Getting lighting right for jewelry photography

[bahemut]

Hey all. First time poster her. I have been trying to put together a mini studio to take some shots of jewelry for a site that I am building. I do not have any significant photography experience either. Here is what I have going on - Cannon digital rebel on tripod, home made light tent, 3 light sources(one on each side and one underneath the items as back lighting. I am still having trouble getting my whites to be white. The white background of the items are too grey. Any general advice on this sort of situation? I will try to attach a sample of the results I am getting.

 

[KmH]

It's badly under exposed, which is what is making your whites appear gray,.

The vast majority of scenes that get photographed have a average reflectance of about 18%. So that is what camera light meters are calibrated to.

When a scene has a lot of white in it the average reflectance is a lot greater than 18% so the camera under exposes based on it's calibration to make every photo have about 18% reflectance.

So you have to add some + Exposure Compensation to over ride the camera light meter.

 

[bahemut]

I am grateful for the advice. I will make further attempts. Thanks for moving the thread to the proper section as well.

 

[joel28]

I had the same problem, and was told to use a grey card

 

[DScience]

Talk to Bitter, he pretty much mastered the technique.

 

[Buckster]

I had the same problem, and was told to use a grey card

The gray card is for achieving proper color balance. For a proper luminance value, the way to go is with an incident light meter. I use a Sekonic L-558R.

 

[Buckster]

Talk to Bitter, he pretty much mastered the technique.

+1

As an awesome jeweler, Bitter's got the real-deal experience.