POLL - On the idea of a separate coin photography forum

[Architecht]

 

Some opinion surveys.

[cpm9ball]

I didn't submit a vote for Question #1 because I can't say that there would be a "noticeable" difference one way or the other.

 

However, I do find it difficult to search a particular topic when they are scattered throughout the NGC, NCS & PMG forums. When I keyed in "Photography" in a search of these forums during the last 9-month period, there were ten pages listed in seven different forums. Then you are faced with the task of sorting through all of those posts to find the one you want. By having photography as a separate forum, it would be a little easier and less time-consuming.

 

I also realize that we will have occasions when someone will misuse this forum, but we already have that occurring now in the other forums. Perhaps there should be a "caution message" pinned at the top of all of the forums advising everyone to be sure they are using the proper forum? If someone ( a newcomer, for example) is in doubt, then they could always use Tangents to ask for directions.

 

I don't think we need to separate a "How does this look?" from any of the other threads, because afterall, isn't that person asking for technical assistance and comments?

 

Chris

[TomB]

I voted "No" on the first and fourth questions, but left the middle questions blank since I do not want a new forum for this topic. However, I would suggest that your poll may be highly skewed, and much less representative of the entire body of members, because it is embedded within a thread topic that folks have either already read or, more importantly, that many folks do not care enough about to read. Therefore, your responses will most likely come from that niche of folks who believe there should be another forum.

[mazorj-migration]

First, being new here, I wasn't sure how the vote tallying mechanism worked. I checked off all my choices, but then realized that each question had its own Submit button, so I hit the Submit button under each item. If that caused "over-voting" by recording my responses to all the questions every time I hit Submit for each of them, then be sure to back out all of my extraneous attempts to vote.

 

Second, thanks for taking my suggestion seriously enough to run a ballot.

 

Third, just to be clear, as I envisioned it, the forum would cover all aspects of photographing and imaging coins - cameras, lenses, software, techniques, lighting, microscopes, even magnifiers and third-party services. Plus the "what do you think of this picture?" posts (see below) where the poster seeks comments on the picture, not the coin.

 

Fourth, I would distinguish between the many, many "what do you think of this coin?" posts where the question goes to the coin itself, versus "what do you think of this picture I was able to produce?" I agree with the comments warning against creating superfluous forums, so in that spirit I don't see a need to create any subformums under Photography and Imaging (its proper name) regardless of whether its a forum or a subforum under NT. I don't think there will be so many posts there that it will be hard for readers to sort them out. But I do think that Photography and Imaging covers a wide enough swath that cuts across all numismatic specialties and niches to deserve its own gathering place, which is really what a forum serves as.

 

Finally, I've only glanced at a few WYNTK posts so I'm getting ahead of myself here, but as a general observation, my expectation as a newbie on any blog is that WYNTK sections will be FAQs on basic how-to stuff - how to join, how to post, how to upload files, etc. They're great for that because the information is very static and dosn't need constant updating. However, I might not ever think of them as sources for researching recent information on a numismatic subject. A forum, OTOH, is a constant stream of new posts on new and old topics and is very fluid. That's where the action is. And nothing prevents us from creating WYNTK posts on Photography and Imaging within its (sub)forum.

 

Sorry to be so verbose, but since I started all this, I didn't want to cop out by suddenly abandoning the discussion. I'll probably have even more to say.

 

[Architecht]

Oh, btw, moved the poll to its own thread to make sure it's noticed.

[hoard]

I like the idea of a separate forum or even sub-forum for photography type questions. I for one would use it to trade ideas and ask opinion, while feeling more comfortable posting in a photo forum so as not to waste the time of those not interested in this topic.

[Bruceswar]

I vote NO! Leave all the topics here or on the US/World coin boards. There is enough space for them. Seperation is not a good thing.

[Zoins]

I think a separate photography sub-forum would be useful for people that want to find posts to improve their photography.

 

I'm not sure about the rest.

[gmarguli]

I think a separate photography sub-forum would be useful for people that want to find posts to improve their photography.

 

They have these on the Internet. They're called Photography Forums.

 

While I would love to have more information on taking better photographs and what cameras to use (I'm looking for a new camera right now), I'm not sure there is enough posts to warrant a new sub-forum, much less an actual full fledged forum.

 

If photography deserves its own forum, then don't we need a Global Warming sub-forum for the Water Cooler.

[Zoins]

I think a separate photography sub-forum would be useful for people that want to find posts to improve their photography.

They have these on the Internet. They're called Photography Forums.

Do those forums have a separate coins section? Coin photography is fairly different than say landscapes and portraits.

[gmarguli]

I think a separate photography sub-forum would be useful for people that want to find posts to improve their photography.

They have these on the Internet. They're called Photography Forums.

Do those forums have a separate coins section? Coin photography is fairly different than say landscapes and portraits.

 

I suspect they have sections dedicated to close up photography which would cover coins.

[Zoins]

I think a separate photography sub-forum would be useful for people that want to find posts to improve their photography.

They have these on the Internet. They're called Photography Forums.

Do those forums have a separate coins section? Coin photography is fairly different than say landscapes and portraits.

I suspect they have sections dedicated to close up photography which would cover coins.

I think coin photography has enough nuances that they wouldn't necessariliy be covered in general close up photography forums. Items that come to mind include using getting toning to show up nicely, different lighting to get different effects against mirror fields, lighting for small coins in NGC slabs, etc.

 

I also suspect that people interested in coin photography, but not photography in general, may prefer to discuss photography on coin forums rather than general coin forums.

[TomB]

Google the term "coin photography" and you will get endless hits to read.

[Zoins]

Google the term "coin photography" and you will get endless hits to read.

But what if people want to discuss coin photography, not just read about it?

[TomB]

Some of those hits are discussion boards, you can look for yourself.

[Zoins]

Some of those hits are discussion boards, you can look for yourself.

Google doesn't return a single discussion board on the first page of results for me. Did you look for yourself?

 

Does your argument mean NGC should shut down these boards because other coin boards exist?

[TomB]

Zoins, I'm trying to keep the discussion on the realistic side of hyperbole, which is something I believe you generally try to do, too, therefore I am surprised by the question included at the end of your post. I can only write for myself, but I do not believe anyone has suggested censoring coin photography and imaging threads on the NGC boards. Rather, if folks share an opinion similar to mine, then they may simply think that at this time there is not enough velocity to these discussions to warrant a new forum dedicated to the subject.

 

Perhaps you are not conducting your Google search in a manner that is similar to my search, but a quick search pulled up myriad sites with photographic and imaging techniques specific to coins, typically in the form of an article, as well as many discussion sites that included these sites with forums dedicated to coin photography and that all appeared on my first Google search page results-

 

Forum Ancient Coins

Coin Community

Coin Forum

 

Also, this site is dedicated to digital image techniques, but had at least one thread specific for coin photography-

 

Digital Photo People

[Zoins]

Tom,

 

I don't see anything wrong with attempting a photography forum if some people are interested in that. As Architect has mentioned, the threads and be merged with an existing forum if it does not work out. I found it kind of puzzling that you would suggest people go to other forums to discuss coin photography but not other forums to discuss coins, which seems to be the case. We don't really know what will happen if we try the forum but we do know that it's low risk if it doesn't work out.

Perhaps you are not conducting your Google search in a manner that is similar to my search

I used "coin photography" which is what you said resulted in discussion board hits for you. None of the four sites you listed came up in the first page of results for me using the search criteria you provided. Perhaps you changed your search or went beyond the first page? If we are both running the search you mentioned and received different info, it could be that our searches are going to different Google data centers.

 

In any event, if there is a desire for a certain type of forum, it is up to NGC do decide whether they would rather have that kind of discussion on their forums or not. The forums you mention actually demonstrate that there is interest in photography as a separate forum. The Ancient Coins photography forum as 193 topics and 1750 posts. The Coin Community photography forum has 128 topics and 1474. Having that type of activity on the NGC boards may, or may not, be in NGC's interests. If there are people interested in that topic and NGC is interested in hosting the forums, I don't see why they shouldn't at least give it a shot.

 

The added bonus for NGC having a photography board is that people may be specifically interested in photographing coins in NGC slabs which we know can be challenging. Giving people a NGC-specific place to discuss photography can improve the quality of photos of NGC slabbed coins. This can improve the quality of photos in the reg sets and also lead to better photos of NGC slabbed coins for sale, both of which will be a benefit for NGC. Having a NGC photography forum and NGC reg photography award may be very attractive from NGC's perspective because it gets more people interested in taking better photos of NGC slabbed coins.

[TomB]

I don't believe I have ever suggested that folks go somewhere else to discuss coin photography or imaging techniques. However, if you can find a post of mine that tells folks to go to other sites instead of discussing the items on the NGC site then I would be surprised.

 

My first response to you in this thread was directed to your banter with Greg when Greg mentioned that there are sites on the net that are dedicated to imaging. That was it. There was never a suggestion to purge the boards of coin photography or imaging discussions. There was never a suggestion that folks must use other areas of the net to discuss this topic. If this is how you interpreted my concise post then you are going well beyond what I wrote. I simply interjected a statement that you could use Google to find such sites.

 

If you look at the other active discussion on this topic, I think you will find that I support the inclusion of these discussions within the Numismatic Tangents boards since they appear to fit the definition of the board perfectly. Additionally, other topics pop up with a certain frequency, too, but I doubt we want to break the board into individual sub-forums to accomodate scores of topics.

 

I searched Google using "coin photography" and then did a sub-search using the term "discussion". You will get many hits this way, though quite a few are hits to articles, as I have already stated. If you only search using "coin photography" then I doubt you will get the same results that I obtained using the additional term "discussion". I apologize for leaving out this detail in the search, it was an inadvertant omission, though I do not believe there is anything that might have stopped someone determined from finding such a site to run another search with a sub-search term.

 

I agree with you completely that it is up to NGC as to whether or not there is another dedicated forum and that is precisely what I wrote in a previous response to our new member who suggested the change in format. This may have been in the other thread on the topic so I do not know if you will find my post in this thread. I have given my opinion regarding this issue and I do not expect that it will hold any sway over NGC's eventual decision. Similarly, if NGC institutes a new board then I will not boycott it and I will hope that it does well.

[Zoins]

Thanks for the clarification Tom and I apologize for reading more into your posts than intended. I appreciate you mentioning Google's "sub-search." I just saw and used this feature for the first time. I'm pretty sure most Google users don't use that feature but I'm glad to know about it.

 

I'm now thinking that Architect should discuss this idea with the NGC reg people to see if they can have a best reg photo of the year award. Perhaps there could be an award for the best photographed NGC slabbed coin and an open category for any or no holder. One of the biggest complaints regarding NGC holders is that some coins are hard to photograph. Having a dedicated forum and reg contest may help in this area if the slab's shadow can be removed by using certain kinds of lighting setups, etc. This could benefit NGC in many ways, especially if they remain reluctant to change their holder.

[TomB]

I'm glad we worked out the kink in the communication between us. It is very easy to not get the full meaning of someone's point or intent through the text conversations that we engage in on these boards. However, it is also quite nice that most folks on these boards will step back and examine the conversation with a cool head. It's too bad that I forgot to mention the sub-search feature on Google since that would have helped clear things up sooner. (thumbs u

 

Your point about imaging through an NGC holder is quite valid in my experience. These can be tough to shoot through since the opaque plastic can cast a strong shadow on the coin.