Photographing Coins indoors

[Anonymous]

At Guvner's suggestion I am reposting a question I put on the F-BBS forum.
I have a Nikon 775 and it takes great closeups of my coins in outside lighting and I am talking about photos that I was only 3 inches or less from the coin.
However, when I try and take photos of coins inside the house the results are less than dramatic.
I found one website which suggested how to setup lights/background/shadow board. I tried their suggestions and the copper coins came out halfway decent but the silver coins were bronzy looking.
I don't want to really buy anything special other than maybe different light bulbs.
I am currently using a double lighted gooseneck light. I have a standard 75W bulb in one and a 50w small reflector lamp in the other. I am using a gray mat for placing the coins on and I put one of the lights directly behind a shadow board. The shadow board is a 10x14 frame with a thin trace type of paper attached to it.
Would appreciate information on a good way to setup the lighting to get better pics! Don

 

[Anonymous]

You may want to try adjusting those silver coin photos in an images editor such as Photoshop or another application.........

 

[Anonymous]

But if I get the lighting right I shouldn't need to adjust the photos, right??
Shouldn't silver look like silver even under artifical light? Trying to learn. Don

 

[Anonymous]

Digital is odd in functioning at times. Can you manually set the white balance for that camera?

 

[Anonymous]

for my friend John Craig. My camera allows me to manually set the white balance for whatever light source I am using. I even had to tweak this image a bit in Photoshop.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, but not sure it works in Macro mode. I have a Incandescent setting which says Use when taking photos indoors under incandescent light. There are other settings like Speedlight to match the light produced by the flash and the other settings seem to be for outdoors.
So I guess you are saying to try the Incandescent setting. I will later this week and let you know what difference it makes. Some of the fellows suggested using a background of blue or black for silver to bring out the best look. I will try that also. Thanks in Advance for your help! Don in South Jersey

 

[Anonymous]

[No message]

 

[Anonymous]

I use a large reflector (white paper) and a number of florescent lights. No matter how many single light sources you have, you will get much better results with a large area of light.
Digital cameras typically do not do well with high contrast light, so go soft.
I adjust the white balance and sometimes fool it (add a little blue item to the white card when setting the white balance) to get a color shift to what I like. I also have a thread on 4x filter lens to get closer.
Don't forget to use a tripod.
This image is far from my best, but I am still happy with it.
My camera allows me to stop down the f stop. I forgot to do it on this shot so you can see the far edge of the coin starting to lose focus.
Regards, Chuck

 

[Anonymous]

I've spent many hours trying to get really good close-ups of coins and buttons. Here

 

[Anonymous]

[No message]

 

[Anonymous]

Bob, you did not seem to mention that you use the color correction feature of you camera. I also use a Mavica and use it all the time. Chuck

 

[Anonymous]

that's about three years old. Just went thru the manual again and can find no mention of color correction. Bob