Coin Photography
Zsmartie
Posts: 135 ✭✭✭
My hat is off to those that do coin photography professionally. I have been a photographer (amateur) for some 46 years. I used to concentrate on wildlife (Yellowstone, Glacier, and other wildlife sanctuaries) and also black and white photos of old ghost towns, and just general scenery. In Montana there is a never ending list of subject matter. However, coin photography is pretty new to me. I admit it has been a challenge and most of the time I have enjoyed it. In my attempts to photograph my coins (all Morgan dollars), it appears to me that some coins are just asking to take their photo. However, some coins (date, mint) almost shy away. Some coins are almost too easy to photograph. Although, if you are a professional and advertising your business, you have to be able to capture them all. And for that I applaud their work. Obviously they do not need to worry about me entering the business. I cannot accurately photograph my own coins. Some of the very sharp, bright coins in my hand look absolutely beautiful. Then I try to photograph them and I am absolutely disappointed. That photo does not even come close to showing the beauty there. Unfortunately it is a downer. To hold such a beautiful coin and then not be able to capture that beauty in a photo is disappointing. It makes wildlife and ghost town photography look like child's play. So I am glad we have some out there that really know their business. Attached is one of my coins and even though definitely not professional, is the best I can do.
/Users/James/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/resources/proxies/derivatives/11/00/1165/IivxgRzATlK8h+oSmXNazg_thumb_1165.jpg
/Users/James/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/resources/proxies/derivatives/11/00/1166/1Qj026kwRZC13gr++GNizQ_thumb_1166.jpg
Comments
Looks pretty dang good to me. Keep doing what you're doing. Peace Roy
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Well you got that one right.
Good lookin coin and a good lookin pic. I too am often disappointed by the photos I take of my own coins. You have a huge head start on me with all your photography experience. My experience consists of cell phone pics of my kids and my dog. Keep practicing so you can post tips for us real amateurs after you get it figured out.
Looks perfectly fine to me.
Your photo is better than almost all the other of this type of first photo posts.
That said, Photoshop is your friend for slight image adjustments (not altering).
Your photo is very slightly warm in color balance IMO.
Also, light the face of coin portraits like a real portrait. I want to see more light on the face.
Nice. Keep going.
Dave Wnuck wrote an article a while back about this. You can probably find it on his website. Certain coins are more photogenic than others. It usually follows that beautiful coins make beautiful photographs but this is not always true. He noticed that he was pursuing coins that would show better on his website as they're always easier to sell.
I do pretty good with silver, OK with nickel, pretty good with gold, but lousy with copper. Proofs are hit & miss. Certain silver "looks" are hard to get right. Fortunately, Morgans and Peace dollars are generally pretty easy to shoot.
I'm a bit the opposite. I hit way above my weight with coins but do pretty amateurish work with portraits and landscapes. Totally different skill set, I think.
Nice photos!!
Very nice. I just started doing this in January - it is tough!
WS
I appreciate the comments, however, this was one of those coins that said, take my picture please. Then I move to the S mints of 1800-1882, and then forget it. Most of these are absolutely beautiful in hand, but then try to capture that in a photo, forget it. If I were to purchase a coin from a photo of these years, absolutely I would not do it. Now for one, I am not photographing these coins for resale, it is solely for my personal appreciation scrolling through my coins. If and when I ever sell my collection, I will not use my photos. I will let an auction house do their thing. But when I am sitting here with my coffee (or whiskey depending on the time of day), want to scroll through my coins, I would like to enjoy the view of each. I do not want to pull all the coins out of the safe and sit looking at each one. HOWEVER, I am starting to have the opinion of why not take them out and really, really enjoy them. Why leave them in a safe for some one else to somewhat enjoy someday and then dump on the market, when I really should be looking at them today. Really, I am the one that spent hours scrolling through coins and then purchasing and some returning some so I could have the best I can afford for my collection. At this point I absolutely like the coins I have. And I have no long term goal. I simply want to collect nice coins and be able to enjoy them.
You are right. Some coins are easier to shoot than others. Don't get discouraged. I look back at coins I shot 10 years ago and cringe.
Keep at it.
This is not my best example but one I shot without much effort. I know I can do better.
Stay focused.
Lance.
I agree, some coins are very easy. Others are beautiful in hand, then turn into the "Two Face" episode from Seinfeld as soon as you put them under the lens. Add on trying to shoot through plastic without glare and it can become downright difficult. The important thing is to keep trying and eventually you will get results you will be happy with.
Nice job, I like the pic
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Nice images Zsmatie. I would still to see a touch more exposure - Morgan's are bright coins. And it looks like a little better focus and sharpness. In photoshop you can adjust both of these to refine the images.
Best, SH
@Zsmartie ...That is a great picture... I have been a member here for many, many years. Last year I posted my first picture - it was a cut and paste from my phone....Years ago, I did photograph flowers and wildlife - totally different process. With your experience you will master coin photography quickly. Thank you for showing us... Cheers, RickO
One thing that will help is if you don't try to get a good picture of the coin and a good picture of the slab in the same shot. Sometimes it's possible, but other times not.
When doing the coins, I will be optimizing lights for each one, even if they're the same type. As you saw with 80-S, 81-S, and 82-S Morgans when compared with your 85, there are little things that can totally throw you off. 80-S and 81-S have harder reflections from prooflike fields. Some 82-S can additionally have slightly concave fields that give a mesmerizing cartwheel appearance that you don't see on other dates (making one of these in 67 an ideal type coin for a collection). Then you grab a 1901-04-P and get dead luster that needs to be helped by hardening the lights by backing them away from the coin or changing the white reflector in a lamp to a black one. Optimizing the toning/luster appearance is another challenge.
When shooting slabs, however, it's mass-production mode. One light above the top of the slab, one below the bottom. Decent diffusion for a flat look. CAC stickers require the upper light to be at a low angle so the hologram pops.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Thanks for the info. I will definitely try these points.
I'm one new lens away from taking decent shots. Excellent photos posted above and great advice as well..
Very nice pictures!
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I did a self evaluation of my pictures and found that like it or not, coin pictures often bring out the imperfections we can not see. This may be why your convinced they look better in hand, than the picture you just took. But hey, if you think its difficult now, what till you do proofs...
WS
I agree. After photographing some of my coins, the next place they landed was Ebay. But at least I had the pictures and could provide accurate descriptions.
Proofs are a challenge, but once you determine the right lighting type (ring light in my book) it is not too bad.
Nic
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I see no problem at all with your images. If fact they look pretty darn good.
I'd like to know if there are some helpful techniques I can employ to just do basic coin pics for a novice photographer just using a smartphone (Galaxy S24).
(1) How far from the coin should one be ? Should one use the optical or digital zooms ?
(2) I'm using an LED bulb. I can set the brightness and higher lumens seems to produce glare (>800) but the lowest setting (450L) seems to light up the coin but not excessively so. Any magic numbers you experts use ?
(3) The color is also adjustable on the LED. Should I go for a cool setting or warmer ?
I just use the default PHOTO setting on the S24, FWIW.
Here’s my iPhone setup, if that helps. The phone is sitting on top of a 150cc clear pill bottle that I use as a copy stand. Use gooseneck led lights, unscrew the end piece and remove the white translucent diffuser and have them near the camera lens and tilt them around until the coin surface lights up like a trueview. Use the built in timer so the phone doesn’t shake.
Here’s a few examples using just that basic setup and just using the phones autofocus
I also use the oil drop trick to make slab scratches and glare disappear. I use optically clear compass oil that is chemically isoparrafin, which is slowly volatile mineral oil that doesn’t leave residue, just blot off with paper towel and the residue evaporates quickly. You just put a few drops on the slab on top of the coin and all scratches and glare become invisible and even reflections from the led lights “bend” around the periphery of the oil droplet that is sort of dome shaped on the slab over the coin. Makes the autofocus focused on the coin surface rather than the slab. Here’s the large cent from the photo above straight out of the camera showing the compass oil droplet and you can see how the reflection of the led lights “bends” around rather than ending up right over the edge of the coin.
For little coins, especially in NGC slabs, the autofocus focuses on the slab insert or prongs and the focus isn’t good enough. So I use an app with manual focus and I use a small jack stand instead of the 150cc pill bottle. You use the phone to manually focus first, then use the screw on the jack stand to fine tune the focus like it’s a stage microscope. Here’s an example and what I mean by jack stand. They are cheap on amazon.
Mr_Spud
I’m getting my setup figured out and learning as I go. I’ve been a camera nerd since the 80’s, but have only ever done available light photography and this is hard. 😂
I’m using a Canon R6mkii with a 180mm f3.5 macro lens with a cheap copy stand that I will definitely need to upgrade at some point. I’m using small LED panels mounted with flexible phone mounts that allow me to mount the lights axially just above my lens hood.
I’m using Lightroom for editing and Photoshop for compositing.
Here’s an example from my Peace dollar set that I’m in the middle of re-shooting:
Newbie collector of type and circulated Peace dollars, photographer of places and animals, player of instruments and builder of amplifiers, espresso industry professional, and a person distracted by shiny objects.
What distance are you guys from the coin (and are you using any zoom features) ?
How bright -- or dim ? -- should the bulb be ? I'm at 450 lumens.
Cool or warm setting ?
Minimum focal distance will will depend on the lens. For example with my macro lens (180mm f/3.5), I can focus to 1:1 on a dime at about 18 inches. However, I have to pull back to get larger coins to fit the sensor. The goal is to use as much of the sensor as you can within the capabilities of your lens. More pixels = greater ability to capture the smallest details. My cheap copy stand is just tall enough that I can get a whole slab in focus.
I have cheap LED panels, and I’m not sure how many lumens. I use as bright white as I can get in terms of color. I want to capture as much of the detail as possible and I can adjust white balance and exposure in post if necessary.
I’m still trying to nail the right depth of field/exposure time compromise. If you thin your dof too far, you can actually get high points out of focus, but too much and slab scratches get really bad. Plus I’m learning that for this type of detail work, exposure needs to be optimized for noise. Sensors like longer exposure times for a bit better noise performance and noise can be a real problem if you want to capture toning and shadow detail well.
It’s humbling me, but it’s a fun diversion while I save up some more coin funds. 😉
Newbie collector of type and circulated Peace dollars, photographer of places and animals, player of instruments and builder of amplifiers, espresso industry professional, and a person distracted by shiny objects.
Thanks for the tips, buddies. I play with shims and lights on an old iPhone with Macro Mode app and iOS editing. My results aren’t consistent yet.
@MrSpud - which app crops photos?
I touch subject of the image and copy appears—
Into which app do you paste and add label?
I paste into Notes on a black or white background, make a screenshot, and edit the format there.
Suggest something else?
Heres two versions of some pictures I took. They’re not the greatest, but it’s a start, I think.
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@Creg I use an app called Xircle to crop coin images. It does nothing else but crop photos into circles. Then I turn the cropped circular images into side by side images and add the grade in the middle using Photoshop Express
Mr_Spud
Thank you, I get mixed results from the iOS crop. The shadow on the edge can influence it. I’ll take a look at xcircle.
The ANA has eLearning seminars on photography on their website, including using phones and such. I'll look for it later.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Your images don't look bad for a phone camera... do you have a copy stand to put the camera on as you're taking images?
I'm using PowerPoint for final image rendering and then save individual slides as jpeg's... I'm playing around with backgrounds now...
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Found it. I haven't watched it myself, but the instructors are Summer Seminar regulars. It's a 2-hour video probably made in 2020 when Summer Seminar was cancelled.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
I use Lightroom for editing and Photoshop for compositing, but that's an expensive option if you're not doing photography as a serious hobby or profession.
Newbie collector of type and circulated Peace dollars, photographer of places and animals, player of instruments and builder of amplifiers, espresso industry professional, and a person distracted by shiny objects.