I'm having real problem photographing my pieces of finished jewellery! BF's a keen photographer but doesn't have enough lamps to make it work, and even though we have a fantastic scanner I can't get good results from that either. Can anyone help?
Charlie.
Charlie, What type of pix are you going for? Simple plain white backgrounds? Prop such as fruit and rocks? Let me know and I will try to help. Big D
Charlie: A cloud dome is really terrific for photographing jewelry, miniatures, etc.
You can look it up on the 'net and see what it's like and what it does.
Plain pictures, catalogue style. Simple! And cheap. Did I mention cheap? We have a good SLR and a reasonable digital camera and a very good scanner but nothing seems to work! Help!
Charlie.
What's a cloud dome? It sounds expensive!
Charlie.
just make one out of some frosted plastic or glass dome.
Get a couple of those halogen work lights. The kind you can get at Wally World or Home Depot. Take off the grills and use them for lighting. About
15.00 each. Make a tent from white fabric as someone else suggested. Or make an arch of flexible plastic. Something in a nice light-transmitting white. Be sure to make a piece to go in front of the camera with a cut-out for the lens. You can get photographic paper from a good art supply store that goes from white to gray or black, from one end to the other. I believe it's called Pantone paper. It's easier to shoot from the front if you have a slit in the top of your tent. That way you can hang the piece from the top with fishing line. If shooting straight down, place the object on a piece of glass that is raised 4 inches or so from the top of whatever you're shooting on. That's all I can think of at the moment.... Barbara Dream MasterAutumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~~ Albert Camus
Oooh, oooh, tell us more about how to make a soft box! BF desperately wants one but can't afford it (student) and I could make one for him for Christmas! Please please send some instructions to me, it would help me out so much!
When I said lamps I meant, in fact, he's got no photography lamps, and only a flash extra. We did try but it didn't work. I'm going to go out today and get a few cheap angle-poise's with halogens and see what I can rig up. I'm having ideas as I type! This is so exciting...
Charlie.
Here is the lighting rig I used. It was a studio flash by White Lightning which is shaped like a coffee can. It is on a lightstand and has a silver umbrella. I simply cut a large circle of fabric with a round hole in middle for the flash. I then velcroedto edges of the circle to the back side of the umbrella . Now since it sounds like you dont have a studio flash etc, here is what you can do. Grab that glue gun and some foam core. Make a box that can be attached to the head of the flash w velcro then as it gets farther from the flash head it gets bigger. Line the inside w silver foil or mylar and cover the end w the white fabric.
Using halogens etc could work but you will get awful color, and you will want to have true color to show your work off. If you do try the halogens use the digital since it can compensate for color.
OH! NOTHER IDEA, THE SOFTEST LIGHT IN YOUR HOME COMES FROM nORTH FACING WINDOWS, SET UP YOUR PIECES ON WHIYE BOAD AND MAKE A REFLECTOR OUT OF CARDBOARD AND FOIL TO KICK SOME LIGHT BACK INTO THE SHADOWS ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE WINDOW. mAY NEED A TRIPOD SINCE SHUTTER SPEED CAN BE PRETTY LOW.
GRRR caps lock! Me and my clumsy fingers.
Hi, it's "the boyfriend". This will get me killed by the missus, but what the hey, I'm the one this applies to really, so makes sense if I have some input.
The whole window issue might be a good runner, if I can work out which way our windows actually face. Got a flat in a terrace, so knowing my luck we'll have a really useful East-West orientation.
You're quite right, I don't have a studio flash unfortunately, I just have two hotshoe mounted ones, and the photos I've taken so far just seemed to lack accurate colour - in fact, sterling silver jewellery was coming out looking gold! Bizarre... I'm not a physicist... I don't get it... ow, my brain. (Annoyingly, I nearly got my hands on some mint condition second studio lamps but the woman selling them had taken them back from the shop and not left a number - dang!)
I like your home-made softbox idea, I'd planned something along those lines but wasn't sure exactly how to go about it! I can make a couple now for both of my flashes... ooh... The only other thing that annoys me is that the shadows are often completely distracting and can even ruin the whole pic. Obviously, lacking studio lighting with modelling lamps I need to work out how to get strong enough light coming from the same source as the flash to see where they will actually fall. Obviously this is more of a problem with some pieces than other, and depends on how we display them - it's when we try and get fancy with it that it goes wrong :-P
And finally (unless I think of something else) I'm totally with you on the tripod issue - can't get a good enough depth of field to achieve the kind of definition I want on the jewellery at the moment because of the slooooooooooooow shutter speeds.
Anyhoo, cheers for your ongoing help - together we'll crack this thing!
Alex (the boyfriend)
backgrounds?
Ours was only 149.00 with the bracket at our local camera store.
I haven't looked at its site to see what that one includes.
backgrounds?
I have a seriously ghetto photo setup with which I am finally able to take acceptable indoor bead pictures. It consists of... are you ready for this?.. a semitranslucent white Rubbermaid trashcan ($3.99, Fred Meyer), three 8" clip-on reflector lights ($8.99 each, Fred Meyer) with
100 watt full-spectrum bulbs ($3.99/4 pack, Fred Meyer).I cut a semicircle out of one of the short sides of the trashcan, and set the whole shebang in a shallow desk drawer (so I have something to clip the lights onto). I set up the clip on lights aiming at the sides and back. A long mandrel runs through holes punctured in the sides of the trashcan, and that holds the beads. I take pictures through the hole.
The pictures are STILL not as good as my "garbage can lid in full sunlight" technique, but they'll do.
Then using halogens won't hurt a thing. They are actually the best type of light for showing off jewelry... Barbara Dream Master
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~~ Albert Camus
Greenie, the cloud dome thing seems terrific!!! I was using semi-transparent paper wrapped in a cone around my jewelry to get rid of the glares, but this is really cool, because it allows you to place the camera right on top of the pieces. Thanks for the tip,
-Eni Oken
----------------- Jewelry artist
There is also a pop-up table top tent that comes in 3 sizes that is far more versatile. And it has the plus of folding down to a flat object that you can store in next to no space. Barbara Dream Master
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~~ Albert Camus
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