Diamond & Sapphire Ring – FujiFilm X30 & B&W X10 Diopter Filter

THIRTYFIVEMILL

THIRTYFIVEMILL

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Duncan
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Not too long ago I lost my Mum. I kept those things that I remember her wearing and this is one of those things. She was an elegant woman, admired by many men and this ring, as I recall, was given to her by my Father when he worked in Saudi Arabia. I've not really dabbled in jewellery photography before but thought I'd try my hand. This was really a multi-experiment of macro with the FujiFilm X30, testing the B&W 10x Diopter Filter and processing a jewellery shot in Photoshop. All in all, I'm fairly happy with the result. I could have probably squeezed a tad more detail using my ex-D300S and 60mm Micro setup but at this size image it's tough to be disappointed with the IQ. Shot at ISO 100, fully manual mode and F10.

The setup was very rudimentary. An iPad in my conservatory provided the reflective back-drop. 3 lights from left, right and above provided the lighting and a U shaped piece of perspex diffused the light.



http://thirtyfivemill.com/ring/
 
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As much as I like the ring and would quite like to see more of it,
I think it is not well presented on a dark multi surfaces BG.

A white BG would at least illuminate the stones, exhibit their trans-
parency and so reveal their colour.

As for the smaller diamonds, the black BG has the same effect and
the lack of specular highlights makes them less enjoyable.
 
OK, here's another take. What I'm trying to do here is get the reflections to pop a bit more. I actually produced two images and have done a full write-up HERE.

RING-CD-1.png


@Kodiak Qc I still like the black background so have gone with it again. It certainly is more challenging than using a white one but I like a challenge! :) The diamonds are more "diamond chips" than anything else and they've been enhanced by placing them in white gold leafs. You can see that much clearer in this image? I'm not yet satisfied by a long chalk but again the image is still quite pleasing to me.
 
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This is such an interesting piece for the challenge it represents
that I would not stop too early exploring it.

Now, my curiosity goes to invite you to my studio as I would like
to explore that with you.

At least, the triple reflection is gone. ;-)
What light source are you using?
 
Kodiak Qc said:
•
This is such an interesting piece for the challenge it represents
that I would not stop too early exploring it.

Now, my curiosity goes to invite you to my studio as I would like
to explore that with you.

At least, the triple reflection is gone. ;-)
What light source are you using?
Click to expand...

LOL! If you were a tad closer that might work!

This one is just being done in my conservatory. I have a small table, tripod, a piece of black card, a goose-neck clamp, three standard cheap photo lights (same as these), some A4 paper to diffuse, a FujiFilm X30, cable release and some will-power! This would have been much easier with my old Nikon D300S and my 70-180mm Micro-Nikkor but that's not the point of this exercise. I used a 52mm B&W Polariser on this one via a 40-52mm step-up ring. This is really a fairly budget project and that's what I like about it. Can we get professional jewellery shots with a compact?
 
The second shot shows the detail on the ring better, but I think the sapphires are still too dark.
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
The second shot shows the detail on the ring better, but I think the sapphires are still too dark.
Click to expand...

Agreed, except this is pretty much how they look in real life. Getting them to pop is going to take light from underneath or possibly a light background, which I'd rather avoid if possible. Throw me your solutions.
 
The only thing that I take exception to, is calling a 10 dioptre close up lens, a filter.
it is not.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
•
…waiting!
Click to expand...

The detail I'm after isn't really here in this one. The lighting was fairly lightweight. Might try to shoot this again or shoot it in natural light. I'm really noticing that the X30 needs good light to do it's thing. That said, just realised this was shot in jpeg. Let me try RAW.

FLOWER.png
 
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WingTsun said:
@Kodiak Qc Nope, other than exchanging this for an X-Pro1 I'm out of ideas. :pompous: This is pretty much 1:1. Almost zero crop. That said, at F11, I'd still expect slightly better than this?
Click to expand...

The X30 has a 2/3" sensor, and F11 on the X30 will give the same depth of field and the same (significant) loss of sharpness and detail as F28 on an X-Pro1, which has a 1.5x crop factor APS-C sensor. This is around the same maximum depth of field and associated diffraction loss as you will get with most other cameras of whatever sensor size (depending on what the minimum aperture is for a lens used with an interchangeable lens camera, which for APS-C lenses is often F22, and sometimes F32).

Are you looking to get greater depth of field? If so, you either need to crop heavily (which will lose detail) or stack multiple images (which will let you use larger apertures that will give better sharpness and detail).

Are you looking for better sharpness/detail? Increasing the aperture will do this, but if you stick with single images rather than stacks it will roughly halve the depth of field for each two stops increase in aperture. Paradoxical as it sounds, with a larger (and truly sharper) aperture the image may end up looking less sharp than with the smaller aperture, because of the smaller depth of field.

You are using a very powerful close-up lens. I imagine you are referring to this B+W +10 Macro Lens (NL10). This is a +10 diopter close-up lens (rather than 10X magnification) and it appears to be a single piece of glass (often referred to as "close-up filters"). It will therefore probably cause significant loss of detail/sharpness, as well as chromatic aberration. I have a set of single-layer close-up lenses (+1, +2, +4 and +10 diopters) but because of the distortion and chromatic aberration I only use them for test/demonstration purposes. Instead, I use multi-layer achromatic close-up lenses ("achromats"), from +2 to +25 diopters, which suffer from very much less distortion and chromatic aberration. This post has a comparison between +2, +4 and +10 diopter close-up filters with achromats of +2, +4.8 and +8 diopters. Since the distortion gets worse as the power of the close-up lens increases, the final illustration in that post is most relevant in this context.
 
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GardenersHelper said:
The X30 has a 2/3" sensor, and F11 on the X30 will give the same depth of field and the same (significant) loss of sharpness and detail as F28 on an X-Pro1, which has a 1.5x crop factor APS-C sensor. This is around the same maximum depth of field and associated diffraction loss as you will get with most other cameras of whatever sensor size (depending on what the minimum aperture is for a lens used with an interchangeable lens camera, which for APS-C lenses is often F22, and sometimes F32).

Are you looking to get greater depth of field? If so, you either need to crop heavily (which will lose detail) or stack multiple images (which will let you use larger apertures that will give better sharpness and detail).

Are you looking for better sharpness/detail? Increasing the aperture will do this, but if you stick with single images rather than stacks it will roughly halve the depth of field for each two stops increase in aperture. Paradoxical as it sounds, with a larger (and truly sharper) aperture the image may end up looking less sharp than with the smaller aperture, because of the smaller depth of field.

You are using a very powerful close-up lens. I imagine you are referring to this B+W +10 Macro Lens (NL10). This is a +10 diopter close-up lens (rather than 10X magnification) and it appears to be a single piece of glass (often referred to as "close-up filters"). It will therefore probably cause significant loss of detail/sharpness, as well as chromatic aberration. I have a set of single-layer close-up lenses (+1, +2, +4 and +10 diopters) but because of the distortion and chromatic aberration I only use them for test/demonstration purposes. Instead, I use multi-layer achromatic close-up lenses ("achromats"), from +2 to +25 diopters, which suffer from very much less distortion and chromatic aberration. This post has a comparison between +2, +4 and +10 diopter close-up filters with achromats of +2, +4.8 and +8 diopters. Since the distortion gets worse as the power of the close-up lens increases, the final illustration in that post is most relevant in this context.
Click to expand...

Many thank for this. On these latest images I didn't use the diopter lens at all. I'll have a play some more with the X30 but have a feeling that because macro is the dominant theme of much of my work, the X30 might not suit. I really should have researched this a tad more before moving forward. Either way, many thanks for your informative post!
 
The main problem with the X30 is the maximum focal length of 112mm (equivalent) so you're instantly really close but with a limited magnification. I've briefly tried a Raynox 150 on my X30 with a step-up ring. It looks good but a 250 would be more useful as the 150's maximum magnification at 112mm is about the same as the camera can do at 28mm. Duncan's probably seen this shot on the fujix-forum; it's as close as the X30 and 150 combo can get (and probably as close as you'd want to get to Darth Barbie :sorry:)

fuji150-lba2.jpg
 
Snapsh0t said:
The main problem with the X30 is the maximum focal length of 112mm (equivalent) so you're instantly really close but with a limited magnification. I've briefly tried a Raynox 150 on my X30 with a step-up ring. It looks good but a 250 would be more useful as the 150's maximum magnification at 112mm is about the same as the camera can do at 28mm. Duncan's probably seen this shot on the fujix-forum; it's as close as the X30 and 150 combo can get (and probably as close as you'd want to get to Darth Barbie :sorry:)
Click to expand...

Yep. I'm also used to using a 70-180mm Micro-Nikkor where I can zoom in as close as I like, choose my f-stop and focus at will.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
•
Always wanted to get my paws on that one!
Click to expand...

Fantastic lens, K. The best lens I've used for macro. The 60mm and 105mms are great but having the ability to zoom in and out is a huge convenience and the lens is tack sharp, too. The other one which I'm told is superb is the Voigtländer 125mm but I haven't tried the latter.
 
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I do have the later version of the 105mm along with the AiS 55 macro
and owned some years back the 200 macro, but that zoom…
never had the chance to play with!
 
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I was then working for the Canadian Nature Museums and when it
was time to shoot the snakes or other unpredictable creatures!…
 
OK, a couple more test shots here and wondering if I'm going senile early. In this shot we've got far more detail available. I've used the diopter lens on this one but will reshoot it without. I took in a fresh pansy, almost identical to the one I shot yesterday. Looking at it up close, there was actually very little visible detail or contrast and I think maybe therein lay the problem for the X30.

PAN-1.png


DATA-1.png
 
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Nicer flower!
Good colours, proper tonal range and adequate saturation.
Remains the focus question that can not be appreciated at
this size.
 
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