Re: Another HowTo: pictures of jewelry?

[bholmes@frii.com (Ben Holmes)]

>
>Dear LUGgers,
>
>I have another question about lenses, films (BW and color) and light:
>I have to take some pictures of jewelry, mostly silver, some with green or
>blue jewels.
>
>Any Suggestions?
>
>Christoph
>
I predict that Fred Ward will have something to say on this, but having just
learned a trick setup for jewelry I will share:

        Buy a big slab of foamcore to use as a reflector. Set up your item
on a table, and then suspend the foam core directly over the item with the
back edge of the foamcore hanging over the edge of the table. Position the
foamcore so that the front edge is just an inch or so over your lens. Raise
the back edge so that the slope of the foamcore is at about a 20 degree
angle. Now bounce a strobe up into the back of the reflector. You'll have to
fiddle with it until it looks right, but you should see a seamless
reflection on the item, if it's reflective. As jewelry mounts tend to have
all sorts of curved radius surfaces, you should get a continuous specular
highlight along the top edges of the item. This defines the shape and sets
it off rather well. You can add fill from the front using another foamcore
angled up to catch the bounce off the top reflector.

I hope this makes sense. I learned it from a man here in town who shoots
jewelry catalogs. His stuff is beautiful.

Oddly, the day I returned from his studio I was walking with my wife and
son. We passed a house that had just sold, and outside was a pile of stuff
that they evidently did not want. There was a very large paper package from
a local art supply house. I opened a corner and took a peek inside - ten 4ft
X 5ft sheets of foamcore, perfect condition. Needless to say I took this to
be a gift from the photo-gods and carted the whole mess home.

Continueing with my diatribe, I made some photos the other day of a little
Opinel pocket knife laying in a big tray of cherries (our trees are loaded
this time of year). The knife has an immaculate blade, and the handle is of
a really warm red/brown wood. I played with foamcore to light the set up,
but ended up moving the tray outside where the sky had gone completely
overcast. I used a 2.8/55 Micro Nikkor on the F3 and the camera's meter. I
stopped down to f/32 and had an exposure of several seconds. The film was
Provia, and the results knocked me on my butt. The light from the sky
produced shadowless detail, and the colors were saturated beyond belief. My
point, I guess, is that if you need a really big light, go outside on an
overcast day. Nice.

,/8^|