Thanks to fellow local photographer Anita, I shot Jewellery yesterday, on location in St Catharines. This was the setup in the store:

An improvised table with a curved white background, lit by two speedlites in an umbrella, with an opposite reflector; then one”sparkler” speedlite in a Honl snoot to aim at the jewellery.

I used

• A 580EX II on the camera
• Two 430 EX flashes in an umbrella
• Wireless TTL with +2 stops flash compensation
• A 100mm f/2.8 macro lens
• A Canon 1D Mark IV camera.

A few tips:

• Use aperture in the 5.6-16 range. More is better, except when you go much above f/8-ish, most lenses get blurrier again.
• Use a tripod!
• Focus using manual focus. Use Live View and x10 magnification to set this focus accurately.
• Expose carefully, using flash compensation as needed. Use the histogram and “highlight alert” to verify.
• Use the sparkler straight on to add life, especially to diamonds.
• Watch reflections carefully
• Use a black reflector if needed to add the black reflections in diamonds.
• White balance carefully.
• Clean the jewellery well.
• Use Photoshop to clean up any remaining dust. Jewellery photos need to be finished in photoshop.
• Use Play-do to mount rings, etc.
• Consider an acrylic stand to separate jewellery from the background – this avoids shadows.
• Black acrylic works too – nice reflections. Black slate can work, too.
• Did I mention you should use a tripod?

This got me shots like this one:

Jewellery can take many hours to shoot, so yesterday worked out well – 20 products shot in four hours.