Shooting Jewelery

ifocus

I am trying to learn how to shoot jewelery, especially diamond rings. My first try was not too bad but I am running into a few issues.

1. What is the best lens? I used a 90mm macro but I have to stack the image in order to get the entire ring sharp. Is there any other tricks?

2. Would you have any tips about exposure. I shoot with a white acrylic sheet however I have to underexpose to get the ring looking right. Is there any other ways?

Thanks for your help

JY

pathfinder

ifocus wrote:

I am trying to learn how to shoot jewelery, especially diamond rings. My first try was not too bad but I am running into a few issues.

1. What is the best lens? I used a 90mm macro but I have to stack the image in order to get the entire ring sharp. Is there any other tricks?

2. Would you have any tips about exposure. I shoot with a white acrylic sheet however I have to underexpose to get the ring looking right. Is there any other ways?

Thanks for your help

JY

ifocus,

1) I assume you are using a DSLR since you are using a 90mm macro ( could be film I suppose also)

The 90 macros are great lenses, but as you are experiencing as you get closer and closer to your subject, the depth of field gets shallower and shallower. Stopping down can help some, but too far introduces loss of sharpness due to diffraction. Focus stacking is another alternative. Some of the macro shooters do it a lot. Personally I do not do it so I cannot give much advice about it.

A tilt-shift lens can help regain some of the dof, but the simplest and cheapest is to use a smaller sensor point and shoot if your images are just destined for the web. Point and shoots have much greater dof at a given aperture due to the smaller image circle required by their smaller sensors/

2) Are you shooting in a light tent? If you meter off a white sheet, you will need to increase the exposure to keep it looking white. Are you having to many blown highlights due to the specular reflections from the ring?

You have some lovely images in your gallery of your popular images. I loved your tractors.

ifocus

pathfinder wrote:

ifocus,

1) I assume you are using a DSLR since you are using a 90mm macro ( could be film I suppose also)

The 90 macros are great lenses, but as you are experiencing as you get closer and closer to your subject, the depth of field gets shallower and shallower. Stopping down can help some, but too far introduces loss of sharpness due to diffraction. Focus stacking is another alternative. Some of the macro shooters do it a lot. Personally I do not do it so I cannot give much advice about it.

A tilt-shift lens can help regain some of the dof, but the simplest and cheapest is to use a smaller sensor point and shoot if your images are just destined for the web. Point and shoots have much greater dof at a given aperture due to the smaller image circle required by their smaller sensors/

2) Are you shooting in a light tent? If you meter off a white sheet, you will need to increase the exposure to keep it looking white. Are you having to many blown highlights due to the specular reflections from the ring?

You have some lovely images in your gallery of your popular images. I loved your tractors.

Thanks for your help. I am hoping to produce high quality images so I must use my DSLR. Also, I do shoot using a light tent. It is really hard to do! I might stick to tractors!!!

JY