Photographing Rings that Sell

Modified 11:43, 11 Jun 2009 by himikel | Page History

1. Topics Covered:
2. Equipment Used:
1. 2.1. Camera/Media
2. 2.2. Lighting Equipment
3. Set / Background


	This lesson will show you how to easily photograph a ring with professional results. Bring out the beauty of your rings by using this quick and simple method of making professional-looking images. Once you are set up to shoot correctly, you can quickly photograph each ring in your collection.
Since rings are highly reflective objects, the background and surrounding surfaces should be neutral in color, commonly white, to prevent any unwanted colors from showing in the final shot. (Most images can be clicked for an enlarged view.)

Topics Covered:

Setting up on a small table
Positioning the ring and the camera
Using 2 light sources to make your ring shine

Equipment Used:

Camera/Media

Olympus 32MB SmartMedia card
Olympus USB Dual Slot SmartMedia/CompactFlash Reader
Olympus C-5050z Digital Camera
USB-enabled computer

Lighting Equipment

Photoflex Starlite Basic Digital Kit

Set / Background

A home made shooting table

We used a small shooting table made of PVC tubing for this shot (You can learn how to make your own shooting table in the lesson entitled: "Building a 12 and 18 inch Shooting Table"). A piece of white foam-board was cut and taped to the table frame. A sheet of white paper was then taped to the foam-board.

Figure 1

We positioned the ring at an off center angle to bring out the dimension of the ring, roughly in the middle of the shooting table. To have the ring stand upright on our table surface, we used a small amount of ghee (a 50/50 mixture of kneedable eraser and modelling clay) (Figures 2 and 3).


Figure 2	Figure 3

Figure 4

We prepared to shoot by placing the tripod in position with camera attached so that the camera pointed down on the ring at an angle of about 45° (Figure 4).

The camera and lens we were using allowed us to get the lens about 2 inches from the ring (Figure 5). When shooting small and detailed jewelry like this, the closer you can get, the better.

Figure 5

The Olympus C-5050Z digital camera should be set as follows:

Exposure mode set to manual
Focus set to manual macro focus
ISO set to its lowest setting (64)
Resolution set to SHQ
White Balance set to 3000 or set a custom white balance

We set the aperture to f/8 and the shutter speed to 1/200 of a second. Your exposure will vary depending on the distance of the subject to the light source.

Figure 6

We positioned the first of our two Starlite Basic Digital Kits on the left side of the ring. We positioned the light at an angle of about 45° (Figure 6).

We positioned 4.5 inches from the ring, making sure that we maximized the light coverage for even reflections (Figure 7).

Figure 7

Figure 8

Figure 8 shows an exposure made with the one light set-up.

The composition and overall effect already hints at what we were looking for, but notice the shadows and dark areas on the inside and right side of the ring. We knew that if we wanted a professional feel, we would need to bring out those details. We decided to bring out our second Starlite Basic Digital Kit to really illuminate the ring's shadow side (Figure 9).

Figure 9

We made the light-to-subject distance of the second light longer than that of the first light in order to illuminate this side of the ring while retaining some dimensionality and contrast. Our light was positioned about 7.5 inches from the ring (Figure 10).

Figure 10

We made a few test exposures to see the results, and fine-tuned the angles and distances of the lights to find the placement that gave the best results for our ring.

Figure 11 shows the difference between using one light source and two light sources.

Figure 11

The Payoff

Once you have a photo with the look you like, you can remove the first ring to photograph the second. The same lighting set-up you worked so diligently to set-up can now be used to photograph your whole collection of rings!

Below are photos we shot quickly and easily with the same lighting set-up, only making minor adjustments to personalize each shot (Figures 12 - 14).