r9453 Camera Setup

r9453 · May 13, 2016, 02:01:42 PM

Same 50c coin as before, lights at 10 and 2 (however not pointing straight down at 90 deg. to the coin, more like 45 deg.). With the 4 lights I was trying all sorts of things and I forgot to straighten them back up.

Quote from: 'markn' pid='88627' dateline='1463112876'You're better off having a higher f-stop (F10 or F11) and a slightly slower exposure. You get a slightly depth of focus and (theoretically) it supposed to show toning a better than lower F-stops.

Thanks for your input. I'm not sure if I can change the F-stop. The second image of the 50c is still at f/4.9 but the exposure was 1/500th sec. I'll try the 50c again with the lights directed straight down.

Lights adjusted (the exposure altered itself to 1/1250th sec.) still not quite right (maybe too close):

Fulvio · May 13, 2016, 02:54:15 PM

Try a diffuser.

r9453 · May 13, 2016, 04:06:05 PM

Quote from: 'Fulvio' pid='88635' dateline='1463117055'Try a diffuser.

I have one made up and ready to go.

Coin 140mm from camera:

Coin 100mm from camera:

Fulvio · May 13, 2016, 06:35:26 PM

That's diffused light? Still seems to have hot spots. Try moving the lights further away.

r9453 · May 13, 2016, 07:17:17 PM

Quote from: 'Fulvio' pid='88649' dateline='1463130326'That's diffused light? Still seems to have hot spots. Try moving the lights further away.

Yep, a 2L milk container, it might need some fine tuning. Hang the expense I will make another and try again tomorrow.

trout · May 13, 2016, 08:37:11 PM

I set my camera up last year with a lot of help from members on this forum :good::heart:
I have totally forgotten what I did but most of the images I take now are fairly acceptable .
I think if I try to mess about with the settings again I would bugger it up now :angel:

r9453 · May 15, 2016, 06:44:00 AM

There are some very helpful and skillful photographers on this forum and I thank them. Your photos are much better than acceptable. My latest mistake was to add the extra lights, once I went back to the original configuration my results returned - I still need to fine tune a few things but I would say they are acceptable.

trout · May 15, 2016, 08:18:36 AM

Have a play around using different background colours.
Mrs Trout cut out some nice soft cotton squares in different colours for me.
I found the light grey produced nice results with silver :good:

Fulvio · May 15, 2016, 05:42:01 PM

Quote from: 'trout' pid='88711' dateline='1463266116'Have a play around using different background colours.

Yes, and also raise the coin off the background. The separation, loss of shadow and putting the backdrop out of focus will help.

r9453 · July 01, 2016, 01:08:38 PM

I don't seem to be able to reproduce the camera settings which worked reasonably well previously. The current settings are on the left and previous on the right. It looks to me that if I could get the shutter speed down to less than 1/500 things would improve a lot. Correct me if I'm wrong but 1/2000 or even 1/1000 does not allow for enough light.

The shots of the incuse 50c have similar settings to those on the left.

There is no direct setting on the camera for shutter speed or F-stop. You can indirectly influence these things by adjusting the shooting mode and light source which I have tried.

EDIT: I tried again yesterday, took about 50 shots of the same coin but could not get the shutter speed below 1/1000. Moving the coin further away helped but there is a diminishing return in that once the distance is > 150mm the image becomes too small.