Coins that look "much, MUCH, better in hand" than in the photo

[daverino]

I don't know if this question has been addressed before but my coin photos look terrible. They seem to greatly overplay the defects in the coin. It is alright if the coin is XF+ but fairly ordinary erosion on the surface is made to look like moon craters. I would phrase it either of two ways:

1) the magnitude of small pits are made to look much deeper relative to the sculptural relief than they actually are

or

2) The silvery highlights that accentuate the overall relief of the portrait etc. are missing.

An example is shown of a Sept Severus denarius I just got. It really is much, MUCH, better in hand. I use macro mode here but it is about the same either way. Is it my technique or is it my camera? Thanks

[Mark Z]

Dave,

There's a whole topic devoted to this subject:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?board=14.0

Lots of good ideas over there!

mz

[Akropolis]

In my highly limited experience...and ignorance where cameras are concerned...the camera doesn't "lie," except in colors, and that is often a human failure in settings and/or lighting. Surface textures are what they are...enhanced by shadows perhaps, but they are what they are.
PeteB

[dougsmit]

I agree with Pete.  The camera does not lie but your eyes do.  Most of us look a coins 'in hand' from a couple feet away. When you take a photo with a good camera and enlarge the picture to 100 times the size of the coin the result is like what you see under a stereo microscope where all secrets are revealed.  I have a few coins that can stand up to this treatment but most of my photos are much to big to be fair to the coin's 'in hand' look.  If I were selling you my coins, I'd be better off showing 200x300 pixel files rather than 2000x3000!

[daverino]

It is fair to say that "the camera doesn't lie" and the best way to get a good picture is to start with a good coin. On the other hand I think that most digital photography tends to flatten out the sculptural relief on a coin and play up surface detail and graininess. Perhaps high end cameras can do the smooth transition from highlight to halftone to shadow and emphasize the coin features that a human eye is most sensitive to while showing great detail. Aside from that I think that Doug is right. Trying to get maximum resolution is a mistake if you don't have the best equipment.

[Andrew McCabe]

If I were selling you my coins, I'd be better off showing 200x300 pixel files rather than 2000x3000!

Aside from that I think that Doug is right. Trying to get maximum resolution is a mistake if you don't have the best equipment.

I think there are two issues.

How you sell your coins is one matter but for personal purposes, even for a worn coin, I'd always seek to make the highest resolution photo. There may be important details e.g. hidden traces of plating, clarity on defects etc, that an owner would want to know for scientific reasons, and it costs no more to make a hi-res pic. A full-on, warts and all photo, will reveal details like a microscope. Great. One can always reduce the photo for display purposes.

The second is how to make the photo look good (or, charitably, more like the coin in hand). I've participated in a number of debates over the last year on this, where the debaters fall into two camps, the really good photographers (led by Doug and Pat) who advocate establishing the right circumstances (controlled indoor lighting, SLR camera, stand etc) to take coin photos, and the lazy photographers (me) who advocate instead quickly taking multiple shots of the same coin at various angles and in a variety of available natural lighting situations and/or backgrounds, choosing the best outcome - the one that pleases you most - and adjusting lighting, colour contrast, and linearity of lighting (gamma) so that the coin looks terrific (or, charitably, more like the coin in hand). Of course the very best photographs are taken by the really best photographers with great equipment, but the lazy approach is quick and the end results can be quite excellent, comparable to the pre-staged, get-it-right-first-time approach with a lot less work.

By choosing the best shot from many, followed by post-shot adjustment so the coin looks just-right to you, this brings the human factor (your selection) into the picture and thus entirely resolves the "much better in the hand" dilemma. You get to choose.

Here are some recent pics taking using my voting method. I like the Octavian. Tha Lepidus and the gold 20 As with corn-ear could be better - they are shiny coins with surface defects and these were the best compromises I could come up with. The bronze As is terrific. The semis, whilst looking lovely, is still much more powerful in the hand - for example the hair on the obverse is absolutely sharp as a knife and the coin is unworn and of a very large size (33mm, 25 grams), but these aspects do not come across . Incidentally I do have many worse photographed examples but I just know I need a different day and different lighting and different luck to re-shoot them.

Pic links:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4788136950/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4788137846
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4772692575/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4772686395/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4636136343/

[Andrew McCabe]

Incidentally I do have many worse photographed examples but I just know I need a different day and different lighting and different luck to re-shoot them.

Here is another selection of not-well-done photographs. In these cases I need to redo them, the coins in the hand look much better. Here are the defects

The semis is not shiny in the hand, it is a well-surfaced attractive bronze that is easier on the eyes than in the pic

The Vibia denarius is toned with good surfaces (used to be owned by Nelson Bunker Hunt who had an eye for coins) - the lighting however has made the surface sparkle which causes all sorts of bad effects, it makes the surface look worse than it is, hides the nice toning, and gives the impression of reverse wear on the horses that is not present

The Sulla is off-colour and seems grey and flat; in hand the coin looks attractive toned silver and with sharp details

The Valeria Messala - well what can I say. A nicely toned attractively sharp coin has been converted into something unauthentically bluey-purple. It's fine, but it really looks better

The reverse of the Julius Caesar is fine, and is what the coin looks like - old toning, good surfaces. I couldn't get the same matt effect on the obverse and I think the shiny highlights cause it to look less three-dimensional and potentially worn (which it isn't).

The probably common defect of all these photos was not taking in the right sort of diffuse light, causing the metal reflectiveness to get up to all sorts of bad things. I don't know.

Incidentally my camera needs replacing - 5 years old, much abused automatic and some of the mechanisms dont seem to work so well - and I'm seeking a replacement. Any recommendations on a fully-auto for an idiot photographer would be appreciated. I'm thinking of maybe one of the new breed Four Thirds format cameras. Please, if anyone has something appropriate for someone who dislikes photography intensely and wants something that doesn't need thinking about, with a macro-setting that even I can't mess up, then let me know. My tolerance level for technology is low so if I buy a camera where it turns out I need to understand what an f number is, then it will likely gather dust in a cupboard or be given to a nephew. Please help.

Pic links:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4772694215/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4735393370/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4636138151/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4636744520/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4636129591/

[daverino]

Incidentally I do have many worse photographed examples but I just know I need a different day and different lighting and different luck to re-shoot them.

The Vibia denarius is toned with good surfaces (used to be owned by Nelson Bunker Hunt who had an eye for coins) - the lighting however has made the surface sparkle which causes all sorts of bad effects, it makes the surface look worse than it is, hides the nice toning, and gives the impression of reverse wear on the horses that is not present


The probably common defect of all these photos was not taking in the right sort of diffuse light, causing the metal reflectiveness to get up to all sorts of bad things. I don't know.

If I had to draw a distinction between your "good pics" and the "bad pics" it would be that the bad ones don't seem to realize the 3-dimensionality of the coins. Kind of an abstraction that is felt rather than described. Of course they are all great coins and I hear that Mr Hunt had a good eye for many things- as long as they were of silver!

Like you I think that diffuse natural light gives the best effect, in my case the living room windowsill at 9 am - nothing else works so well. So I reshot my Septimius Severus with somewhat better effect than before, I think

[Andrew McCabe]

If I had to draw a distinction between your "good pics" and the "bad pics" it would be that the bad ones don't seem to realize the 3-dimensionality of the coins. Kind of an abstraction that is felt rather than described. Of course they are all great coins and I hear that Mr Hunt had a good eye for many things- as long as they were of silver!

Like you I think that diffuse natural light gives the best effect, in my case the living room windowsill at 9 am - nothing else works so well. So I reshot my Septimius Severus with somewhat better effect than before, I think

That's a pretty amazing and positive difference between the first and second photo. Morning light sounds good, indeed I recall my good photos were shot in similar circumstances and the bad ones in the harsh glare of midday.

[Andrew McCabe]

I too did a reshoot of the coins I was not happy with, see the results below (to avoid confusion the replacements are the top pics in each case but I'd be concerned if it was not obvious!). I am happy with the results.

The only difference in settings was that the top pics were shot in morning diffuse light, the bottom pics in bright light. The diffuse morning light seemed to do a much better job, the top pics seem remarkably more alive and three dimensional to me: the mint lustre on the reverse field of the Caesar, and the die wear on the obverse; the rounded fleshiness of Roma's face on the Valeria, the craggy facial features of Sulla's and Rufus' heads and the sense of metal in all coins.

I would still appreciate any recommendations on a new fully-auto camera for a less-competent photographer, bearing in mind my low tolerance level for photographic technology and methods.