Cropping Circular Photos

[laereht]

Hello,
I have to take pictures of about 300 different coins that are in sealed plastic cases. I want to cut out the coin so I all I have is the circular coin. I don't know if there is anj adjustable filter I can put on the camera, or whether there is any relatively inexpensive software that I can use to do this. I need to take obverse and reverse pictures of these coins so if the process is multistep, it is not going to work. I have an Olympus digital camera.

Thanks in advance,

laereht

[tayl0124]

If your camera has a lens cap you could try drilling a hole in it and taking the picture with the lens cap on, however that may mess with exposure and focus!!

[GB1]

There are circular filters out there. Try Cokin filters. You can see one at

http://www.cokin.com/ico3-p1-8.html

where 345 may be of help.

But you're better off just taking the shot and processing in software. GIMP is very inexpensive.. free, actually. http://www.gimp.org Shoot against a dark or white background so that there's contrast between your coins and the background. That will allow easy masking of the subject in GIMP.

G