is jewlery photos beyond me???

windoze

a friend from work came up to me at work and said i love your animal / zoo photos. i have a jewlery store on fire island and am looking for someone to take photos of the silver jewlery i make to put into a listing of somekind. would i be interested?? i have never done anyhting like this but i do have a canon 100 mm macro lens never used yet. i own no lighting equipment. i have no other equipment. is this way too far out of my league for an amateur??? he would expect "good results"!


troy

rainforest1155

windoze wrote:

jewlery store on fire island and am looking for someone to take photos of the silver jewlery i make to put into a listing of somekind. would i be interested?? i have never done anyhting like this but i do have a canon 100 mm macro lens never used yet. i own no lighting equipment. i have no other equipment. is this way too far out of my league for an amateur??? he would expect "good results"!

Having absolutely no experience in jewelery shooting I can only imagine how difficult this can be, because of the nature of jewelery being shiny and glamourous.
Macro lens sounds good though, but I think you'll need at least some light setup. Maybe have a look at the ghetto light setup-thread. This should give you a idea where to start.
I've done something similar with white photo-carton and it turned out quite useable, execpt for the color cast when combining flash and standard halogen-bulbs.

Good luck! Would like to see the results and the setup you came up with.

Sebastian

Shay Stephens

Lighting is going to be key and post processing too. To see what you are up against, try shooting some jewelry you already own. Jewelry is hard, but not impossible.

And also have him define "good results" Get a style guide made that at least shows a sketch of the look he is after. Does he have any sample of pictures that illustrate what he is after. Can you get the same or similar look?

Do some research and testing for a few days, that will answer more of your questions than we could :-)

Dee

You can do it!

windoze wrote:

a friend from work came up to me at work and said i love your animal / zoo photos. i have a jewlery store on fire island and am looking for someone to take photos of the silver jewlery i make to put into a listing of somekind. would i be interested?? i have never done anyhting like this but i do have a canon 100 mm macro lens never used yet. i own no lighting equipment. i have no other equipment. is this way too far out of my league for an amateur??? he would expect "good results"!


troy

You will need some work lights, some translucent white material (ripstop nylon is ideal) and you build a "light tent." Put the jewelry on seamless black or white paper, put your camera lens in a space you leave in the tent, make sure the camera is on a tripod and away you go!

This is my favorite article:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/19002.html

Here's one link: http://www.webphotoschool.com/Lesson_Library/_0.99_Lessons/Digital_Manipulation_Photoshop/Photographing_Jewelry_for_Print_and_the_Web/

And read here for a free month's use of 99 cent lessons:
http://www.soocool.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=567&sid=a80c70f4574b51d4218a9213d25d2d2d

And another tip from the net: http://www.home-jewelry-business-success-tips.com/jewelry-photography.html

And another: http://www.shutterbug.net/columns/0800sb_lesson/

And some web tips: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=33056

Using a light tent is cheaper but this has some interesting information on white balance, etc.:
http://www.intergem.net/tutorial/

So, yes, of course you can do it! The trick is in knowing how!

Show us your results!

Dee

This site is amazing!
While I was searching for links look how many people posted an answer for you!

You will also need some kind of stuff to hold the ring up (if you have rings) I'm leaning toward silly putty right now as being easy to clone out.

Be sure to show us what you do! :

Shay Stephens

I like to use white "fun-tac" It is like silly putty, but the white color is easier to deal with in post. Well, I should say that it depends on what you are shooting and against what hehehe.

Dee wrote:

While I was searching for links look how many people posted an answer for you!

You will also need some kind of stuff to hold the ring up (if you have rings) I'm leaning toward silly putty right now as being easy to clone out.

Be sure to show us what you do! :

windoze

this looks like NOT a job for me....... sounds like i should refer it to somebody who knows what they're doing...i think i should stick with what im semi competent at....... i dont like doing things i think im not very good at........

troy

Shay Stephens wrote:

I like to use white "fun-tac" It is like silly putty, but the white color is easier to deal with in post. Well, I should say that it depends on what you are shooting and against what hehehe.

devbobo

You should give it a go...

Last year I did some jewerly work for a friend. I no longer have the originals for that stuff but I have a few test shoots (these are the best, but at least it gives u an idea)...

http://www.pbase.com/introversion/jewelry

You can achieve a pretty good results with an umbrella and an external flash.

Cheers,

David

devbobo

Dee wrote:

While I was searching for links look how many people posted an answer for you!

You will also need some kind of stuff to hold the ring up (if you have rings) I'm leaning toward silly putty right now as being easy to clone out.

Be sure to show us what you do! :

I found that making a small incision in some form core board works great to make rings stand up.

Dee

Windoze -- don't give up!

windoze wrote:

this looks like NOT a job for me....... sounds like i should refer it to somebody who knows what they're doing...i think i should stick with what im semi competent at....... i dont like doing things i think im not very good at........

troy

This is such a great opportunity for you! And it's really not hard and won't cost a lot to set up at all!

What a great learning opportunity it would be for you. Think of it this way, at least the jewelry isn't moving, you can use the tripod, kind of hard to fail at this, really!

You can even make a light tent out of tissue for wrapping presents, how simple can this be?

You have an eye for light, and digital is so easy -- try a few settings, check it out on the computer, try a few more, check it out -- the important thing is to diffuse the light, which is what the light tent does for you!

You can set up on a table, pull up a chair and sit down and take pictures!

It's certainly worth trying!!!

windoze

Ok Dee - I am going to try it tonight / tomorrow. thanks for the support!


troy

Dee wrote:

This is such a great opportunity for you! And it's really not hard and won't cost a lot to set up at all!

What a great learning opportunity it would be for you. Think of it this way, at least the jewelry isn't moving, you can use the tripod, kind of hard to fail at this, really!

You can even make a light tent out of tissue for wrapping presents, how simple can this be?

You have an eye for light, and digital is so easy -- try a few settings, check it out on the computer, try a few more, check it out -- the important thing is to diffuse the light, which is what the light tent does for you!

You can set up on a table, pull up a chair and sit down and take pictures!

It's certainly worth trying!!!

Dee

Oh Good!

windoze wrote:

Ok Dee - I am going to try it tonight / tomorrow. thanks for the support!


troy

I hope it works out for you! I have the ripstock nylon and the lights, but no jewelry to try it out on!

I had to shoot mylar & prismatic stickers! Talk about struggling with a project. I think I tried everything possible, and I still got reflections and there was no way I could get consistent color from image to image!

Then I read about "dulling spray" which I managed to track down in a local art store -- that did the trick. No reflections!

I never could get the background "white" no matter what I did! I had a lot of post processing to do on those images. Never worked harder in my life. If you said you were going to try to photograph something like that, then I might have said, lots of luck!

Now that I know about contrast mask, maybe I could have gotten closer. But now that digital has gotten more affordable, they decided to tackle it inhouse, after I worked out how to do it! grrrrrrr.

I'm pleased to see on their website that the new photos aren't nearly as good as the ones I handed in.

The same thing happened when desktop publishing came into existence. Everyone on a computer was suddenly a designer! Same thing with Web design. It all settles down after 5 years or so...

Must be the same with teachers who go to college, take extra courses only to have the kids taken out of school to be home schooled... And my grandson is going to be home schooled. Fortunately he's a bright fast learning little guy and my daughter and son-in-law are very patient.

wxwax

Great thread.

T4Tots

I was recently asked to shoot jewelry for a website and it took me quite a while and a ton of digital shots later before I found my best pics. (thank you digital)

Believe it or not, I shot most of my work with natural lighting in a huge master bathroom with incredible diffused light (huge block window across from mirror) coming in the room.

The countertop was a nice very white reflective marble and I turned off all artificial light out and used no flash. I loved the results I got. This was beaded jewelry and the lighting had to be just right to look natural and to see through the beads just right. Jewelry is so tough.

Good luck!