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Back into collecting after a long time away. Putting a few raw NEWPs, looking for your opinions.
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morbidsteve
Posts: 572 ✭✭✭
Here's the first one I've done with my little setup (5d Mark IV, two YN560s, 100mm macro). Camera is on a tripod pointing down of course, the two two flashes at 930 or so and 1 or so.
Looking for comments, thoughts, ideas on my setup for photography. I'm exporting from lightroom at 60% for size reasons, but otherwise I think the detail is lacking a bit.
I'm thinking this bad boy is definitely VAM-70, doubled "RIB", MS60/1. What do you think?
And here's VAM-31, Lines through wing. MS62?
It's great to be back in an area where there are coin dealers I can frequent and browse their selection as I did today. Living in Hawaii the options are few and far between.
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FWIW I like the VAM31. Sorry I know nothing about photography except that Todd is my guy and there are plenty other really good photographers here. TomB, Messy Desk, Crazyhoundog to name a few.
"Look up, old boy, and see what you get." -William Bonney.
The pictures are good, but a bit too dark .... This from a non-expert...so take it as just a comment.... Cheers, RickO
I use 2 Jansjo LED lights pointing directly down at 12: O’clock parallel with the lens. Seems to really make the coin Pop Out when taking a picture. Very affordable price takes up very little space.
IMO, photos a bit dark but otherwise fantastic.
Thanks for the comments thus far. @Gluggo I just ordered two of those lights, so we'll see how that makes it look, I'll try doing the same as you.
@ricko @thisistheshow I will also try lowering the aperture to get in more light for a brighter photo.
Awesume here is my set up using 4 lights defused. I cheated since I really have little knowledge on how to shoot a camera, as I bought the camera setup through RPMS who is a member here. I already had the Camera and different lens. It came with the bellows system. I hear he has his prices very reasonable if you have your own camera.
If you're shooting through the flip, you need to remove the coin so the plastic doesn't affect the image.
No I was only showing the camera set up. That item in the flip is some sort of die hub I picked up.
Forgive me, but there is nothing other than focus that is good about those images.
@rmpsrpms is a scholar. He is especially talented at image detail. I have no doubt his photography setups can produce very satisfying results for many.
Shooting good images takes lots of practice and a creative mind to different techniques.
Lance.
Okay, so I updated my setup. Got two of the Jansjo LED lights @Gluggo recommended. Placed them at 10 and 2. Then I have another LED light at 6. Here's some of those pictures. What do you think?
VAM-31, Lines through wing.
@lkeigwin Do you find these any better?
@rmpsrpms I'm curious for your input.
I'll do some searching here for setup help, if anyone has any suggestions please let me know.
These look better than the first ones, but the color still seems off. Are you doing auto white balance? If you don't want to do manual white balance, you can just select the "tungsten" or "incandescent" setting, and this will get you pretty close to the right color for Jansjos.
Edited to add: the lights are coming from much higher in the second set, but if you can get them even higher (closer to the lens, or even almost between the coin and lens) then the coin may "pop" more.
I'd also suggest removing the LED at 6 since it looks like it's a different color, so will make white balance very tough.
http://macrocoins.com
@rmpsrpms Thanks for the input. I moved the lights up a bit higher (currently have the 100mm macro on a 5d iv body, and the lights are now about 2 inches above the lens front and an inch or two off the side). I've also manually set the white balance here, using lightroom, selecting the balance on the first "8".
Next, I'll try the lens higher and the lights in between the lens and the coin.
Here it is higher up with the lights between lens and coin. My untrained eye does not see too much difference, but maybe some.
The last set you just posted doesn't have quite the sharpness of the previous post. Either your focus is just a hair off maybe from adjusting the lights, or maybe your shutter speed is just a bit slow. I always find live view helps. Once you have it locked down on a tripod that is solid, you can turn on the live view to manually focus with magnification to really make sure it's perfect. If your shutter speed is on the slow side, you can also turn on mirror lock up to reduce any mirror vibration that can also reduce the sharpness.
Collector of randomness. Photographer at PCGS. Lover of Harry Potter.
White balance still seems to be changing shot to shot. Not sure why.
SiriusBlack is spot on suggesting Live View, but if you use Live View, there is no need to do mirror lockup. EFSC is active in Live view, and eliminates any benefit of mirror lockup.
Lighting looks good, maybe even better on the shots before the last ones.
Please make the mottoes level. Pet peeve of mine. IGWT should be level, and the date should be centered at the bottom.
http://macrocoins.com
Here we are looking level, yes? With micro adjustments through LV, and mirror lockup. I think they are looking pretty good.
It's pretty cool to see major improvements in results over the course of a couple of days with some input from forum experts. Morbidsteve is a quick study!
If you're using the EOS Utility to tether your camera to the computer there is also a grid option you can use to help guide you in straightening out the motto.
- Bob -
MPL's - Lincolns of Color
Central Valley Roosevelts
Yes, looking much better. IGWT is still a bit tilted but not annoying.
I see a fair amount of chromatic aberrations in the images. These show up worst on blown highlights. Take a look up-close on the eagle's neck. These aberrations give the affected areas an unnatural hue. The feathers on the eagle's neck have a reddish hue, while the fields, especially lower left side, have a greenish hue. On the obverse, the high points of the bust are reddish, while the fields are greenish. There are a few things you can do to help this:
1) Adjust your exposure down by 1/3 or maybe 2/3 EV. This will minimize the blown highlights. You can compensate with a little adjustment later.
2) Close-down the aperture a bit. You don't say in your post but I assume these are taken around f/4? I generally try to shoot around f/11 "effective" aperture, which in this case on your 5DM4 and shooting Dollars would be f/6.7 nominal setting, so adjust to whatever is closest to that. You are using Av (aperture priority) mode, correct?
3) Your pro level camera should have lens correction data for your 100mm macro lens. Look up how to turn that correction on. Most of the chromatic aberrations will magically disappear! The hue changes will probably still be there if you don't stop the lens down. The lens corrections are mostly for lateral aberrations, but the hue changes are due to longitudinal aberrations, and these can't be corrected for.
My only last comment is actually another pet peeve...I hate to see the coin go all the way to the edge of the image. Personally I like to make the coin cover 90-95% of the frame, so 2.5-5% of the frame is black on top/bottom/sides.
http://macrocoins.com
So, adjusted as you dictated, but for the 1/3 or 2/3 stop reduction, I increase aperature (f4 to f6.3) while reducing shutter speed from 200 to 160. Also, at the moment, I don't have the lens showing up in Lightroom for the profile (i.e. CA or distortion) which I have never ran into before. I'll figure that out soon.
And then I just realized your last comment. I need to check some of your photos to see if I like how it looks with the 90-95% of the frame. I have just done to the edges for this one again. Next time I'll check it out and see if I like it how you suggest. The only thing is I'm just doing this on an crappy desk.... I just PCSed from Hawaii to MD and don't have everything in my house setup yet.
Are these better?
Well, here's another photo with a bit more on the edges. What do you think?
Something bad happened for your latest shots. Similar to your first shots, these are too dark, have too much contrast, and too much sharpening. Did you change the Picture Style? It looks like you're probably using "Standard" style, which will give a look like this if you don't play around with the sub-settings. Also, if you're adjusting shutter speed, you must be in M mode, correct? I highly recommend Av mode, so that the metering is more automatic. Then you can adjust the under/over exposure using exposure compensation. The chromatic aberrations look better, but overall you need to go back to way you did it earlier.
http://macrocoins.com
If you made those adjustments in M mode you may need to adjust your ISO setting to compensate a bit. That would explain the darker image your now getting now that @rmpsrpms is talking about.
Essentially your ISO is the sensitivity. If you changed your f-stop up from f4 to 6.3, that isn’t a 1/3 to 2/3 adjustment, that was a 1 1/3 difference. Going from 200 to 160th speed got 1/3 brighter but that’s still an over all decrease of a full stop of light from your previous photos.
And yes @rmpsrpms is totally right about the mirror lockup. My brain apparently stopped for a bit
Sorry about that.
Collector of randomness. Photographer at PCGS. Lover of Harry Potter.
My set-up is so much different from what is being used here that I really can't offer much advice. @rmpsrpms has good ideas.
Chief among the issues is color. White balance needs serious work. The black background doesn't help.
Lighting is another issue. I strongly dislike LED's and think halogen produces best results. But I've seen lovely images from forum members who've mastered other lights. So maybe it's just something to be worked on.
The below image isn't ideal. I just grabbed something as an example. This, to me, is closer to what an untoned Morgan looks like.
Lance.
@rmpsrpms I'll switch over to Av. I was shooting manual to make those adjustments, yes. Didn't change the picture style or anything like that though. I'm not sure why it changed so dramatically. I'm going to try again here in a few minutes.
@SiriusBlack I'll be setting the focus in LV through the EOS utility, then switch over to LR to take the shots. Thanks
@lkeigwin Do you think shooting on white paper would be better? The black background is just the table I'm shooting on. I'll try something on the table between the desk and the coin on this next shot. Also on the white balance, what are you using to adjust (aka are you using something to do it automagically, or are you adjusting until you think it looks good?
Thanks again for the help. Will have the next photo here in a minute.
Okay, hopefully this reflects positively on everything so far. I think the white balance is a bit better, details are pretty good without being all grainy like some of the photos, and I have some white paper there for the background. What do you think?
Definitely better. It needs more light. You can add some exposure with your editor. Work the shadows a little. Warm the color with WB.
If you're shooting raw (and you should be) these are very easy editor adjustments. My swag below is working from your jpg which is less desirable.
Lance.
Ikeigwin's edits look good. It's actually better to under-expose a little and then edit as Ikeigwin did. As Ansel Adams said, "expose for highlights and process for shadows". Another way to do this is to reduce the contrast subsetting in your picture style to -4, and of course sharpness to 0. If you're using Standard style then the basic settings are sharpness 3 and contrast 0. It's usually better to minimize the contrast and sharpening out of camera, then adjust them carefully later. Personally I would recommend Neutral style, and turn contrast down to -4. This provides the best mapping of the 14bit RAW file to the 8bit jpg, and thus gives the best "raw material" for later editing.
http://macrocoins.com