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Lesson Of The Month
Shooting Jewelry Simply And Elegantly
By Ben Clay/Web Photo School • August, 2003
Lesson Of The Month
When it comes to photographing
jewelry, there are different approaches to consider with regards to
how each particular piece will come across. If you are deadline driven
and have many pieces to photograph, you may prefer to place each piece
on a plain white background set, photograph it, and then replace it
with the following one.
There may also be situations where you’ll want to take a little
extra time to integrate props and/or a background to create a more visually
compelling image. Before long, you’ll probably find that you can
combine elements from each of these approaches to create the quantity
and quality of images you’ll be happy with.
In this lesson, we wanted to demonstrate just how easy it is to create
your own custom shooting space. In the corner of a relatively small
room with 8-foot ceilings, we put together a simple lighting set, which
consisted of a 30x50” sheet of white foamcore held up by a couple
of sawhorses. We attached an Olympus C-5050 Zoom digital camera to a
Manfrotto tripod and positioned it close to the front edge of the foamcore.
We would later bring in a Photoflex Medium Starlite Kit and a Photoflex
12” LiteDisc setup so that ultimately, the entire set would take
up less than 25 square feet (5x5 ft) of floor space. As you can see,
you can create a setup like this just about anywhere (#1).
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The Basic Approach
Even if all you want to do is shoot basic jewelry shots on a white background,
remember that the lighting you use is going to determine how your shots
come out. To demonstrate how important it is to have good lighting, we
decided to illustrate the difference between built-in flash lighting and
softbox lighting. We first started with the built-in flash lighting.
First, we placed this beautiful crystal and sterling stretch bracelet
(www.jewelrybymareware.com)
near the front edge of the foamcore so that we could position the camera
about 8” overhead, and then made some adjustments to the camera.
We first made sure that the All Reset function of the camera was turned
off, set the Focus mode to Manual, set the ISO to its lowest setting (64),
set the Resolution to SHQ, and set the white balance setting to Daylight
to match the color temperature of the flash (5500ÞK). We then activated
the flash, set the Exposure mode to Program, and took our first shot (#2).
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Illustrated is a classic example
of built-in flash lighting (#3). Since the light illuminating the bracelet
is very small and traveling in the same direction as the point of view
of the lens, it can’t help but render the bracelet relatively flat
and dimensionless. There are small sections of the bracelet that are illuminated
and reflected back into the lens, but it is the center of the foamcore
that is most noticeably reflected back, making the bracelet appear relatively
dark and making the lighting look uneven and unnatural.
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To demonstrate the effects
of softbox lighting, we brought in a Photoflex Medium Starlite Kit and
positioned it to the left of the set so that the diffused light passing
through it would rake softly across the bracelet to create a more natural
sense of dimension.
Then we made some adjustments
to the camera. We disabled the flash, changed the shooting mode from Program
to Manual and created a custom white balance setting to match the color
temperature of the Starlite Kit (3200ÞK). For the manual exposure
settings, we set the aperture to f/8 (its smallest aperture setting) to
achieve maximum depth of field, set the shutter speed to 1/30 sec to render
a good exposure, and took a shot (#4).
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Notice how much better the
result looks (#5). The lighting is soft and even, and the crystal and
sterling sections of the bracelet are bright, colorful, and dimensional.
If you wanted to eliminate
the soft shadow cast onto the foamcore and make the bracelet appear as
though it was resting on a pure white background, you could simply position
a silver reflector on the other side of the bracelet to fill in the shadows
and brighten the overall shot. Here, we attached a Photoflex 12”
Silver/White LiteDisc (silver side facing the bracelet) to a Photoflex
LiteDisc Holder and LiteStand and positioned it to the right of the bracelet,
just out of the frame of the camera, and took shots (#6 and #7).
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Remember that once you have
your lighting setup in place, you are ready to drop in any other pieces
you may need to photograph.
If you would like to continue your digital step by step education lessons
on editing, printing, and e-mailing your photos it will be on the private
section of the Web Photo School. To enroll for WPS just go to www.shutterbug.net
and click on WPS Free Lessons.
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Technical Equipment
Camera/Media: Olympus C-5050 Zoom digital camera; Olympus
128MB SmartMedia card; Manfrotto 3001PRO tripod with a 3275 head
Lighting: Photoflex Medium Starlite Kit; Photoflex 12”
White/Silver LiteDisc; Photoflex LiteDisc Holder; Photoflex LS-2214 LiteStand
Additional Supplies: 1 30x50” sheet of white foamcore;
2 sawhorses
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