A Simple Lighting Setup for Coin Photography

I'll be discussing a number of different lighting setups and techniques for coin photos in this guide.

After talking about this a bit on eBay's Coins & Paper Money discussion board, I've concluded no single lighting technique is "best." Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Some show small surface detail well. Others excel at showing luster or toning. In fact, a single eBay coin auction or listing could well use more than one lighting technique, allowing prospective buyers to properly evaluate the coin.

A Basic One-Light Setup

In most cases, a coin can be adequately shown with just one light sourcee. As already discussed, placement of a light source has a lot to do with how the coin will look, but in general, I think a light placed to one side and at a relatively low angle usually works best.

In the setup below, the light is at approximately a 30-degree angle to the coin. Notice that it is placed further away than the camera's lens. This helps keep stray light from getting into the optics and lowering contrast.
 


In all of the setups I am showing, I have my camera mounted on a photo copy stand, pointing downward at the coins. If you don't have such a copy stand, a small tripod would do. However, you will definitely need a firm camera support for maximum sharpness and to do your coins justice. If you will be shooting a lot of coins, I think a copy stand would be a good investment.

The light shown above is a single 150 watt tungsten bulb, mounted in a simple conical reflector to the left of the camera. Adjusting this light to different angles can give different effects. A very low angle will rake the light beam across the coin surface, making design edges, surface nicks and marks stand out sharply. A high angle will increase the reflective shine of the coin. However, this gain will come with some loss of contrast and detail.

The photo below was shot wth the light at approximately the angle shown above.



I'm not entirely happy with that shot, because the brightest areas, such as below Liberty's chin, are without detail. At the same time, the harshness of the light actually overemphasized a few small surface defects in darker areas. All in all, it's a serviceable photo, but it could be improved by diffusing or filtering the light. I'll discuss that in my next blog post.