I'm a simple metalsmith

Macrosmith

Maybe I should leave photography of my pieces for the professionals.

However, I've started messing with taking photos again. Anyone can snap an image but to get a good shot of a piece of jewelry takes some work.

This is a simple snapshot taken using a Nikon D70 and a Nikkor 105mm 1:2.8G lens without any special lighting. while it is good enough, I suppose, I want better.



This one was shot through an umbrella using two daylight "blue" bulbs. The diffusion and the use of only two light sources forced me to use the shadow/highlight feature in photoshop which I think gives an unnatural look.



The item is made of platinum and diamonds. It is three cast pieces which are assembled before being soldered to the chain and having the stones set.

Thoughts???

GOLDENORFE

would look better with a single pendant loop!

have tried shooting rings for valuations, found it extremly difficult to prevent blown highlights, and show up how bad some peoples diamonds actually are
a white light tent would probably be best, getting a good background to shoot on needs a bit of thought!

coldclimb

I like your shots, but like you say yourself, I think you can do better.

If it helps, here's the single most important piece of knowledge I have found that might help you shoot shiny stuff:

Light what is reflected in the surfaces, NOT the actual item directly.

So in your case what I would do is surround the piece with white paper, and only leave an opening to shoot through. Then light all that paper as evenly as you can, and your jewelry should shine nicely.

I got that lesson from the Strobist blog:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/07/lighting-102-unit-22-specular-highlight.html
And he has a page discussing it here:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/07/watch-light-to-light-watch.html
Which links to some incredible shots of watches using this method here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mingthein/sets/72157594566793600/
And most importantly, he also has a blurb about exactly how those watch shots are set up:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/search?q=watches+setup

Hope this helps.

Lord Vetinari

Rather like the second shot.
Think there can a large difference between taking a good shot of jewellery for yourself and taking one say as a product shot to be used for selling but both revolve around the arrangement of the subject and it's lighting. As mentioned above, product type shots seem to often be taken in light tents with multiple light sources.
Brian v.

Macrosmith

great info and advice.

I guess one thing that I have to accept is that there is no single set up that will work for all items. The lighting, background, camera settings all have to work for the particular piece. This is a source of frustration for me as it doesn't come as natural to me as jewelry work. People are constantly perplexed that I don't have an image of every item I've ever made.

My opinion on light tents or other diffusers is that they have a place but more often than not they render the pieces flat, for lack of a better term.

This image could benefit from a tent



But imo this item is enhanced by the use of a single un diffused light source. This pendent was also a bit over 2" in length requiring an aperture of F14. I needed to throw a lot of light at it.