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1887 Florin arrived

By "at the source" I mean as close to the light source as you can get without setting your home ablaze. Be careful if you are using halogens, they get VERY hot, and will melt certain types of plastic diffusers, and start a fire with paper and cloth ones. Bring your lights in to around 80 degrees angle from the table surface - this will bring out the luster and more color. Using 2 lights will greatly improve the evenness of your lighting (fewer shadows). I have already written up in detail in another post some other hints. Please give those a read. Best, Brandon

The lightbox is killing your chance at capturing luster. You cannot capture cartwheel luster when using fully diffused ambient (all surrounding) light sources. Diffused light sources will also wash out colors/toning, as is the case on your lovely toned 1915 George V. Lights need to be at a high angle and well above the coin. If you are going to diffuse your light sources a little bit, do so at the lamp source itself. By that I mean, diffuse each of the lamps with a sheet of paper or cloth, so that they are still reflecting off of your coin as two separate point sources of light. When one uses a diffusion mechanism around the coin (e.g., a light box or milk jug) instead of at the lights themselves, light no longer reflects off of the coin from multiple point sources. The surfaces of the coin will look flat and a bit lifeless, and luster will not show much as the few photons that happen to reflect up into your camera's detector are not enough to create the banded appearance of luster. As example, Heritage Auctions uses a method to photograph coins in their auctions that diffuses the light at the coin, not at the point light sources. Here is a Heritage Auctions image of a coin I own. I use diffusion at the point source of the lights, and place the lights very high and close to my camera and lens. This method brings out color, luster, and the life of a coin. Below are my images of the same coin (yes, even through the plastic).

I think it was John Stephenson who said on the forum: "I buy junk and sell collectable coins" or summat like that.

The axial lighting method is a nightmare to control. It is not so bad if you are primarily photographing raw coins, but it doesn't represent the coins as they look in hand, and completely wipes out the appearance of luster. If you're trying to photograph coins behind plastic (slabs), then this method is almost impossible and not worth the fuss.

I use the little LED Jansjo lamps from IKEA. They are consistently between 3500 and 3600K. I reset my white balance manually with an 18% gray card before each photo session. Knowing the exact temperature is not necessary if you are using a camera with custom white balance that can be set dynamically to your surroundings real time.

I have used axial lighting, but it is pretty difficult to get enough light on the coin whilst blocking ambient light and reflections. It worked ok with highly reflective proofs, but normal coins appeared dull and lifeless.

About a year ago I bought one that could have been a rarer variety, I think the seller cottoned on to it and they 'couldn't find it anywhere' after I'd bought it. Funnily enough they messaged me back about 2 months later to say they'd found it, the funny thing was that it had somehow worked it's way into a slab while being lost. I guess they sent it off to check for varieties and when it came back as bog standard they offered it back to me.

On my to do list. Love Scotland been going now for the last 8 years or so. We usually have around 4 holidays there every year and go a different place every time. Not even scratched the surface yet. Looking forward to end of October for our next visit then again and Christmas

:-)

Well when I look at the coin, I'm looking at the scratches and the weak breastplate (always check the breasts first). The carbon spot doesn't really draw my attention much so it probably wouldn't bother me at all.