Lens for jewelry photography?!

sarahess · Oct 7, 2012

Hi All-
I am new to this forum so hopefully I'm posting in the correct place.
I photograph jewelry and loose gemstones, but have been having trouble finding a lens that will give me better depth of field. Whether I am shooting a compact item like a ring, or a long one like a chain, I can only get a small part of the piece in focus. People who need these photos generally want the entire piece to be sharp. Are the professional photographers out there really using photomerge in Photoshop to achieve this??
I use a Canon T2i, and started with the standard 18-55mm, then recently upgraded to Canon's EF 100mm f/2.8 macro USM. Another photographer told me that lens would help with DOF, yet somehow I am still having the same problem!
I would really appreciate any advice as to a lens that would help me, OR a technique that would make the difference.
Thank you in advance,
Sara

jhodges10 · Oct 7, 2012

Are you shooting at f2.8? You probably need to stop it down to give yourself more DoF. I don't shoot macro or jewelry so I don't know what setting to suggest but I'm sure you could use a piece of jewelry, stop it don to 5.6 and see how it looks then adjust accordingly.

vandervalk · Oct 7, 2012

Your lens is capable of a greater DOF. Are you using Av or Automatic settings? If automatic there is a good chance your lens is choosing a wider aperture. Go Av mode and select something from F11 upwards. Of course you will probably need a tripod, which you should be using anyways. Good luck.

cgipson1 · Oct 7, 2012

why don't you post a few photos.. with the Exif data, so we can see what is going on? Macro lenses have minimal DOF when used at 1:1 magnification, but there are things you can do to work around that.

texkam · May 15, 2013

In manual mode, using a tripod, shoot at a very high f number and a very low iso. Expect a very long exposure.

TCampbell · May 15, 2013

sarahess said:
Hi All-
I am new to this forum so hopefully I'm posting in the correct place.
I photograph jewelry and loose gemstones, but have been having trouble finding a lens that will give me better depth of field. Whether I am shooting a compact item like a ring, or a long one like a chain, I can only get a small part of the piece in focus. People who need these photos generally want the entire piece to be sharp. Are the professional photographers out there really using photomerge in Photoshop to achieve this??
I use a Canon T2i, and started with the standard 18-55mm, then recently upgraded to Canon's EF 100mm f/2.8 macro USM. Another photographer told me that lens would help with DOF, yet somehow I am still having the same problem!
I would really appreciate any advice as to a lens that would help me, OR a technique that would make the difference.
Thank you in advance,
Sara

You could go to a higher f-stop to increase the DoF, but that's not ideal. Even at f/16, a focused distance of 1.5' using a 100mm macro on an APS-C body like your T2i is going to have a DoF which is merely .03' thick. At f/22 that increases to .05' thick (as a percentage that's a huge gain, but given the original DoF was so very thin... you've still got a pretty thin DoF.) The farther back you move, the greater the DoF but then of course you're not as close to your subject.

A better solution is to use focus stacking. Some macro photographers will buy a focus rail (the rail mounts on the tripod and the camera mounts on the rail) which move the entire camera forward or backward. You can do it without a rail by tweaking the focus ring. You take a series of shots. The shots are combined using focus stacking software.

Here's a couple of videos (there are many):

This one uses Photoshop. Unfortunately if you do not already own a Photoshop license you may have some difficulty buying it because Adobe switched to a "cloud" model where you basically rent their software by the month or year rather than buy a single perpetual license. There may be retailers which still have the boxed version in stock with a perpetual license key, but when those run out of stock the only way to get it is to rent it. For Photoshop only I think it's $240/year (ouch!)

There is also special purpose focus-stacking software (not Photoshop). I haven't used any of these. Perhaps some other members who have can chime in with what's worked best for them.