Jewellery shots - body/lens advice needed

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d2000

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Dave
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Hi Everyone -
I've been trying to take shots of jewellery, and hadn't appreciated just how difficult it was to get anything decent looking.

I have managed to get some shots of rings that i am relatively happy with, but am struggling with larger items - bracelets/necklaces etc. When shooting with the lens stopped right down to get the dof required i get a lot of specks and marks everywhere, and just can't get the colours to look right regardless of shutter speed. So far all of my experimenting has been with borrowed kit - but i need to buy my own and am wondering what to get?!

The following shots i took using a 300D with a 100mm f2.8 Macro - i tried using the ringflash, but got too many reflections in the silver, so made a white light box which i used instead, this seemed to give more consistent results. (In pshop used the curves and set the whitepoint on the background - but didn't need to do much more than that)

1.
PeridotGoldRing.jpg


2. One on a black background ...but not quite in focus!
gBlkSaph_ringblack.jpg


3. Same again but on white
gBlkSaph_ring.jpg


4.
FiveRings.jpg


Any suggestions on how to improve these would be very useful

The questions i'm having before buying my own kit are:
  • is the 100mm Macro the right lens to be using? - it was great for getting the focus and achieving the dof required, but was difficult for larger items as had to be quite a long way back to get everything in the frame.
  • Which camera body do i need? the 40D seems good value, but would i benefit from something with a full frame sensor like the 5D or a 1Dmk2?

Your thoughts and suggestions greatly appreciated!
 
I think i've posted this to the wrong forum - i'm really after advice on which lens & body to start with, primarily for this type of photography - should i have posted to the general forum or perhaps the equipment one?! - i can't see an option - could one of the mods move it if thats more appropriate?!
 
not my area of expertise sorry mate,

but the specks are dust on the lens that are usually so oof that you never see them unless stopped down

maybe a shorter macro lens would enable more DoF

as to body I would see it as secondary to the glass
 
Yv - thanks for moving for me!

David - thanks for your reply - I'd been looking at shorter macro lenses, there is a Canon 50 mm f/2.5 Macro that i wondered about - but it doesn't look to have much of a manual focus ring - which is what made the 100mm so good to use. The other one i saw was the EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro which looks good - but i had discounted it as it was ef-s and i was erring towards a used 5D body.

All the favourable posts are about the 100mm (or the mp-e65 which is way more magnification than i need), i've not seen much mention of the other options - not sure if that's because they're not as good - or just people haven't tried them?! ...if i go for the cheaper body i'll more easily be able to justify trying the 60mm as well i guess!
 
Use the forum search facility for 'jewellery' - you will have to scroll through a few pages but there are threads that might help you. Seems the 50mm is probably the best option as th elonger lenses are generally for the more 'shy' objects that you can't get close to.
 
Hi Dave

I do most of my jewellery stuff with a 17-70mm Sigma. The only problem is zoom creep when the camera is looking down. The problem is easily fixed with a rubber band around the barrel which gives a bit more resistance. Apart from your focus looking somewhat dodgy your images are suffering from the usual ‘flat’ light tent look. If you want to give the pieces a bit more ‘life’ first take your light tent shot and then, without moving the camera or the jewellery, remove the top/sides of the tent and now tweak your lighting to give you some nice specular reflections. Don’t worry about the horrible shadows and general ‘hard’ look, just get the highlights working and take the shot.

Open both shots in photoshop with the tent shot as the bottom layer and the specular on top. Now using a layer mask on the spec shot reveal just the highlight bits to make the jewellery really zing. If it starts to looking too much like bling then try a bit of gaussian blur and you can also try playing around with the blending modes. If all this photoshop stuff is a bit confusing then give me a shout.

Good luck
Sam-D
 
Thanks Sam-D -
The layering in photoshop sounds like a great idea - i'll give that a go. I couldn't get the balance between the jewellery looking real - and all the shadows/weird reflections right, but that sounds like a really clever way to achieve it.

That lens sounds more flexible, i knew i didn't need 'true' macro ability, but wasn't sure what i'd be able to achieve decent close up focus with, so that's really useful. Thanks!
 
Those pics look pretty good to me. The specs and marks you mention sound very like dirt on the sensor which is usually only visible when it is drawn into focus at high f/numbers. You need to clean the sensor. The difficulty with colours is probably white balance, which is easy to adjust either in camera, or in post processing. Shutter speed and exposure levels do not affect colour. If you do post processing, then you will have more scope working with Raw image files.

Without going in to detail, I don't think you want full frame (big cost, less depth of field) and you don't want to be shooting with a zoom lens. For best quality, a true 1:1 macro is the order of the day and from what you've said, the EF-S 60mm f/2.8 will be perfect. It's a gem :) Canon 40D is also a spot-on camera but for still life subjects pretty much any DSLR will be fine. Sharpness in macro photography is limited by diffraction at high f/numbers more than anything else (an unavoidable law of physics) so it is pointless chasing mega-pixels or amazing ISO performance as you will not see the benefit. You don't need all the other stuff the 40D can do, like 6.5 frames per second, so you could save a bit here if this is all you want to shoot. (BTW, depth of field is decided by the magnification ratio, not the focal length directly, the f/number and the sensor format.)
 
Thanks Hoppy - i thought there wasn't any visible dust on the lens, so sensor makes more sense ...esp as it was a friends old backup 300D body.

I'm going to stick with a prime lens so i've narrowed it down to the 50mm, the efs 60mm or i was wondering about the Sigma 50mm f2.8 macro ...i guess any of these would be more than good enough for my needs, so sadly it'll probably end up being decided on price!

Thanks for the help - i now know i'm trying to buy the right kit at least!
 
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