New Camera, lens and now copy stand has arrived

coinsarefun · December 3, 2015 7:54AM

I attached a screenshot of the settings.....give me suggestions

I thought I uploaded the reverse of the HT, but guess not. Below are the settings.

Flatwoods · December 3, 2015 7:58AM

Hard to argue with those. I think they are great.

You will probably want to use custom white balance at some point though.

You should be able to photograph a piece of copy paper if you don't have a grey card.

ctf_error_coins · December 3, 2015 8:15AM

White balance

BryceM · December 3, 2015 8:56AM

Looking good, but polish those slabs prior to shooting. There are nice coins in there somewhere.

I agree with the white balance issue. It's a little hard to figure out how to adjust this properly the first time, but once you learn how to do it, it's simple to set it whenever needed. I picked up some photography grey/color cards off eBay for a few bucks and I set the WB before each photo shoot or each time I change the light source. It literally takes 10 seconds.

keyman64 · December 3, 2015 8:57AM

Need to shoot custom white balance

Shoot Manual

ISO should be 200 or lower. I use 100.

You can of course get away with ISO 800 but there is no reason to.

Aperture should be at least f/8. I use f/25 to f/32.

Shutter speed is fine but you can go down to 1/80 or even slower

if you are triggering the camera with a remote or on a delay.

As for your images, you have bright areas blown out, but not by much.

Diffusing the lights a little will fix that. If you are using LEDs that of

course do not get hot then you can just rubber band a piece of tissue over

the end. I am guessing you are using LEDs based on your camera settings

since those lights aren't very bright.

In order to get your settings closer to what I detailed, you will need

much brighter lights like halogens or you will need to turn your

less powerful lights into a larger light source through reflection and

diffusion. Robec showed me how he did this with LEDs and it was

pretty cool. I use halogens these days though.

Flatwoods · December 3, 2015 9:29AM

keyman64, why do you use such a large f-stop?

Just curious as I have never heard of anyone using one that high.

I sometimes go up to 12 or 14 on really high relief medals.

BryceM · December 3, 2015 9:31AM

+1 on the halogens. They tend to put a slight warm hue on things and they get hot, but shooting with oodles of light gives you so many options when it comes to aperture, shutter, and diffusion techniques.

crazyhounddog · December 3, 2015 9:36AM

I set my own white balance and I would try turning up your contrast a bit. I adjust my shutter speed and my aperture manually as I have more control. It looks kinda like your over exposing your images a bit. Speed up your shutter speed or close your aperture some. I think your doing quite well.

keyman64 · December 3, 2015 10:30AM

Originally posted by: Flatwoods

keyman64, why do you use such a large f-stop?

Just curious as I have never heard of anyone using one that high.

I sometimes go up to 12 or 14 on really high relief medals.

Lol, yup, I'm a little weird. I am shooting a lot of toned proofs

these days so tilting the coin to show color is pretty important.

When you tilt the coin you really need to crank the aperture

and with crazy bright/hot/large light sources like halogens it

makes it easy. ISO 100, 1/80 - 1/200 shutter, f/25 - f/32 is easy.

I also have my lights set up closer than 12" away from the coin...

which isn't really what tends to be recommended. The lights are

harsher this way but it allows me to shoot with the apertures I use.

I also use a 105mm lens so when I shoot smaller coins, I have my lens

really close to the coin so I can fill the frame. f/25-f/32 helps with that.

When people talk about sweet spots with lenses, they typically talk about

f/8 - f/13 depending upon the lens.

I definitely don't do everything "right" or as ideally advised

by most but I do know what I am doing, if that makes any

sense.

lkeigwin · December 3, 2015 10:41AM

Originally posted by: keyman64

Need to shoot custom white balance

Shoot Manual

ISO should be 200 or lower. I use 100.

You can of course get away with ISO 800 but there is no reason to.

Aperture should be at least f/8. I use f/25 to f/32.

Shutter speed is fine but you can go down to 1/80 or even slower

if you are triggering the camera with a remote or on a delay.

Aperture should be in the middle range for best results...F6 or somewhat higher. This will help by allowing more light and a faster shutter speed which will improve over all sharpness. Bright lights help too in this regard. But your focus must be very good.

If you are challenged with depth of field (high relief coin or one tilted in a slab, let's say) then increasing the aperture to a much higher setting (for a slower shutter speed) will get you better depth at the expense of some sharpness.

I prefer to shoot in the raw mode and not worry about white balance until post processing. Any editor will do an admirable job correcting it. Same for exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows, etc.

I suggest you turn off shooting mode "creative auto". This is for beginners who want the camera to make adjustments for brightness, depth of field, and other tweaks. You are shooting "raw" so it is expected you make the adjustment decisions using your editor. You should be using "Aperture Priority".

Lance.

keyman64 · December 3, 2015 10:55AM

I'm certainly not going to argue with Lance because

he has helped me (along with a few others on the forum

including Broadstruck and Robec) and knows what he is

doing and gets great results!....but...

Setting up your custom white balance while using a quality

gray card takes less than 5 seconds! You set it once for your

shooting session of multiple coins. Why would you then want to

go spend much longer on every single coin you shoot times 2

with both sides is beyond me. It is easy to get it right in camera

and a big time saver, even if you set an action in PS. To each their

own.

Stef, as you can see there many different ways to get good

results. You are doing great but with just a few tweaks you

will have it nailed.

coinsarefun · December 3, 2015 11:01AM

Wow!!! so many good pieces of advice here. I think each and everyone of you for the help.

It men's a lot to me

I will start doing some of the suggestions tomarrow and repost.

I must admit it is much nicer to have this set up than a tiny copy stand and a point and shoot camera.

I'm joining the "big boys" now

rmpsrpms · December 3, 2015 11:17AM

For my T2i I've found the following settings to work best:

Shooting Mode: Av

- Av mode holds your aperture constant while adjusting other parameters (primarily shutter speed) to get correct exposure

Aperture Value: f8 for larger coins

- f5.6 will give shallow depth of field and make focusing and keeping the coin flat more critical. f8 is best if you're trying for maximum sharpness, but focus is still critical. You can use f11 or even f16 if you never plan to look at 100% crops and always downsize your images for web publishing

Exposure Compensation: -1/3 or -2/3

- You have it set at +2/3, which guarantees a significant amount of over-exposure. Even at -1/3 to -2/3 there may be over-exposure on some colors (usually Red) but the overall exposure level will be a bit lower such that highlights are not blown out

ISO: 100 Manual

- You can go with up to 400 or so on the T2i without too much noise in the shadows, but I prefer 100 or 200. You have it on Auto so you never know what it will be

Picture Style: Neutral, with subsettings of 0, -2, 0, 0

- Standard with sharpness at 3 is sort of like "photoshopping" the image, yet this is what 90% of coin photographers use because they don't realize they're doing it. If you want to enhance the image, it should be done carefully in post-processing

messydesk · December 3, 2015 11:24AM

Fix white balance. Most pictures are overexposed, especially the token from Westfield, MA. Buff the scratches out of the slabs.

lkeigwin · December 3, 2015 2:19PM

Originally posted by: keyman64

I'm certainly not going to argue with Lance because

he has helped me (along with a few others on the forum

including Broadstruck and Robec) and knows what he is

doing and gets great results!....but...

Setting up your custom white balance while using a quality

gray card takes less than 5 seconds!

keyman64, you're doing great! Keep at it.

FWIW, adjusting every photo for proper white balance takes fewer than 5 seconds in an editor. Get one right and copy the settings to all the others. You will get the results you want, not what the camera and your grey card feel are right.

I'm the last guy to say there's only one way. Do what works best for you. I think time is best spent comparing results to what you see, coin in hand.

Lance.

coinsarefun · December 4, 2015 4:06AM

Ok, A few more.....tried with bigger coins this time

Some editing after imaging..

Flatwoods · December 4, 2015 4:19AM

Better. Actually those are great.

Now you have to learn how to fix the plastic.

Mineral oil is your friend. PCGS plastic is much easier to fix.

coinsarefun · December 4, 2015 4:29AM

Ok, I'll start working on the plastic, thanks

jerseycat101 · December 4, 2015 4:59AM

I think these images, especially the later ones in the thread, are professional grade. Really well done. Just clean up those slabs, and you're golden. I happen to like that Peace Dollar too.

MonsterCoinz · December 4, 2015 5:13AM

I typically run ISO 200, 1/30 F4.8. Example:

ricko · December 4, 2015 5:50AM

Frankly, I have no idea about white balance, F stops etc., I just think they are absolutely

gorgeous coin pictures..... Thanks for showing them and your superb photography.

Cheers, RickO

crazyhounddog · December 4, 2015 5:50AM

Originally posted by: coinsarefun
Ok, A few more.....tried with bigger coins this time

Some editing after imaging..

You sure do have some beautiful coins Stef!!

BryceM · December 4, 2015 5:54AM

NGC slabs are a bear though....... Might need this:

TPRC · December 4, 2015 6:04AM

Informative post....thanks!

mercurydimeguy · December 4, 2015 6:10AM

Moving to f/6.3-f/10 range will enable you to get more depth/focus across the entire relief of a coin, but will require more light. The coins that are flat/no relief will come out ok at F/2.8-f/5.6, but the higher relief coins will look better if you go to as much as 10. Just some advice...

New Camera, lens and now copy stand has arrived

Comments

Leave a Comment