Hi All - The Challenges of Shooting Jewelry

Many folks are having to learn studio photography for the first time. I know a bit about it but would love to learn even more.

Shooting commercially professional catalog shots of sterling silver jewelry is one of the most challenging technical forms of photography I have ever experienced.

There are incredible specular points, and if there is an oxidizing agent, or patina, there is incredible darks zones as well. Then there are huge cliffs as images cross over differing textures.

Even shooting in HDR, I am still not happy with several techniques I have tried. I have tried light boxes, diffusers, and natural light. This is just a big beast to get right.

Tags: catalog, photography, silver, sterling, studio

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Ronaldson on July 9, 2008 at 4:42pm

I have purchased two 1000w studio lights and a 600w one, all with light boxes, umbrellas etc and remote switches, all in all it gives a good result although its taken some getting used to, I am still struggling in getting the right exposure and despite many hours reading the instruction book on the camera ( Canon EOS400D ) I am still not sure of what I should be doing, I'm going to put it down to old age !!!,
I have taken some good ones and soon I hope to post some of the artistic nudes that I have done, you know see everything but see nothing type photo's...........plus some head shots that I think are good, I have the camera set on the A-DEP setting and I reduce the Aperture to get it right on the black background but it still seems wrong although the pictures are not bad, to do this professionally I need some guidance, so if there are any Cannon users or anyone that can give good practical advise please let me know.......................

Permalink Reply by Mark Rockwood on April 17, 2009 at 9:22pm

Hey Spinc,
Well, I probably can help. I have shot jewelry quite a bit over the past 27 years of my career as a commercial photographer. I always use a mix of hard light, soft boxes and for my primary source, a large diffusion panel. I'm going to try and attach a recent shot to his post. I admit this is a soft ball of jewelry photography but it's still a good illustration piece. Light in this is very straight forward. Large diffusion panel (4x6 feet) made from a 1x4 wooden frame and Tuff Rolux above the pendant on a 45 degree angle with the back edge on the table top and the front edge supported by light stands and superclamps. Head on a boom behind the Rolux at very low power. The Pendant is lying on a piece of black plexiglas for a very old school look (I'm old school so it makes sense). I have a medium soft box coming in from behind the tripod, on axis of the lens and just above table top level. there were mat silver cards on the left and right reflecting the soft box. The cards were 12"x6". Because jewelry is generally reflective, the problem you have with hot specular highlights can be controled with the head on the boom above the Rolux and varying the distance of the head from the diffusion and changing the size of the reflector to creat a smooth transition between the brightest and darkest areas on the jewelry. Ask questions because I'm sure I've left something critical out.
Mark

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