Taking coin photos through slab plastic...

jmski52

What techniques are good for taking photos of slabbed coins? I seem to get glare, or reflections of the lens.

Also, I know it's been discussed recently, but what is used to reduce the visibility of scratches or rubbed spots on the plastic?

Merci beaucoups for any help.

Unknown

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lkeigwin

Not a fan of oil. Polish the slab.

If your focus is on the coin and not the slab most minor scratches won't be visible.

Direct your light near the coin but not on it. Usually 10 and 2 o'clock work well.
Lance.

rmpsrpms

If the coin is flat versus the camera, then what you are looking for is as high an angle you can achieve without directly reflecting off the slab surface and causing glare. The high angle lights the surface of the coin rather than the edges of the devices, and brings out the color. A smaller aperture (higher f-number) also helps with this as it reduces the apparent size of the reflections and allows you to get the lights a bit higher vs large aperture (small f-number). But don't go too crazy with smal apertures as sharpness will suffer.

I published a thread a while back where I showed how to "shape" the light from the Jansjo LED's to get the highest possible angle without glare. I find with that type of lighting, I can minimize the difference between slabbed and raw coins. Raw coins allow you to go to ahigher angle than slabbed, even vertical (axial), without problems of refections and contrast, but I've never personally been fond of the "look" of axial as it tends to be too dark at the edges of coins with higher relief (like Lincoln Wheat Cents).

Here is the thread where I described the shaping of the light source:

Shaped light source

Ray

blu62vette

Just keep practicng, slabs become irrelevant over time with enough shots.

ctf_error_coins

PLASTX