Howdy and a question

[hotfoot]

Hi folks,

Big fan of your site and generosity. I'm a novice photographer that is trying to shoot my girlfriend's jewelry collection. Incredibly challenging. I've tested all manner of lighting and setups to try and get a perfectly white background with no luck. So I'm stuck airbrushing in Lightroom. If anyone has tips on how to achieve the brilliant white bg, I'd be very interested.

Today's question concerns image quality. I am using a Nikon D3000 with a 18-55 lens shooting bracelets at F30 at 36mm. The pictures are coming out with a sandy colored background that I have to airbrush out. Very tedious and not giving perfect results. I would love them to come out like the jewelry on Blu Nomad | Kate Davis Jewelry. The imagery there is super clean and clear. Any idea how they achieved this?

I am attaching a picture I took of a black pearl bracelet. It has been heavily airbrushed in Lightroom. The gold color is somewhat close to what Kate Davis achieves but if you zoom in the image lacks the crisp, sharpness. Is that a lighting, camera, or me issue? Do I need a macro lens? Longer lens? Better camera?

Thank you for your time.

HF

View attachment 56408View attachment 56409

 

[smalltowngirl13]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

 

[ffarl]

Glad to have you with us!

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

They look OK at this size, but one problem is certainly that you are shooting at F30. Once you get to around F16, diffraction starts to visibly degrade your image quality. It does differ from one lens to another, but in most cases, the closer you are to F8, the higher your quality can be.

I understand why you might want to shoot at a very small aperture (high F number). Being so close to your subject, the DOF is naturally very shallow so using a small aperture helps to maximize the DOF. But is that really necessary? It probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if the back of the bracelet wasn't in focus. As long as the front or the important parts are in focus, that might be enough.

Some people might take it a step further and use a technique called focus stacking. Basically, you use a smaller aperture (to get better image quality) and then focus at different points with multiple shots. You can then combine them in software to get a whole item/scene in focus. Maybe more than you need to do for this type of thing though.

As for getting the background white, my first thought is that it's a metering error on your part. Cameras are designed to get the exposure wrong when the scene is predominantly bright or predominantly dark. It would underexpose a bright scene and over expose a dark scene. So when your scene is very bright, because the camera is trying to make it darker, you need to compensate your exposure to make it brighter. In manual exposure mode, this is easy to do, you would simply adjust the exposure so that the meter reads a positive value. I'd try something like +1 1/3 or +1 2/3.

In any of the other modes, you would use exposure compensation to set the meter to that positive value, the camera would then give you settings to get to that value.

 

[IceCanAm]

Welcome to the site.

 

[DiskoJoe]

Mike's advice is very solid. A better set up wouldnt hurt either. You are using entry level gear and thus will get entry level quality. Focus stacking would be a good cheap way to go but very tedious. A tilt shift lens would be ideal but they cost a fortune which most people cannot justify.

 

[hotfoot]

Big Mike,

Thank you for your quick reply. Before I respond to your suggestion, I wanted to make sure this was the appropriate place to ask more questions about getting white backgrounds or should I start a new thread?

Thanks,

Hot Foot

 

[Big Mike]

I'd suggest starting a new thread. Also, don't forget to use the search function to look for similar questions that have been asked (and answered) before.