Capturing arrows in photos

[devientdrow]

I''ve taken lots of pics of my ring but I can''t seem to show off the arrows like you guys do. How do you do that?!! When I purchased my diamond they had me view it under a microscope and I could easily see the hearts and arrows. When I look through the loupe I have I can''t see them all that well. With just my naked eye I can see streaks inside the diamond of light that look like the "stems" of the arrow but not dark and crisp like i''ve seen on here. I''m confused! Any tips?? My diamond is an ideal cut...but is it not ideal enough or something?

 

[3hearts]

Hi devientdrow,

if your camera has macro, it really helps. otherwise you might have to crop the pic.

lyn

 

[aljdewey]

macro setting......a bit of diffuse backlighting. Voila.

 

[sunkist]

Yes, all of the above and you have to of course be patient and find just the right angle, or I guess it would be dead on straight ahead, so you can view the perfect ideal arrows. If you are off to the side a little bit you probably won''t get the right view.

 

[rogue]

I find I get the arrows best when I put my stone on a windowsill on a bright day, but with no sun shining directly on the stone. Then the arrows are silvery, like the first shots on my SMTR thread (https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/pics-of-my-stone-and-mounting-and-my-diamond-buying-experiences.48977/). But for me to get the arrows to be black, I need to have something else blocking the light behind the diamond, which can be seen on the second page of the thread.

Macro mode, no flash. Sometimes I would get blurry or less crisp pictures if the light wasn''t strong enough, so I started putting the camera on timer and holding it still. That helps me a lot -- I think the motion of pushing the shutter button is what blurred my shots.

But what we really need here is lessons from Mara!

 

[Ellen]

I agree with all of the above.

Examples where I've gotten them:

On a windowsill.

On my breezeway floor in front of a glass door on an overcast day. (back of ring facing door)

On my hand, which I put up to a sunny window, but the mini blinds were shut.

I've gotten them outside too though, with bright sun shining, just make sure it's behind the diamond.

Good luck!

ETA, to answer about seeing dark arrows, I don't see them that way in real life with my eyes, they're always silvery. It's only in pictures that they show up black.

 

[Mara]

the others have already said how to get the arrows to show up, usually it''s back lighting of some sort. as for ''good pictures''...it''s just practice!! take 100 to get 5 good ones. half the time i can''t even see into the viewfinder at a close enough macro range to see what i am taking a picture of. it''s only later when i upload the pictures that i can really zoom in to find out what looks good and doesn''t. also if the ring is stationary on something, move around it and get it at different angles. you''d be surprised at how just moving the camera around a bit takes different looking photos, whether it''s light or the angle etc. capturing arrows requires you to be head on with the stone, you can''t be at an angle or else you only get 3 arrows or something...but when you want to take other pictures besides arrows, try moving around the ring. also play with your camera''s lighting options. mine has a bunch of different ones, tungsten is my favorite since it makes the photos look more blue.

 

[devientdrow]

This is going to sound even more dense but what is the macro mode? I have a digital camera, a kodak. It has a landscape mode, a poitrat mode, one for subjects closer than 24 inches.....and a manual mode. I don''t see anything called macro.

 

[Mara]

it could be the one for subjects closer than 24 inches...but it depends on the camera.

mine has a digital macro which is a whole different dial on the camera (it has a camera then an M by it) and it also has regular macro, which is a little flower setting, hit the flower and that''s macro. regular macro on my camera (flower) is not as powerful as my digital macro, but it takes entirely different shots which is interesting.