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.
