Photographing Bronzes

[Dino]

OK, I will be the first to admit that my skills definitely do not lie in photography.  I'm getting a little better at silver but still have huge issues photographing bronze.  Two pics .  One - the one you can actually see - is a dealer's picture.  The other is my attempt taken at f9 1/100sec indirect lighting with a Canon Rebel digital camera.  Lens that came with the camera.  i don't have a macro yet.

Advice appreciated.....

[dougsmit]

The white background is fooling the camera into underexposing the dark coin.  Try adding a stop of exposure compensation for dark coins and see if details perk up.   My Canon tends to produce too much contrast on many coins but I handle that by shooting RAW and processing flatly.  If you have similar problems but want to stay with JPG images, you could bias the in camera processing by lowering the contrast by going to the Parameters menu / Set Up and moving the contrast slider all the way to the left.  You could save that as a separate Parameter set so it would be easy to switch back and forth between lower contrast and normal situations as desired. 

[nikos k]

Dino,i prefer your foto instead of dealers..
Your foto has a lot of character,and gives a feeling to the portrait.
Just a small beam of light on frond face and back of head(in your foto) helps portrait to be "removed" from background,because makes the edges of portrait so intense!
This help's us to concentrate to the portrait,not the empty flan,or the background talking general..
Is exactly like cinema,movies.You have seen million times a portrait(close-up) of an actor at night.Light only at crucial parts of portrait,and a back light to help the edges (hair,hats etc) to be raised from the black backgroung,and give us a clear portrait impression.

Dealers foto is completely FLAT looking,and full of unwanted reflections.
In my opinion your foto helps coin look better.
Of course,this is only my opinion

[bruce61813]

I agree with some of the comments. Your camera is overexposing because of the background. Either get an 18% Gray card, or find some cardboard that is about the same tone as the coin you are photographing.

Bruce

[Dino]

Latest attempt.

f9 and using black background.  Think it's a little better.  Colors seem truer to the coin which is a deep rich brown with reddish highlights.  Focus is just a bit off though. 

[Dino]

Well, using a dark background sems to make a world of difference.  Here's a Philp AE i just rephotographed.

[moonmoth]

There are several Canon Rebel cameras.  which model do you have, and which lens?

Bill

[areich]

What kind of light source do you use?

[Aarmale]

Try scanning.  It usually works for me...

[Arminius]

I´m more satisfied with my pictures since i avoid a direct visible background - either by a thin basis (hidden by the coin) or glass supporting the coin.

For bigger and darker coins - like most bronzes are - i prefer a black distant background:



For tiny bright ones i prefer the distant white background:



The important rest is experimenting with the angle and the distance of the light source.

regards

[Dino]

There are several Canon Rebel cameras.  which model do you have, and which lens?

Bill

Bill,

It's a Canon Rebel XS with the stock 18-55mm lens.  I haven't bought a macro lens yet.

[Dino]

What kind of light source do you use?

Two small halogen lamps behind white nylon screens.

[Dino]

Try scanning.  It usually works for me...

Prbably a good idea, but being a stubborn fellow, I think I'll keep trying to improve my photography.   

[moonmoth]

OK - well, the reason for wanting to know the exact model was so that I could download the manual and give some specific hints.

I hope you are working in aperture priority mode? And with the aperture set somewhere around f8 to f16.  (These are on page 72 of the manual). I would then recommend setting your metering mode to partial metering (page 77 of the manual).  With any luck this will use only the coin itself to set the exposure, and ignore the background.

If the result is still too dark, then play with the exposure compensation setting. Page 78 of the manual. Your camera will set an automatic exposure that makes the result a middle tone, which coins generally are not, and an adjustment will probably help a lot.  On my camera, +1/3 is just right for normal bronzes, +1 for silvers.  Yours will be different and needs some experimentation.

Best of luck!  Please say if you are still having trouble with focus.

Bill

[Dino]

Bill,

Thank you very much!