Charliemouse

Thanks to @MickD for supplying my first £5 sovereign.

A deeper description of photographing proof sovereigns. Equipment: Nikon D850, 150mm macro, tripod with macro head, remote trigger, LED light panel 5600K with diffusion paper, light box with black lining. Settings: f/16, ISO 100, -1 stop exposure comp, shutterless, focus peaking, RAW at max resolution. Image 1 This was a single exposure, straight on. Because the coin was parallel to the image plane, I could take a single shot and have it all in focus. f/16 is the smallest aperture I would use; anything higher and diffraction starts to soften the image. Use of a tripod, remote and shutterless exposure means that I can let the exposure time go as high as it wants, and still keep a small aperture and low ISO. Image 2 My favourite. The coin was angled up about 20 degrees, capturing the depth and giving a soft light across the fields. The coin is pointing almost directly at the light, and this is where the diffusion paper is essential, not only to stop harsh reflections but simply to increase the area of the light source. Much more difficult to capture, the coin is no longer parallel to the sensor, so I need to focus stack 7 images to get the whole coin in focus.

Clever little 'lenticular' coin from @Panda6Pack. Was quite challenging to get the angles to show the two images.

Some "Yesterday I received". First up, a shipwreck 8 Reales from El Cazador (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Cazador_(ship)), via @Mrpound. (If I'd been on the bottom of the sea for that long, I'd probably look a bit worn too.)

Personally, at the moment, I am leaning towards it not existing, or at least being very rare. Simply because it's only 7 years ago, and if it was common I would be amazed no one here has one.

Indeed. And as you see above, two editions of Marsh disagree.

I still can't find any solid evidence, like a photograph or sales listing. It's very elusive if it exists. According to @Petra the only non-proof 2015 JC sovereigns might be a handful of SotD coins for the royal birth. Considering it's not that long ago, I'd be amazed if someone on here didn't have one, or at least have heard of one.

The case of the disappearing 343.

I have the 2021 edition. The previous page ends on 342.

Good work. I think it's great that you are trying different things and learning. I think we can safely say you've fixed your dynamic range problem. Considering you don't care about detail in the background, the histogram on the last shot is effectively spot on. It meets zero almost perfectly at the right edge. The tiny little bump at the end of the red is the only clipping. If you are perceiving glare, you may have your monitor turned up a little high. That said, I don't think what you've done is wrong - it's an aesthetic choice. Sovereigns are very difficult. I find the newest, super-shiny ones to be the worst. Very difficult to keep detail in them.

According to the Marsh book, no. 343 does not exist. Jumps from 341 (bullion) and 342 (proof) IRB, to 344 (proof) Clark in 2015. According to the price guide that comes with the book, 343 does exist, and is of normal value, therefore presumably relatively common. My guess is that the price guide is wrong. But does anyone know for certain?

Awwww. Congratulations. Keep adding more rings, you'll have a gauntlet soon!

Arrival from @arphethean. Very unusual and intricate design. Love the Tokelau coins. Of course, the Golden Ratio has been used in photography, and art in general, for a long time as a composition guide. I took the usual 'face on' shots, but decided to do an edge shot to show-off the details. Needed a stack of 17 images to get the whole thing, varying the focus by a couple of mm or so each time.

I see what you did there. The latest edition of Marsh gets a tonne of bad reviews because of inaccuracies. Is it still worth it? It's not exactly cheap, as books go. Especially books that periodically get replaced.

Thanks for the comments. I find the white balance* to be the biggest problem here. Most phones (and cameras for that matter) on automatic, are pretty good at guessing white balance for your average scene, because they have been programmed to look for clues in the average scene. For macro shots, they don't know what to look at. Often, they will look at a gold coin, assume that's meant to be 'white' and map all the colours accordingly. So, you get washed-out 'silver' gold coins. Because the camera can't guess what colour light you are using, you need to tell it. Usually, phones and cameras have an option to change from 'Auto' white balance to a specific light source: incandescent, fluorescent, cloudy, sunny, etc. Try them all, and see which one matches your light. Best of all, shoot raw! Again, this is a big topic, but one of the advantages of raw is that it just records the data from the sensor. It doesn't apply a white balance filter. So, you can apply one later. This avoids trying to fix the wrong white balance further down the line, which can get messy. Finally, I use a light panel** that allows me to set the colour temperature precisely. I set it to the typical daylight value of 5,600K. When I'm processing my photos, I tell the software that the colour temperature is 5,600K. Gets it right every time. * White Balance is the actual colour, or temperature, of the 'white' light in a scene. The light from an old-fashioned light bulb is a very different colour to the light from an LED, and very different again from the Sun. Colour temperature is measured in Kelvin, and can realistically be anything from about 2,000K to about 10,000K. This is a huge subject, and entire books have been written on colour temperature alone. Your eyes (and brain) automatically adjust, so you don't usually perceive the difference. ** The one I own is an IVISII G2 Pocket RGB Video Light, which I highly recommend. Others are available.

I guess because it's a memorial to QEII, but all newly issued coins feature KCIII ongoing. So it indicates the transition. The coronation is the formal ceremony to recognise the new monarch. He is already the King, and became so the moment the Queen died. I don't think it has any effect on coinage.

Thanks again to @richatthecroft. A 5oz silver coin celebrating the Platinum Jubilee, with dates a little more poignant than perhaps they anticipated.

Here's the histogram of your shot: The good news is that you are nowhere near clipping, at either end, but especially the top end. That means the dynamic range of the camera is easily capable of capturing the dynamic range of the scene. Cool. The bad news is that, yes, it's a bit dark. You have far too much head room, i.e. you are not using all of the dynamic range available to you. So, there's certainly space to adjust the exposure compensation to make the image brighter. This will also mean you will have less noise in your image, which unfortunately it has a lot of. That probably means you have a high ISO because there's not enough light and/or your shutter speed is too high. Slowing the shutter speed may mean you will need to use a tripod - if you still want to do handheld shots, try to brighten the light. Of course, digital noise is relatively easy to remove in post, but it will never be as good as if there was no noise at all. Also, your image has a load of jpeg artefacts in it. Try exporting with at least 80-90% quality - the files are tiny by modern standards anyway. Last negative is your focusing is slightly off. If you can manually focus, do so. Macro shots are really tough for camera autofocus. Also try to use a narrower aperture to improve DOF, but not too narrow (max f/16). Finally, I have taken the liberty of running your image through some modern noise and sharpening filters, to make the most of it. It's a good image, and you should be pleased with it. Everything can be improved.

Theoretically, they are audited. Theoretically.

A gorgeous set of QEII proof portraits from 2013. Consisting of 4x piedfort silver coins, supplied by @richatthecroft. A fair amount of spotting here and there. I am very torn whether to do something about it or not - in this case it's not unsightly to me, and adds a bit of character. (The patch at the bottom that looks like a fingerprint is actually the reflection of the cloth.)

Mintage: 750 As many as we can sell.

Now sold out.

Moral of the story: people will complain.

I was on the mint's site late morning yesterday, and the 4-sets and 5-sets were sold out. Chards were all available. I went back on in the afternoon, and RM were selling 5-sets again, but Chards were out. Interesting how it goes.