Sovereign Photo Thread...

[SheepStacker]

A 1918 Sydney Mint Sovereign I picked up the other day.

[Silverlocks]

That one's nice.  I've got a soft spot for Georges - you can get them in this condition fairly easily.  

[Charliemouse]

Quite pleased with the lighting set-up now.

[Silverlocks]

That's a really nice photo.

[Charliemouse]

9 hours ago, Silverlocks said:

That's a really nice photo.

Thank you.  Probably should have removed more of the dust and hairs in the foreground.  They are a nightmare at this scale.  It's a clean, black microfibre cloth, but with a macro photo it looks like a dog blanket.

[Silverlocks]

5 minutes ago, Charliemouse said:

Thank you.  Probably should have removed more of the dust and hairs in the foreground.  They are a nightmare at this scale.  It's a clean, black microfibre cloth, but with a macro photo it looks like a dog blanket.

I started out using black construction paper, which basically doesn't shed fibres and seems to look fairly good in macro shots.  Most of the times I've tweaked the bottom end of the levels a bit to darken it down.  I like the effect it produces, plus it's less inclined to get dust and hairs everywhere as well.

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by Silverlocks

[Charliemouse]

12 minutes ago, Silverlocks said:

I started out using black construction paper, which basically doesn't shed fibres and seems to look fairly good in macro shots.  Most of the times I've tweaked the bottom end of the levels a bit to darken it down.  I like the effect it produces, plus it's less inclined to get dust and hairs everywhere as well.

Yeah, I'm playing with LR now, to see the effect.  Usually I just 'heal brush' the hairs and dust, but when there's a large area, it's painful.  Darkening can produce a rather unreal-looking image too.  I will experiment and see what works.

I like using microfibre because I sometimes photograph proofs without capsules.  Terrifies me every time.

[Silverlocks]

7 minutes ago, Charliemouse said:

Yeah, I'm playing with LR now, to see the effect.  Usually I just 'heal brush' the hairs and dust, but when there's a large area, it's painful.  Darkening can produce a rather unreal-looking image too.  I will experiment and see what works.

I've noticed that - if you do too much to the levels, it's hard to maintain a good colour balance and the end results look a bit like a monochrome image with a single colour tint.  Colour balance is one major area I haven't been able to get to work well so far, although the lustre shot I did on the previous page has worked ok for it.  This one had much less tweaking on the levels than some of the other ones I did before.  That shot was a mixture of axial lighting from Dr. Dave's dohickey and incident lighting from an angle through the glass.

I'm still inching towards buying a camera but the missus is coming for her first kids-free holiday in 6 years or so next week so it will probably have to wait until March.

[Silverlocks]

1895 Old Vic with white balance This is an 1895 Mourning Head Victoria sovereign that I got from the coin show today.  With this one, I took the photo with a grey card and adjusted the white balance from it.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Silverlocks

[modofantasma]

All 9 available dates for Edward VII

1902 -1910

[Silverlocks]

That 1903 is nice.  Better than any of my Eds, I think.

[modofantasma]

2 hours ago, Silverlocks said:

That 1903 is nice.  Better than any of my Eds, I think.

Yes I just had my tube of Ed's and that was about the nicest. Those are about the nicest I've got of each year currently for the run photo too (I've not got duplicates of all years but some years I've a bunch)

[modofantasma]

[Charliemouse]

Lots of different ways to photograph the Memorial set.  I especially like the obverses of the full and half, with the sort of burnished-look.

Double:

Full:

Half:

Quarter:

[Silverlocks]

Another attempt at lustre shots - some sovereigns I picked up recently These coins have a reasonable amount of the original mint finish.  There is some wear but the mint lustre with its anisotropic reflection patterns are still visible in the fields.  These are the same coins in Today I Received, but taken with with a mixture of axial and incident lighting.  The images are slightly over exposed to highlight the reflection.  1903 Edward VII

1894 Mourning Victoria

1889 Jubilee Victoria

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by Silverlocks

[Solachesis]

Finally got my one of each monarch sorted (excluding the obvious extremely expensive ones) might go for one of each effigy next. 

Next sovereign will either be a young head or Machin 

[Silverlocks]

4 hours ago, Solachesis said:

Finally got my one of each monarch sorted (excluding the obvious extremely expensive ones) might go for one of each effigy next. 

Next sovereign will either be a young head or Machin 

Did you get the Ed from @PapaLazarou?

[Solachesis]

2 minutes ago, Silverlocks said:

Did you get the Ed from @PapaLazarou?

I did indeed!

[Silverlocks]

Just now, Solachesis said:

I did indeed!

I guessed so.  I did think about buying it at one point but was trying to be disciplined and I've already got a 1909.  It was the nicest of his Eds and is in pretty decent nick - you can still see most of the detail in his hair, which is prone to wear.

[SheepStacker]

4 hours ago, Silverlocks said:

I guessed so.  I did think about buying it at one point but was trying to be disciplined and I've already got a 1909.  It was the nicest of his Eds and is in pretty decent nick - you can still see most of the detail in his hair, which is prone to wear.

I've always struggled to find decent condition Eds out in the wild. My 1909 is the closest one I have in 'decent' (?!) condition.

[Silverlocks]

Lustre shot - 1918S George V I got some less diffuse lights from Amazon for the princely sum of £28 or so, which highlight the coin's lustre better than the flat panel lights.  So, here's a little experiment with the setup - the photos are slightly overexposed to highlight the reflections, which I'm sure @Charliemouse will be horrified by.  Lighting is from 12 O'clock and about 7:30 as the phone's body gets in the way of lighting from 6.  The lights also have warm filters.

[Silverlocks]

Lustre Shot - 1958 Gillick Another lustre shot with the lighting set up a little differently to get better lighting on the bottom of the coin.  This time, easing off on the exposure a bit.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Silverlocks

[Silverlocks]

More lustre shots Some recent and not-so-recent acquisitions of older coins that still show much of the original finish.  These have made an appearance further up, but I'm taking shots with the less diffuse lighting. Enjoy 1903 Edward VII
1894 Mourning Victoria
1889 Jubilee Victoria
1877 Young Victoria

Edited February 24, 2023 by Silverlocks

[Charliemouse]

2022 Memorial BU Quintuple Sovereign

This is using my default set-up:

• Camera square on, close to the coin's primary axis.
• Variable, wide light panel above the camera, providing primary illumination
• One small panel at 12 o'clock in-line with the plane of the coin, to emphasise depth.  Without this, the coin can light very flat.
• One small panel at 3 o'clock, in front of the coin at about 45 degrees.  This give a little asymmetry.

Taken as a panorama with focus stacking, generating a single image 8.3k x 7.7k pixels.

Since it's a BU coin, I will experiment with using point light sources, to show off the texture.  It will be challenging while it's still in the capsule, as I am trying to protect the coin as much as possible.  Point sources tend to make ugly reflections on capsules (and proof coins).

Edited February 24, 2023 by Charliemouse

[Silverlocks]

Some more new lights - and a 1911 Gorgeous George This is a NewMowa SL-60AI flat LED panel with a clamp for a smart phone sitting at about 7 O'Clock and illuminating the bottom of the coin, and a Smallrig RM-01 LED spot illuminating from 11 O'Clock (the clamp for the macro lens is in the way otherwise).  After some confabulation with @Charliemouse, there are is also a ham-fisted attempt at replicating his RGB curve examples in the Raw importer on Photoshop CS6.  None of these lights were terribly expensive and all are obtainable off the usual suspects on the interwebs. I've also refrained from pulling the bottom end of the levels so far down, and the result is something that looks the most like an actual gold coin of any of my photos so far.

Edited February 24, 2023 by Silverlocks