What is it?

[tirediron]

Any guesses? More to follow later on "in action" and with explanations....

 

[smoke665]

I'd guess beer cooler but it wouldn't hold ice. LOL

Some sort of "wrap around" reflector???

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

Zombiesniper's snowy blind?

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

A horizontal holder for backdrops

 

[vintagesnaps]

You're not going over any falls in it are ya?

First thought it reminded me of a drying cabinet for negatives! lol but I'm thinking something to store rolls and feed sheets of paper, backdrops, something thru the slot.

 

[tirediron]

Some sort of "wrap around" reflector???

And we have a winnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnner....

It's my home-brew set up for shooting sterling silver on white. I recently picked up a fairly lucrative, on-going job with a local jewelry maker, and one of the tasks is shooting her sterling silver line on pure white for on-line sales. This is NOT the easiest thing to do as controlling reflections is a <female dog>, so the best approach is to minimize the amount of things that there are to reflect.

The "barrel" is three sheets of heavy-weight white posterboard, with slats from a discarded commercial Venetian blind used to reinforce the top, bottom, and edges of the opening, and [literally] half a roll of white gaff tape. The blind slats allow me to adjust the opening width to suit the item being photographed and the area above and below the lens is blocked with white craft foam.

Here's the full set-up:

The "barrel" sits on another piece of white card, and the key light is from above with a diffusion panel over top of the "barrel".

I also have a piece of white craft foam with a whole cut out of it to slip over my lens, and 'though it's not visible here, I also have the front of the lens lined with white gaff tape.

The item sits on a piece of clear plexiglass covered with a sheet of white paper.

A light from below provides the "white" for e-commerce 'sites; in this case a macro ring flash which provides a more even, wider spread at a such a short distance. The objects are held im place by double-sided tape, Stickum, clear adhesive and whatever else works.

With minor processing, this produces results like this:

 

[tirediron]

You're not going over any falls in it are ya?

You should be so lucky!

 

[vintagesnaps]

Aren't you clever? And nice scenery, love that creek running thru in the background, looks very peaceful, Calgon take me away!

 

[smoke665]

@tirediron Well aren't you a handy dandy! Looks like it does the job.

 

[Derrel]

It looks like a very good purpose built shooting set up

 

[tirediron]

@tirediron Well aren't you a handy dandy! Looks like it does the job.

Thanks Smoke; seems to work very well, with totally repeatable results, and post is down to 1-2 minutes per image. Not bad for round, polished silver on pure white!

It looks like a very good purpose built shooting set up

Cheers! It's amazing what you can bodge together out of crap laying around the house!

 

[jcdeboever]

Neat setup.

 

[smoke665]

@tirediron Just thinking out loud but what if you put the white diffusion "behind" the clear plexiglass? I've done it with black to add an illusion of depth, but never tried it with white, so no idea how it would work.

Also would raising the jewelry just a tiny bit off the background create a shadow line to accentuate the edges?

 

[tirediron]

@tirediron Just thinking out loud but what if you put the white diffusion "behind" the clear plexiglass? I've done it with black to add an illusion of depth, but never tried it with white, so no idea how it would work.

Also would raising the jewelry just a tiny bit off the background create a shadow line to accentuate the edges?

I wish! I've actually got white plexi which works even better, but the client doesn't want that. One of the e-commerce 'sites on which she sells apparently rejects anything with a shadow. If it doesn't look like it's floating, then it doesn't get in.... Honestly? I think the whole white background thing is crap, but if she's will to pay for shadow-less white, shadow-less white she shall get.

The editorial stuff for use around the booth in trade shows and in print looks MUCH better IMO ('though these are only concepts at this point, hence the different sized bracelets, etc).

 

[smoke665]

but if she's will to pay for shadow-less white, shadow-less white she shall get

Client gets what the client wants, makes photographer's bank account go Ka-Ching.