Common Mistakes in Jewelry Photography

When trying to photograph jewelry, people often leave out some basic photographic techniques that can really bring the piece to life. All too often, a piece of jewelry is just placed on the table, the camera set to Auto and then shot with a flash from about 3-4 feet away, as in Figure 1.

This will always produce sub-standard results and a tiny subject in the frame (figure 2).

And how often have you seen this type of photography on Internet auctions? The results are often improperly exposed, poorly lit, and ultimately end up resembling a Rorschach test more than an actual piece of jewelry.

The main problem typically has to do with lighting. When you use an on-camera flash, all sense of dimension is flattened out due to the fact that the light is traveling in the same direction of your lens. When light is projected this way, it is difficult to get a sense of shape or dimension to the elements of the shot.

Another problem has to do with perspective. If you shoot so far away that your jewelry is tiny in the frame, how can you get a sense of what it really looks like in person?

So let's say you want to disable the built-in flash of your camera and use off-camera lighting. That in itself would be a good start.

In this particular situation, we disabled the flash and decided to use a household lamp to serve as our light source. Once the lamp was set up, we took another shot (figure 3).

As you can see from the blurry result, the light is far too dim to be able to hold the camera steady enough for a shot like this that requires a slow shutter speed. To resolve this issue of motion blur, all you have to do is mount your camera to a tripod and you can shoot at whatever shutter speed is necessary to capture a good exposure.

Before taking the next shot with the camera mounted to a tripod, we also decided to come in a little tighter on the ring. Once everything was set, we took another shot (figure 4).

In the result, you can see that the motion blur is gone, but we now see that there is a noticeable orange cast to the image. This is due to using the improper White Balance setting in the camera.

White Balance is extremely crucial when shooting gems and jewelry to get accurate color representation. Since our White Balance here was set to Daylight, our image has been rendered with an orange cast due to the relatively warm color temperature of the lamp. To learn more about Color Temperature and White balance settings, check out the following lesson at Web Photo School: Using Digital White Balance Indoors

To correct for this color shift, we adjusted the White Balance to Tungsten (light bulb symbol) and as you can see here, our next result was color-balanced (figure 5).

Even so, the result still seems amateur-ish, as the value of the necklace has not yet been revealed visually.

Using the First Studio Product Kit for Professional Results

The First Studio Product Kit can take your jewelry shots from looking amateur to professional. Plus, the entire kit stores easily in the corner, in a closet or wherever! We brought out one of the two lights that come with the kit and set it up to the left of the table to see how each piece affects the whole (figure 6).

In this result shot, the contrast is very strong. Notice how dark the shadow is that is created from the light, as well as the highlights in the diamonds that are "blown out", or devoid of detail (figure 7).

Note that the angle we have here has created a focusing problems due to the fact that the CCD (digital sensor) of the camera is not parallel to the plane of the necklace. For instance, notice how the chain of the necklace is in sharp focus while the stones are "soft", or out of focus.

For the next shot, we did two things. First, we put in the second light from the kit to create even lighting on the subject (figure 8). While the overall lighting is definitely more even, the quality of light is still high in contrast (figure 9). Notice the overly-specular highlights in the diamonds which render no detail whatsoever.

We also repositioned the camera so that the CCD would be more parallel to the necklace to prevent focal falloff. Nevertheless, when you look close, you can see a slight falloff in focus on the near side of the pendant. As you'll see later on, however, this focal problem would be resolved with further changes to the set.

The final component of the First Studio Product Kit is the shooting tent, the LiteIgloo (figure 10). This simple, yet brilliant device is what brings the professional level of quality to our shoot. It ensures that the light, regardless of where it's positioned, will be soft, diffused and even.

The other great thing about the LiteIgloo is that it folds up flat and can be slid into almost any bag for ease of transport.

Once we positioned the necklace in the LiteIgloo, we adjusted our exposure settings and took another shot (figure 11). Finally, this result says "WOW! That's a professional-looking shot!" It's as though we've left the living room end table and stepped into a high-end jewelry store. The whole presentation and look of the piece is changed dramatically for the better!

The white background is free from distractions or muting colors and the piece really comes to life. More importantly though, the lighting has brought out the detail and shape of the piece that was not apparent before. Notice how the light is even and diffused. This type of lighting is absolutely necessary for shooting such a reflective, specular object. The diamonds are no longer white blurs, but individual stones in their settings. The topaz also has a richer feel to it and we can make out its facets and its vibrant color.

Note that when we changed the set, we also brought the camera in and above the piece a bit more to be as parallel with the necklace as possible. As you can see, this adjustment helped our focus issues dramatically.

Taking it a Step Further

Now that we had an acceptable shot, we went a step further to capture a truly great shot.

First, we changed our common lens (14-45mm Zoom lens) lens to a 50mm Macro lens. This Macro lens enabled us to come in even tighter and give us a detailed view of the stone up close. Note that many compact digital cameras have a Macro or even a Super Macro mode that allows you to come in really close to your subject while maintaining sharp focus.

In addition, we experimented with positioning the lights to best illuminate the facets of the stone (figure 12). One of the nice things about working with these lights is that they are constantly on, which allows you to see the effects of the lights as you position them.

As you can see here, this Macro lens (or Macro mode) has made all the difference (figure 13). The pendant now appears as clear as it would viewed under a jewelers' loupe! At this point, no question remains as to the quality or beauty of the stones.

As we've seen in previous shots, focus plays a critical role in macro photography. This is because the working distance (or distance from lens to subject) is so shallow (less than 3 inches) that the depth of field is similarly shallow. To compensate, we set our aperture to its smallest opening (f/22) in order to ensure sharp focus, or maximum depth of field.

While the shot above is quite nice, we thought that it might be a little too straight on, graphically. So for the next shot, we adjusted the camera angle somewhat, as well as the position of the lights for a more interesting composition (figure 15). When everything was how we wanted it, we took our final shot.

The composition of the shot is now much more interesting and we've even created a better illumination of the topaz than in the previous shot (figure 16).

Now you may be looking at the chain and thinking, "But wait a minute! You've lost your depth of field in this shot and now the chain is soft!"

A valid point, but remember that sometimes you will want to create limited depth of field to draw more attention to the key elements of your piece. In this case, we opened the aperture up to f/11, set the focus on the bottom diamonds and took a shot. The effect is that the viewer is now forced to focus on the diamonds and topaz and not so much on the chain.


Final Notes
With this final result, we've truly arrived at a shot that not only represents the jewelry, but sells a mood as well. The details are rendered beautifully and there are no distracting specular highlights. The light is diffused and even, but it also brings life to the necklace. As you can see, once you have a few simple lighting tools at your disposal, you can create stunning images quickly and easily!

When it comes to shooting jewelry, one only needs to simply compare the before and after shots of this photo shoot to be convinced of the merits of simple camera and lighting techniques.