Coinbuf

On 2/24/2022 at 1:55 PM, ColonialCoinsUK said:

Sounds like I should think about submitting things now to make the December deadline

Sad but very true.  

I think you got a good buy also, congrats on the newp.

An interesting example and I sure can see where people today would get the pit bull reference as the head does indeed resemble that breed.   The body does seem more suited to the panther than any other member of the cat family as depicted on the coin.   In the end I do not guess that you will have to worry about offending the designer of the coin so how you decide to reference the design is all about your personal like.

I suspect that covie will continue to gum up the works for quite some time to come, sad but true I' afraid.

Just some of the many reasons that I do not and will not collect modern coins for registry purposes, a rabbit hole that I have no desire to dive into.

If I can find some that I like that would be nice will have to see what I can find out in the wild this year, may have to settle for a few + upgrades.  

I may have a surprise or two for you again this year. 

Very nice, congrats!

Great catch @Ali E.    However I cannot help but think what fun it would have been for you to have a forever plaque to commemorate the spelling.   

You have every right to be proud of your all your sets, they show the dedication and work that you (and now Shandy) have and are putting into the collection.   It is kind of sad to see the journal awards gone, I'm not much of a writer myself but have always enjoyed reading the journal entries posted by others.   I hope this will not cause folks to abandon the journals altogether, they add an extra and interesting dimension to the boards.

On 1/6/2022 at 4:54 AM, Zebo said:

Hopefully when you visited Fords theatre, you also stopped by the America History museum at the Smithsonian. 
Mark does a very nice job. I have his book and the basic set up for micro photography, but haven’t had the time to really delve into it. That is one of my New Years goals - take better photos. The problem is, I have many such goals and not enough …

My wife and I spent 5 days in DC and went to most of the museums including the Smithsonian, sadly the 5 days went by too quick and we still did not see everything.   We plan to make it back there again but will wait until things are not barricaded or fenced off as it is now.   I too have Mark's book and while the equipment has improved since it was written his techniques and process is still very valid.   Unfortunately I don't have quite the high quality equipment (especially the lighting) that he has and cannot yet get to his level of results.  But like you I plan to keep working on my macro photo skills and perhaps I'll get closer one day.

Without a doubt his work is a big part of my award and I thank him for all the great photos he has taken for me over the years.

On 1/6/2022 at 3:52 PM, Mohawk said:

Man, Mark does some great work, Coinbuf!! Like William said, those dark copper coins like that are quite difficult to photograph, but the photos Mark did are excellent!

Thanks, he does take some phenomenal photos.   I've used three different pro photographers in the past, one was very good but I still see Mark as the very best of those I have used; but as we have seen with LemE's photos there are some very talented shutter bugs out there.

On 1/9/2022 at 6:16 PM, coinsbygary said:

...On another note, congratulations on your Lincoln Cent set award! Mark's photos of your cents look phenomenal in your winning set. Your set is truly pleasing to the eye and a testament to your eye in choosing coins with pleasing eye appeal. Your set is truly worthy of award and recognition!

Thank you Gary!  I will be on  for awhile I think as I enjoy this honor.   The congratulations from so many accomplished members here just inspires me to continue to improve this and my other sets as I continue along my journey.

Congrats!!  A cool set and I'm sure that you had fun putting it together, getting an award is just icing on top. 

I actually had a few minutes today and played with a higher F-stop, not very happy with the few shots I took though.   Which leads me back to the concerns that my lighting may need some changes or adjustments.   Hoping to have more time later this week to play with it more.

Very nice I have that same three tray case and it is a very nice display case.  

Thanks, that helps.   There are three important enough DDO's for this date/mm to receive an FS number, and several other very minor DDO's.   However when viewing your photos and the one available via the PCGS website I still only see MD, or strike doubling whichever term you prefer.

Also as you were the one that submitted this coin did you select variety attribution when you submitted the coin?   If you don't ask and pay for the variety attribution you will not get it.   If you did ask for and pay the extra fee then PCGS determined that you have simple MD and no variety, which is what I see also.

@Mohawk is correct we need to see full coin obv and rev photos, at the very least we need to know what year this coin is .    From just these photos it appears to be simple strike doubling not any type of DDO.   However the additional information and photos are needed to confirm.

Sorry William been busy getting ready for the holiday and did not have a chance to get back.   I cannot say for sure what settings I used for my shot, I actually took that shot several months ago.   But on average I have been setting the f# at 5.6 or 8, I have tried some other settings but have found that with the lens/camera I have this seems to be the best.   But I need to experiment more and perhaps a higher f setting with more light might yield some better results.

Thanks for that adjustment William, yes I can do some adjustments to the histogram in elements.     And that does help some but its not really the color of my photo that I want to improve its the lack of detail; my photo looks flat and lacks definition vs the one Mark took.   His almost looks 3D with the obv portrait popping off the field and all the little details of the rock and hair well defined.   Same with the rev as in my photo the leaves look flat and poorly struck where in Mark's photo they are crisp and fully defined.

I do agree with you that I prefer the insert to look white, since it is white, but maybe I need to focus less on that issue and perhaps that will help me find some settings or lighting that will better bring out the look and details.

Always in manual but not in RAW, I can shoot in RAW but the old version of elements that I have will not read/open RAW images.   That could account for some of my difficulties, but I still think most of it is the lighting.

Thank you sir, true my attempt is not bad but still not as nice, problem is I only have an ages old version of photoshop elements to work with so I'm limited in the amount of post editing that I can do.   I actually think a lot of the difference is in the lighting, he is using some very high intensity lights and I am using just a couple of cheap IKEA lamps.   But having his as a reference now I will continue to work and see how close I can get.     

Thank you Bob, here is my attempt at photos for this coin.   Not too bad just not as nice as Mark's, his are so much sharper and have a richness that I have not been able to duplicate.

All good questions that I have zero answers to.      I guess these are the issues a collector faces when collecting coins from other countries.

You bring up a very good point William, being able to use one's camera equipment for dual purposes does help to justify the expense.   I suppose if I was more into taking wildlife or nature photographs spending the money on a good high quality modern camera body and lens would be easier.   Which would make it an easy transition to using the camera equipment for coin photos.

But I'm not really into that much, I did do some of that when I was younger and my sister is really into it and has tons of money tied up in equipment.   But somehow I got tired of lugging around a heavy camera and multiple lenses, tripods, and other bits.   Today it is so much simpler to just whip out the cell phone and take photos with that than to deal with a backpack of equipment.   Kudos to those who do and the awesome photos that they are able to get, they are amazing and I applaud their skills.

And I'm sure that you and Ben would have hours of enjoyment using one of those USB microscopes, I have a really cheap one but I have not used it in years.   Maybe one day I'll drag it out of the closet and see if it still works.    Who am I kidding, I need to get the hod rod running first, and then the long list of honey do's that I keep finding a way to put off.