Lighting and shooting jewelery?

mrbez · 3 Jan 2011

Hi Guys,

What would be the best way to light and shoot jewelery?

Mainly costume jewelery, with a lot of diamantes etc, so I would like to capture the "sparkle" in the shot. Or would this be something that I would add in PP?

I have a 40D, 10-20, 17-55, 50 1.8 and a 430exii.

Would this be okay or would I need a few other bits?

Thanks.

ChrisMClark · 3 Jan 2011

Cokin to a filter that adds a 4 point flare to sparkles, but no idea how well it works (link)

TimSandhu · 3 Jan 2011

Hi Craig,

Jewellery is a pretty tough subject to photograph well. I saw a tutorial (possibly by Dean Collins - looks dated but the principles are very sound and utterly relevant today as they were then).

From what I recall, he used single flash with a large diffusion panel. It resembled a wooden frame with tracing paper on both sides. It was suspended above the jewellery and white bounce cards were placed at the sides to catch certain angles and facets. If you do it right, there will be no need to add sparkle in PP (which would look naff (imho). Just concentrate on lighting it properly.

There is a very good example on controlling specularity here

Almost forgot - You don't need any more kit (except possibly a tripod).

Hope this helps.

HoppyUK · 4 Jan 2011

Jewelery is hard. But if you want diamontes to sparkle, then follow the trick used in all jewelery shops, which is loads of spots lights. Basically multiple small light sources, ie a few flash guns fired direct.

Set them against a dark background to show off the sparkle best.

EOS_JD · 4 Jan 2011

I've done this once and thought the results ended up ok. Not amazing but I was preety happy. I used a small light box bought from maplin for £20 and the small black neckline thing was provided by the girl who made the jewellery. The box is diffused on 2 sides and I used two lights with softboxes either side with their own diffusion panels.

Lightbox was blue inside but I could have changed to grey.

These are three random images from the shoot.

There is a little lack of the sparkle you mention so an additional snooted light slightly hotter than the main light could be added to provide some additional light to small part of the subject to give it that zing.

JonathanRyan · 4 Jan 2011

Is Garry Edwards still on holiday......?

Soft light for overall illumination - hard light for sparkle seems to work for me.

maomao55 · 7 Jan 2011

Hi Craig, no offense, but your gears actually limit you alot for delivery very hi quality images for shooting jewelry. If you defo think you will be doing proper product photography, you might have to invest a lot, depends on where you want to be. Large format and medium format digi back + at least 3x powerful strobes.

If you have to stick with 35mm dslr. A small investment of a tilt-shift lens can give you enough "DOF" (not reallly DOF but visually yes)-- which is vital in product/jewelry photography. A macro lens sometime can not give enough dof whatever F stop you choose.

However, if you have to work with what you have. 17-55 lens should be better at 55mm than the 50mm 1.8 just for slightly less distortion. You might have to use available light (natural/lamb or any continuous light source as Main light (yes main light) and gel the flash for separation or fill, you also need few mirrors!

Here is a sample of my work (not professional setup but for fun) using 5d Mark ii with 24-105 lens with two small flashes.

my website: www.justinzhangphotography.com

JonathanRyan · 7 Jan 2011

maomao55 said:
Large format and medium format digi back + at least 3x powerful strobes.

If you have to stick with 35mm dslr. A small investment of a tilt-shift lens can give you enough "DOF" (not reallly DOF but visually yes)-- which is vital in product/jewelry photography. A macro lens sometime can not give enough dof whatever F stop you choose.

But........the smaller the sensor the greater the DOF (well kind of, you know....). I've often thought about shooting small stuff with my G9 - really nice for close ups.

EOS_JD · 7 Jan 2011

i don't think you need that kind of kit either! There's plenty of excellent work done with dSLRs. MF is fine if you want images for an advertisig campaign and you require poster sized images!!

mrbez · 7 Jan 2011

Okay. I have access to some very high power spot lights, is it worth diffusing this light, or shining it direct on the jewelery? If I use these, would I need to use the flash?