Photo-a-week, Pics/discussion thread for 9/8, Currency
Last thread, a few people posted older pictures. That's fine, but the goal of this is really to motivate people to get out and take more pictures. If you want to post something you took previously, go for it. I'd like to see more new pictures taken though! 
copy/paste follows:
This is the thread where you should post your picture for the 9/8 Currency theme.
Post the pic, as well as any additional information you'd like to add. Some examples would be:
camera / lens used
any interesting setup information
something you wished you could have improved
something you think turned out really well
etc
Need to host a picture? I recommend flickr.com over imgur. Flickr keeps the exif data intact, and does some resizing automagically. For resolution, I suggest 1024 pixels on the longest side.
copy/paste follows:
This is the thread where you should post your picture for the 9/8 Currency theme.
Post the pic, as well as any additional information you'd like to add. Some examples would be:
camera / lens used
any interesting setup information
something you wished you could have improved
something you think turned out really well
etc
Need to host a picture? I recommend flickr.com over imgur. Flickr keeps the exif data intact, and does some resizing automagically. For resolution, I suggest 1024 pixels on the longest side.
0
Comments
again, just taking with my iPhone4... i should really get a real camera... someday....
btw this is the evolution of the 20$ bill, with tecnicaly one missing. there was a version of the middle one without the shiny bar on the side, but they were so "easy" to duplicates that the gov added those shiny things 1 or 2 years after. you can also easily tell which one i pulled out of my wallet by the fact that it's all bent and curved!
I discovered that photographing a pile of coins is no simple button push. I had to experiment a lot with my shutter, lighting, and even my flash output settings (which I almost never play with). I ended up with two that I couldn't choose between for this shoot. Both have been cropped and color edited in post
I really like the color I was able to get with this one. The coins pop better here, and you can really see the age and variety of them, I think:
This was the angle I really liked, though. The juctoposition ofthe various nationalities is more clear here, but the lighting isn't ideal. If I could have used the settings from the photo above to take this one, then I could have had one photo that I really loved, but the settings on that one required a tripod, and I had no way to tripod the camera above the coins, so I had to go with settings I could hold in my hand. I tried brightening it in post, but that doesn't help get the coins' relifes show any better. I still like the photo, but I really wish it had better color:
I think the lighting on the first is much better.
For the second one, I'd try upping the brightness a little bit more, and also upping the contrast, especially the local contrast (which has very different names in different programs). Increasing the contrast should help get the reliefs to pop out a bit more. If you don't mind, I might have a stab at it, especially if you can link the original.
I also uploaded another version of the shot which used a low-power flash, but there were a couple coins which got washed out too much. I had considered trying to combine the two somehow, but don't have the post-proc expertise for that kind of stuff.
set up some coins on my blue mousepad, bounced flash off the ceiling. 55mm f/14, but still didn't quite get them all in focus. The blue mousepad reflected on the coins, which I didn't like, so I used one of lightrooms B+W presets and I was pretty pleased with the results. Pulled up the shadows a bit too.
It's kind neat that it looks like they're floating. Maybe worth trying again with just a coin or two.
I took a stab at this, and put it in a flickr set. The process I followed was:
1) Auto-tone button. Basically tries to make the histogram look how lightroom expects it to.
2) It seemed very bright, so I dropped the exposure value. I also brought down the dark areas a bit
3) I hit the "punch" preset. This increases the local contrast of the image.
4) I re-adjusted the levels and contrast again, because it got a bit too dark
5) added some noise reduction, which made things a bit muddled. Used sharpening to hopefully bring some detail back
6) Added a vignette, because it seemed appropriate for old coins
7) Increased the saturation on the colors present in the coins (orange, yellow, green)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25290649@N05/sets/72157635477770068/
Mind you, I don't want to set the world on fire.