Longstrider in a recent post commented about photographing Encapsulated coins( at least thats what I assume he was asking). Personally I find photographing coins in plastic prisons extremely hard to do. About 6 weeks ago� I found a solution that matches my techniques.� It may not suit other people so it would be great to have suggestions from others.� I� use lenses at the largest possible aperture, this is different to the way many others photograph coins. The technique� works for me because I have a large megapixel camera. With some of my lenses I find that if I use an F stop number higher than 8 the images I take suffer from diffraction blurring.�� With the F stops I use I am working with very shallow depths of field� some times only a slice of a few microns is in focus. � I understand that one sucessful technique of photographing slabbed coins is to tilt the slab slightly.� I would imagine that would work very� well with a� deep depth of field ( using an F stop of� 12 or smaller). With my technique �tilting the slab would see most of the coin out of focus.�� My serendipitous� solution arose because I was trying to make a portable light source. I have used ring lights in the past but� I have found them limiting �as the light source is just too close to vertical.�� I fitted the lens mount section from an un-serviceable ring light� to a polypropylene board� of 9.5 inches by 8 inches. � I then� attached� a cold white LED lighting strip to the board. � � This produced a very successful lighting system that was very portable and was mains powered.� By chance I tried it on an encapsulated coin( the last photo) and I was stunned by the result.�� I still have to finish the light panel off. So far one very useful modification was to fit a lens hood to the homemade panel light. I think the pictures are self explanatory. The third picture looks a little blurry the reason for that is the leds' are on in that picture.�� The coin� photo shows the result that can be obtained. Cost was about US$50.00.

It's a very early Sunday morning, after a nights struggle with my body's out of sync clock.�� Vienna Austria is about 8-10 hours ahead of Colorado Springs so when it's time to sleep in Vienna my body, Currently on Mountain Time is telling me to wake.� ��I only spent the second week at the summer seminar money and time did not allow me a longer visit.�� It was my third year in a row at Colorado Springs and perhaps my most rewarding visit so far.� I wouldn't say it was the best as I plan to return if not next year, then 2017. The future I would hope would hold even better experiences. The seminar that has just finished was rewarding in no small part due to the previous years I attended.����

I recall years ago being fascinated by the technical discussions of other collectors on how best to photograph their coins.� At that time I used a flatbed scanner, I progressed to a point and shot then a DSLR and now I am firmly rooted in the 21st century with a mirror less camera. My coin photography took a huge leap when I attended summer seminar in 2013. In the first week I attended the basic coin photography class.� In that seminar I was provided with Mark Goodman's� "Numismatic Photography" I recently purchased two more books on macro Photography� Enrico Savazzi's "Digital Photography for Science" and� Lester Lefkowitz's� "the Manual of Close up Photography"����