Jewelry photography first attempt

Koals Chris · Jul 30, 2019

Today was my first attempt on jewelry photography. I'm using Canon 700d with Sigma 105mm f2.8 OS. I took a couple photos but not impressed so far.

My lighting setup is two soft box on the sides and one light on the top. I diffused the light from all sides.

Here 2 photos:
https://i.imgur.com/d414XiW.jpg ISO 100 f/16 1/13
https://i.imgur.com/Fxwpt0x.jpg ISO 400 f/16 1/125

I don't know if its just me but I see both photos a bit blurry.

I want to make the gemstones and jewelry more shinny more real. For example the jewelry that I took the above photos has the smoky quartz gemstone.

I will appreciate if someone share with me some tips and knowledge on how to take better shots.

Thanks in advance!

tirediron · Jul 30, 2019

For a first attempt, it's not bad. There's definitely room for improvement, but you're off to a good start. First, questions: Continuous or strobed light? Are you shooting for e-commerce, or ?

The image is focused, but it's important to remember that when you're dealing with a long focal length and short film plane-to-subject distance, DoF is going to be very shallow; a couple mm in all likelihood. You need to either move back from the subject, stop down (worst option) or focus stack.

As far as lighting goes, assuming you're shooting for e-commerce, you're missing one light; the one underneath. This:

is from a set I just finished for a client; the item is "pre-production" so it's not fully finished, but it's done by laying it on a piece of clear plexi covered with a sheet of white paper and a speed light placed underneath. To get the most out of the gemstone, you may actually need to shoot and expose that separately from the ring, and then combine in post. The gold can be taken care of by a couple of adjustment layers; curves, exposure & contrast.

Koals Chris · Jul 30, 2019

Thank you for the reply. I'm using continues lighting and yes I'm shooting for e-commerce, should I try to light the gem direct with small light bulb?