Mr_Spud

No, I’m not using an external lens, just the iPhone. I’m using an iPhone 12 Pro, but before that I was using an iPhone 6s and getting decent results too. im using the 10 second timer so the camera doesn’t shake and placing the phone on a wide mouth bottle to hold the phone level to the coin. Then I use an app called Xircle to crop the coin into a circle shape with either a white or black background. For raw coins or PC slabs with larger coins the autofocus works pretty good if you touch the screen until it locks the focus on the coin, but for smaller coins in NGC slabs it’s tough to get the phone to focus on the coin because it detects the slab. That’s why I’m experimenting with manual focusing using Camera +2 app. But autofocus still works good enough in most cases. Here’s an example using autofocus on a larger copper coin in a PC slab

just purchased this one, don’t have it in hand yet, these are the auction pictures 🌞

The 2nd image with manual focus and cool white (bluish) LED was much easier to take and didn’t involve overlaying 2 images, so I’m glad people liked that one better. I think I’m on the right track pursuing that technique.

Thanks, I just ordered an 18% gray card off of Amazon. I’m using LED lights for taking the pictures, they can be set to match sunlight, or just cool white or just warm white. The first pictures were with it set to match daylight, the 2nd were with just cool white. The 2nd was with using a new app that allows manual focusing that I’m just starting to experiment with. The first picture reverse shot was also the new manual focus but layered with an auto focus image that showed the color better but had no luster showing. I was seeing if I could get the best of both worlds and have the color show up evenly lit but still have the luster show through. The obverse was just with autofocus with the light mimicking sunlight. The reverse was an overlay of one image on top of the other. It was about 80% this image And about 20% this image blended together using photoshop express.

The coin in hand looks like more the 2nd picture under regular room lighting with overhead incandescent bulbs, but looks more like the first under fluorescent or just ambient lighting coming through the window. It actually changes in both lighting conditions if you rotate it. It’s got both great luster and nice color completely covering the reverse and just a little bit of toning on the obverse. A hard coin to properly photograph through the slab and that’s why I’m using it as a test subject to try and improve my photography techniques. I’m trying to figure out how to take great pictures using just an iPhone. i figure if I can figure out how to best capture the true look of the coin with tough to photograph ones like this, then it’ll also improve the easier ones too. thanks to all for the feedback.

Here’s bigger pics, if that helps.

Hello, I’m trying to figure out how to take a good photo of a slabbed NGC toner with my iPhone and came up with 2 different techniques that show promise. Which image looks better to you? The top or the bottom one? Thanks, in advance for any replies.

Same coin, different lighting 🌞

Here’s another Barber dime that is in the same Wayte Raymond/Meghrig album as the 1915 I posted the other day. Only it’s Mrs_Spud’s album, we had a lot of fun putting that album together and this coin is her favorite one due to the toning. The whole album took about 10 years to complete, we still purchase upgrades for it at Coin Shows but not for over a year due to Covid shutting down the shows.

🌞