Sovereign Photo Thread...

[Silverlocks]

So today a young Vic arrived and there was a nice surprise - I didn't actually order a shield specifically; the coin was a little over £370 from Blundell's and they have some Young Vics in stock if you fancy getting one, although presumably not all shields.  This time I've broken out the macro lens, mainly to get a good look at the detail on the reverse.  This one actually seems like a pretty nice example; I think EF or so on both sides. There are a few dings in the rim, but the surface on both sides is in pretty good nick with decent lustre remaining. Click on the images to zoom in.  They're pretty high resolution thanks to the macro lens.  Unfortunately the macro lens makes it next to impossible to get the whole thing into focus.  I also finally found a use for the stylus on the phone - light touch on the screen controls.

Only minor wear on the hair with most of the detail remaining - I think this qualifies as an about EF or maybe an EF.  Minor scratching on the surface but still has a pretty good lustre.  Fortunately not quite so much lustre as the Gillick I tried photographing - this was much, much easier to get decent photos of.

The reverse is also in good nick, perhaps a more comfortable EF than the obverse.  You can still see all of the detail, including the lions which are apparently the first to go.  Sydney mint mark (above the Rose at the bottom) - Not particularly rare with a mintage around 1.5m.  Actually looked up something in my Marsh book.

Edit: Spent a bit of time diddling about with focus and sharpening in post and got better detail.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Silverlocks

[SheepStacker]

Another slurp from the trade board. Not the best condition, but for the price, I ain't arguing.

 

[AaaGee]

6 minutes ago, SheepStacker said:

Another slurp from the trade board. Not the best condition, but for the price, I ain't arguing.

 

Looks good to me. Over 100 years old. Id be proud to own it 😎

[SheepStacker]

Here's a nicer one.

1985 Full Sov

[codenamedtango]

10 minutes ago, SheepStacker said:

Here's a nicer one.

1985 Full Sov

Nice!

[SheepStacker]

2012 Full Sovereign.

Quite a tricky coin to photo, the strike is very light. Lizzie has a Glasgow Kiss as well.

[drakesterling]

A rare-date 1929M sovereign in PCGS MS63.

[SheepStacker]

A nice 1891 Melbourne Jubilee Sovereign from @DrDave. Very nice condition considering the price paid.

 

Edited December 2, 2022 by SheepStacker

[drakesterling]

An 1872 Sydney St George sovereign in PCGS MS62. There are just 11 in this grade with PCGS, and one finer.

[SheepStacker]

3 minutes ago, drakesterling said:

An 1872 Sydney St George sovereign in PCGS MS62. There are just 11 in this grade with PCGS, and one finer.

That's an absolute beauty. I have a London 1872, I'll get the camera out now and take a pic. Nowhere near as nice as yours. Can I be rude and ask how much you paid (and when)?

[SheepStacker]

4 minutes ago, SheepStacker said:

That's an absolute beauty. I have a London 1872, I'll get the camera out now and take a pic. Nowhere near as nice as yours. Can I be rude and ask how much you paid (and when)?

Apologies, mine is an 1871! Here's the pics anyway:

[Silverlocks]

16 hours ago, drakesterling said:

An 1872 Sydney St George sovereign in PCGS MS62. There are just 11 in this grade with PCGS, and one finer.

That is in very good nick.  There's a little bit of scuffing but all the detail in the hair is still visible and it looks like the finish is mostly intact.  

[SheepStacker]

A nice 1880 Melbourne G&D I picked up this week. Clearly been cleaned, but nice condition.

[thepigeonpoacher]

My first sovereign. 1860. I paid £390.

[Silverlocks]

And now that @DrDave's little gizmo has arrived, here's a test with the shield I got the other day.  Not too shabby.  The direct lighting does a much better job of showing the details of the coin.  Thank you @DrDave.

[SheepStacker]

Here's a cheap 1864 Shield I purchased recently. Not the best condition, but an interesting bit of crud above the date. Thought I'd share.

[Silverlocks]

And you can also do this - here's a bit of specular reflection brought in from the side to complement the relatively flat effect of the gizmo.  Bringing some specular reflection from the side highlights the nice satin finish on this 1958 Gillick.

[SheepStacker]

7 minutes ago, Silverlocks said:

And you can also do this - here's a bit of specular reflection brought in from the side to complement the relatively flat effect of the gizmo.  Bringing some specular reflection from the side highlights the nice satin finish on this 1958 Gillick.

What camera do you use? Does it have manual focus? I usually get good results by locking in on "B.P.", brings the horse and George nicely into focus.

I can't get my coins to shine like yours though!

[Silverlocks]

I'm using a Samsung Note 10, just the built-in camera on it.  Within its limitations it can work fairly well, It does have a manual focus in 'pro' mode, which seems to be a little hit and miss and I usually struggle to get really sharp focus on it, despite the indicators looking right.  If I just let it auto-focus on ordianry mode, it will focus just fine, but that will only save potato quality JPEGs with nasty artifacts.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Silverlocks

[Silverlocks]

It looks like I can manoeuvre the macro lens into the picture, and with the gizmo, the lighting blocks out the reflection of the lens in the coin.  Focus is still not quite right but we can get nice high resolution photos.  These are actually shrunk down by about 50% as the cropped pics were something like 2000 pixels across.

[SheepStacker]

1 minute ago, Silverlocks said:

It looks like I can manoeuvre the macro lens into the picture, and with the gizmo, the lighting blocks out the reflection of the lens in the coin.  Focus is still not quite right but we can get nice high resolution photos.  These are actually shrunk down by about 50% as the cropped pics were something like 2000 pixels across.

Yes this is much better mate!

[Silverlocks]

Here I'm trying @DrDave's dohickey with a 1909 Edward 7 sov.  This one has some red spots but the coin itself is in quite good nick.  Ed 7 is a pretty indistinct effigy at the best of times, so it's not easy to tell how worn it is.  In this case the ear is still in pretty good condition, and most of the finish is intact.  The obverse is at least a gVF by the look of it, as most of the detail is still visible. The reverse also still has most of its detail, although there is a bit of visible wear on the dragon. Getting the camera on the phone to focus properly is still aspirational, and for some reason the colour saturation always seems a bit washed out.  I did tweak it a little in Photoshop. You can see a bit of specular reflection from the side because I've had to prop the coin up out of the cup in order to get it into the focal length of the macro lens.  The photos are shrunk by about 50% from their native resolution.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Silverlocks

[refero]

beautiful sisters that just got 200 years old)

[Charliemouse]

On 07/12/2022 at 19:48, Silverlocks said:

It looks like I can manoeuvre the macro lens into the picture, and with the gizmo, the lighting blocks out the reflection of the lens in the coin.  Focus is still not quite right but we can get nice high resolution photos.  These are actually shrunk down by about 50% as the cropped pics were something like 2000 pixels across.

You have the lighting level nice now, and the 'side' lighting is showing the depth well.

As for focus.  You have the top right quarter almost perfectly in focus on both shots, but the rest of it is out.  Unless this is a really weird fault of the camera, it is almost certainly because your focal plane isn't exactly parallel to the face of the coin.  With such a narrow depth of field, this is easy to do.  If I understand correctly, when you say "manual focus" I assume you mean that you are selecting a point on the screen that the phone is focusing on.  Your phone is still autofocusing, but you are telling it what to focus on.  Alternatively, does you macro attachment have a focus ring?  If so, it will be focusing in addition to the phone's own focus.  What photographers would mean by manual focus is manually turning the focus dial of a lens, and taking the electronics out of the equation.

So with that DOF, you have two choices.  Either get the camera exactly in line with the coin face and still run the risk with bigger or deeper coins of not having everything in focus.  Or take multiple shots, focusing at different points, and do post-processing to merge the images into one sharp image (focus stacking).

 

 

 

[Silverlocks]

1 minute ago, Charliemouse said:

[ . . . ]

  If I understand correctly, when you say "manual focus" I assume you mean that you are selecting a point on the screen that the phone is focusing on.  Your phone is still autofocusing, but you are telling it what to focus on. 

No.  It's a slider control on the screen where you can explicitly set the focus.  'Pro' mode turns off the auto-focus.

2 minutes ago, Charliemouse said:

Alternatively, does you macro attachment have a focus ring?  If so, it will be focusing in addition to the phone's own focus. 

Unfortunately the macro lens doesn't have any focusing control of its own.  It's literally just a lens on a clip roughly the shape of a clothes peg that clips over the phone.

5 minutes ago, Charliemouse said:

So with that DOF, you have two choices.  Either get the camera exactly in line with the coin face and still run the risk with bigger or deeper coins of not having everything in focus.  Or take multiple shots, focusing at different points, and do post-processing to merge the images into one sharp image (focus stacking).

This is a phrase I've seen before.  I have Adobe CS6 Design Standard (includes Photoshop) and can remote control the camera via PC link if needed.  Can you explain a 5 minute version of how to do focus stacking?