I always admire what you do but I've largely given up on using standardized set-ups and I just use 1-2 lights and move them as needed to get a shot that I like for that coin - a lot of trial and error and iteration until I'm happy. And then sometimes I'll throw in some global editing / adjustments in photoshop to force the image to pop the way I want. Between the different needs of each coin combined with issues arising from scratches in the slab and such.... 

Here's one I've had some fun with lately:

BTW, way to make Reagan look like an evil genius, Dude.  

Thanks for sharing. I'm sure these tips were all hard won. 

Hi Gary,

An excellent post as always.  Your photos are a great comparison of techniques, but I'm surprised you didn't try side lighting on this coin.  Many years ago, I took photos with a very cheap camera and two lights shining towards each other from the sides in an otherwise dark room. The lights are at the same angle as your 45 degree axial, but without the glass (or in your case, the CD cover)..  I was just trying to do comparisons, so the final quality isn't great.  I wasn't concerned about dust or the camera lens reflecting on the coin. This technique only works well for cameo proof coins, but the effects can be quite dramatic. The fields can appear totally black which sets off the cameo devices.  A similar effect can be achieved using a flat bed scanner. I have not tried either technique on a reverse proof though. I would be curious to see what that looks like.

Above photos taken with a very cheap camera and two side lights.

Above images acquired with a flatbed scanner.

On 10/4/2021 at 8:57 AM, coin928 said:

 This technique only works well for cameo proof coins, but the effects can be quite dramatic. 

Above images acquired with a flatbed scanner.

I may need to steal this idea for imaging my Presidential Dollar proofs That has given me hell

On 10/4/2021 at 8:57 AM, coin928 said:

Hi Gary,

An excellent post as always.  Your photos are a great comparison of techniques, but I'm surprised you didn't try side lighting on this coin.  Many years ago, I took photos with a very cheap camera and two lights shining towards each other from the sides in an otherwise dark room. The lights are at the same angle as your 45 degree axial, but without the glass (or in your case, the CD cover)..  I was just trying to do comparisons, so the final quality isn't great.  I wasn't concerned about dust or the camera lens reflecting on the coin. This technique only works well for cameo proof coins, but the effects can be quite dramatic. The fields can appear totally black which sets off the cameo devices.  A similar effect can be achieved using a flat bed scanner. I have not tried either technique on a reverse proof though. I would be curious to see what that looks like.

Above photos taken with a very cheap camera and two side lights.

Above images acquired with a flatbed scanner.

I got to hand it to you, the flatbed scanner for your standard proof SAE really looks nice! 

On 10/4/2021 at 8:57 AM, coin928 said:

I have not tried either technique on a reverse proof though.

Just for fun, I set this up with two remote controlled flashes on either side of a soft-box with the coin set back into the soft box. The room light was on but it is not bright (certainly compared to the flashes) and the soft box shades the coin so essentially 100% of the lighting for the shot comes from the flashes but I'm not sitting in a dark room or using hot lights. I set the camera to f/16 to try to get the whole coin in focus, focused once and then set to manual-only focus so I could just flip / swap out the coins and hammer through without refocusing each time.

Proof:

Reverse Proof:

On 10/5/2021 at 8:48 AM, Revenant said:

Reverse Proof:

Your photos are excellent, but the results for the reverse proof are not as appealing as for a regular proof coin.  The side lighting technique accentuates the frosted portions of the coin, which brings out the details of the devices on a regular cameo proof.  Unfortunately, on the reverse proof, the background is accentuated and the details of the devices are lost.  I would opt or Gary's Standard Lighting technique when it comes to reverse proofs since it provides the most detail for the devices and represents the frosted fields as nearly white.That appears to me to be the most dramatic method for photographing a reverse proof coin. I may still try one on my scanner to see how that looks. Don't look for the results any time soon though.

Oh, so that’s why I ended up with too many weird reflections when I recently took pictures of a reverse proof. These 3 different proof finishes were all taken with the same lighting setup using my iPhone and a couple of LED lights. My reverse proof came out similar to your LED ring light picture. I might have to try your CD case trick in the future for the reverse Proofs 🤔

Here’s a couple of pictures of my set-up