Backlighting the Pavilion

[kenny]

Is there anything wrong with shining light into a diamond from below the girdle when taking pictures that will be use by a vendor to sell diamonds online?

Which PS vendors do this?
Which non-PS vendors do this?

Should it be forbidden or discouraged?

 

[outatouch0]

Interesting question, I have wondered about the effect of light hitting a diamond from the pavilion and how it effects appearance, light return, etc.

 

[Karl_K]

Should it be discouraged? yes

It is also why an IS or ASET image is important to get.

 

[Todd Gray]

Date: 11/18/2009 5:36:35 PM
Author:kenny
Is there anything wrong with shining light into a diamond from below the girdle when taking pictures that will be use by a vendor to sell diamonds online?

Should it be forbidden or discouraged?

I suppose the answer depends on the reason a diamond is being backlit... It is necessary to backlight a diamond in order to identify inclusions and capture those inclusions with a camera - all of the gemological microscopes use a backlight for this purpose.

 

[Rockdiamond]

That''s a great point Todd!
The type of lighting used in a microscope is clearly "backlighting"
It produces a very distinct type of look. Nothing like most of the photos we see.


For those who are curious, a good exercise might be to attempt to photograph some diamonds, and see what type of results you get.
It''s not all that easy.

Personally, I don''t know how it would be possible to shine a light into the diamond below the girdle and take a good photo. That''s not how we take pictures, but it''s a difficult enough job that maybe others do use such techniques....still, it just seems impossible to light a diamond from behind and get a photo showing details of the faceting on the front of the stone.

Furthermore, how would it be possible to put enough light on top of a diamond to get close up photos without having some of that light get into the pavilion?

What about photographing rings?
How would the photographer "backlight" the pavilion on set stones?

Given the difficulty of the task- and subjective value of any photo, it seems to me that there''s never going to be "one way" of photographing diamonds, or photographing anything for that matter.