unfortunately most of the post processing I see is used to deceive buyers on Ebay with profit being the sole motivating factor. I prefer to keep my images as close to out of camera as possible as usually that coin image matches the coin in hand as close as as possible at that point. Even doing that I get buyers who complain that a coin they received doesn't look like the image....even though I usually disagree I simply refund and move on as everyone is going to look at a coin under different lighting and that makes a huge difference. >>
I agree 100% with every single point you made.
Here's the same coin using different lighting, the flashy version at bottom resulted from tilting the coin to reflect light off the coin directly into the camera. The top version is closer to how the coin appears in hand under typical lighting conditions, but the color is indeed there, if the lighting is right.
Notice that with the light reflecting directly into the camera, I had enough light to achieve a tremendous depth of field focus, resulting in a picture with extremely sharp details.
Edited to note: This is a PROOF coin.
<< <i>In your adjusted examples messydesk the color is not that vibrant in hand and is much closer to what you see in my image with the "haze" so that's what I went with and understanding that these coins aren't for sale a slight embellishment is not really an issue regardless.
It's just comes down to personal taste really >>
I agree that it comes down to personal taste. My adjustments were, of course, based on what I assumed the coin looks like. What I was trying to do was remove the effect of the glare from the slab, showing how you can do it when the glare is not uniform -- see the black shadows at the top of the original picture and gray shadows at the bottom. With the coin in hand, the picture could be further corrected to look as it would without the plastic in the way. Once the glare is removed and color balance is uniform, the rest is easy. One last try:
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
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More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
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1. Straight out of the camera. Notice the light washing over the slab creating a haze, but not focused in any particular area. To diffuse I use a sheet of plain white paper wrapped around an OTT lamp:
2. Since I was playing around with lighting, my white balance was not perfect straight out of the camera, so I adjusted the color levels, using the white slab to judge if the color spot on.
3. Using Brightness / Contrast sliders adjusted it to remove most of the haze from the slab.
4. Using the elliptical marquee tool I selected the coin itself and applied unsharp mask and another slight contrast adjustment to get it to what the coin looks like in-hand. Normally I would use the marquee to select the coin, copy it, and paste it in a blank image to showcase the coin itself and not the slab around it.
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