Photographing Gold Coins

numismantra · December 1, 2003 9:47AM

I'm trying to figure out the best way to get good quality photos of gold coins. What equipment would I need and what
technique should be used?

darktone · December 1, 2003 12:02PM

Are you talking about mint state or proof coins? I can try to help you with mint state coins. mike

FC57Coins · December 1, 2003 12:15PM

Took this picture recently with my Sony Mavica - edited with Paint Pro 6 and Lview Pro

Used regular incandescent lighting - the coin is in a PCGS AU50 holder.

nwcs · December 1, 2003 10:05PM

Well, there are many "it depends on"s involved.

If raw, a black backdrop will make the coin look better. Usually you want 2 to 4 lamps lighting the coin at various angles. Just be sure not to overexpose. Use the macro mode of the digital camera. Set the white balance to the light source you are using. Should be all you need.

pmh1nic · December 1, 2003 10:40PM

I took these with a Ricoh RDC-5000 and a one regular incandescent bulb. Lighting is a key factor and I could do a better job of it. Two or three light sources is better than one:

LanLord · December 1, 2003 11:31PM

Send them to me.

Oh, this won't help your photography skills, just,,, send them to me

numismantra · December 2, 2003 12:44AM

Let me clarify. I was needing advice on photographing mint state gold coins.

FC57Coins · December 2, 2003 12:47AM

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh - I don't know that it matters. Sorry - I thought I had some unc. gold loaded in my server - unfortunaltely I only have circulated poopy stuff

cosmicdebris · December 2, 2003 1:54AM

Olympus C3000 and 1 OTTLITE:

pmh1nic · December 2, 2003 3:56AM

"Let me clarify. I was needing advice on photographing mint state gold coins."

That GSA is a beautifu example of a MS coin

.

You can get some decent results with just about any of the cameras mentioned (Sony, Ricoh, Olympus, etc.). More important is probably going to be having the correct settings dialed in for your camera and the lighting/background you'll be using. Does your camera have different settings for natural versus incandescent versus florescent lighting? What about white balance settings? The same coin in a PCGS slab versus an NGC slab versus raw will look different if the picture is shot using the same settings.

There are some folks on here that can give you a lot of direction on your set-up but I've found a lot of what goes into getting a good picture is trial and a whole lot of error

. A slight change in lighting angle or using a different background color or playing with the white balance may be required to get the picture that closest represents the actually coin (or what you wish the coin looked like

).

Enjoy your playtime

.

darktone · December 2, 2003 9:12AM

numismantra, look at some of the pictures in my $5 liberty collection and if you like this type of look I can tell you how I got them. mike

Photographing Gold Coins

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