Thank you for your suggestions, David. I appreciate your help.
Marilyn
_________________________________________________
Let no one come to you without
leaving better and happier.
Mother Teresa
______________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Dyer-Bennet" <dd-b@xxxxxxxx>
To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students"
<photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: Photographing Jewelry
Marilyn <marilyn@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
Again, I'm asking for advice. Have any of you done a lot of jewelry
photography? I have a student who is interested in photographing
her hand made jewelry. Are there any secrets that need to be known
concerning photogrpahing jewelry, or any special photography
equiment that will help her project be more successful?
I've done quite a lot for a friend who makes jewelry. If it's
anything like as small as much of what I've shot, you'll want a macro
lens, and a focusing rail makes it a lot easier to get exactly the
focus placement you want (much easier than making such small
adjustments on the lens focusing ring). Of course you can get by with
bellows or extension tubes and a good non-macro lens, or even
auxiliary close-up lenses in front of a good non-macro lens.
Lighting is the big trick. Usually pieces of jewelry have curved
reflective surfaces, and often also curved and angled refractive bits;
basically all possible lighting problems contained in a 1-inch package
:-). A light tent, sometimes marketed as a "pillow puff" or funny
names like that these days, can make some kinds of lighting much much
easier to do. (How the reflective bits look depends on what they're
reflecting, and you most often want them to look shiny white.)
Positioning pieces is also sometimes interesting. These days you can
do things with visible supports that get retouched out later a lot
more easily than you used to be able to. A good clean sheet of glass
can also be useful, to support the piece in the air.
(Unfortunately right now my server is down so I can't point you to
samples of the photos I've done.)
--
David Dyer-Bennet
Recovering from server meltdown! Email and web service on www.dd-b.net
including all virtual domains (demesne.com, ellegon.com, dragaera.info,
mnstf.org, and many others) is rudimentary and intermittent.
