Flipdie Coin Dice

FlipDie Coin Dice – How to get creative coin photos! – Watch on YouTube

We have our hands on some really cool coins, so we naturally want to take some really creative photos to show them off! We got some FlipDie coin dice by Yarro Studios on Kickstarter. They have amazing artwork and detail on the faces, so lets take a closer look with the macro lens!

FlipDie Coin Dice!

If you’re not familiar with TTRPGs (Table Top Role Playing Games)  you might not be aware of the need for multiple dice, or dice larger than the common six-sided dice. However if you’ve ever heard of Dungeons & Dragons, or similar games, you should know that they need lots of dice!

Collecting unique and interesting dice to play with becomes a bit of a hobby in it’s self. Thats where our subject for this artice comes in. FlipDie by Yarro Studios have a really unique take on a set of dice. They turned coins into flipable dice, from a D4 all the way to a D20!

The coins are designed to be flipped, and when they land a small ballbearing inside moves to one of the cutout windows to show the number you “rolled”. Each side of every coin has a unique and intricate design to fit the theme of the coin.

We wanted to capture a set of images that show off the unique features of these coins. The designs, colour and ball where possible.

FlipDie Coin Product Photography

We approached this like a product shoot. We want a set of images that match together so they look the same, but we also want to make each coin a little unique. Overall we want the coins to look sharp and eyecatching while showing off the unique detail for each design.

We’re going to do this with lighting and composition, along with changing the position of the coin for variety.

Subject placement, lighting, and focus stacking are all going to play really important parts in making these images stand out. We want to make sure that the images are eye-catching and interesting, while still showing off all of the detail, colour and designs on the coin as they actually are.

Lets start with the placement of the coin. As these Flipdie dice coins are designed to be flipped (Duh!) we wanted to show that in action. Not easy for a still image! This means we’re shooting the coin at an angle. To do this, we placed each coin on a raised plastic stand, and used blu-tac to angle the coin and fix it in place. We then shoot from the top down onto a black background.

Lighting & Colour

Next is the lighting. We wanted to theme each image to the coin, so we’re introducing a highlight of colour along the raised edge of the coin. The front of the coin still needs to show off the design and actual colour of the coin so we used two diffused lights for the front of the coin.

We used the Adaptalux Studio to place our lighting exactly where we needed it to be without spilling too much light onto the backdrop. This is important to keep the background as dark as possible for easy removal later. For a more in-depth tutorial on how to shoot products on a black background, check out this article and video.

The key lights at the front were placed at a low angle to the coin to catch all of the raised surface detail on the coin. This casts larger shadows in the low areas and highlights raised parts, making for a dramatic look to suit the dramatic designs!

Focus Stacking & Editing

Finally, we looked at stacking our images. Product photos like these always look best with the full product in sharp focus. However, when shooting using a macro lens and getting close up to a small subject, a shallow depth of field can make the edges look blurry. To solve this, we focus stack! We also have a full tutorial on this technique, it’s time-consuming, but totally worth it!

The last thing to do is to fully remove the background in Photoshop and add a pure black one. We also went with adding a slight gradient of colour to the coloured edge of the coin to make it more eye-catching. It’s important to keep the gradient away from the edge of the frame if you want to display these on a pure black website background like we are in some of the images above.

We think these Flipdie dice coins are a really unique product and so they deserve some detailed and eyecatching product photography! Of course, these techniques can be applied to many different products and coins… and dice!

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