New to product photography, who here photographs jewelry?

9 years 11 months ago #375174 by Jim Steyvoort
I'm looking for any tips and examples of jewelry photos.  I'll be shooting with a Nikon D600 and SB800 flash and a few home made bounce cards.  

Thank you

Jim


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9 years 11 months ago #375323 by Rudy Sosa
I don't enough to give advice.  But I will say, when I have taken photos of jewelry, having a softbox was very helpful. 


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9 years 11 months ago #375338 by garyrhook
A single flash is probably not going to be adequate. You might consider simple lighting from Home Despot or the like, that can produce a lot of light, which you can then bounce or filter.  Or, if you're lucky, you have a big south-facing window.

The trick with shiny things is manage reflections. There are lots of tutorials on the interwebs on this, but fundamentally you may need a black card to sit between the light source and the subject, which forces the light to go around the card and avoids hot spots.

So try searching for "jewelry photography lighting setup" and see what you can find.


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9 years 11 months ago #375423 by Frost Photography
:agree:  get another flash, place that in a card board box (or box), place white translucent plexiglass on top.  Oh wait, you need radio trigger to fire your flash in the box.  Then have your jewelry on top of plexiglass with another light source on top (like a flash).  That should give you some interesting shots.  

"The quickest way to make money at photography is to sell your camera."
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9 years 11 months ago #375565 by Joves
All good advice so far. You need a light tent really with extra lighting for even illumination. As Gary pointed out the work lights at the Home Depot will work, and they make some nice true while halogen bulbs for them as well. As with any shiny object you can control the reflection to some extent by bouncing the light with cards to the tent, passing it through a diffuser before the tent, and using a Circular Polarizer to control the hot spots somewhat. Also your shooting angle to the subject will affect how much glare you get from it as well.


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9 years 11 months ago #376910 by Jim Steyvoort
Just wanted to thank you all for the advice here.  Very helpful.  


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9 years 11 months ago #376930 by Scotty
Light around it not at it.  Look into tilt shift lens.

When the last candle has been blown out
and the last glass of champagne has been drunk
All that you are left with are the memories and the images-David Cooke.

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9 years 11 months ago #376967 by NickSano

Scotty wrote: Light around it not at it.  Look into tilt shift lens.



Really for jewelry?  I thought tilt shift lenses were for mainly landscapes and buildings and such?


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9 years 11 months ago #377030 by garyrhook
+1. Yeah, I'm not sure I see the point of a T/S lens when using a light tent. You can stop the aperture down enough to get all the focus you need, and everything else gets blow out. I can't say I've ever seen jewelry shot with a T/S. Got any examples?


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9 years 11 months ago #377380 by Alan Nunez
The Tilt/Shift will allow you to get the plain of focus in the right place. My team do a fair bit of image editing for jewellery and getting the focus right gets a far better result than stopping down.


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9 years 11 months ago #377389 by garyrhook

Alan Nunez wrote: The Tilt/Shift will allow you to get the plain of focus in the right place. My team do a fair bit of image editing for jewellery and getting the focus right gets a far better result than stopping down.


Ah, very interesting. Thanks for sharing.


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9 years 11 months ago #377415 by Stacy Craig
WOW... didn't know that about the tilt shift lens.   So would a Lensbaby work good for jewelry?  


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