Best Picture?

[HornAround]

Ok, I got a diamond (still don''t know if I''m going to keep it). My friend is going to let me use her high powered canon camera to take pictures of my diamond. My question is, how can I get it to look like the ones WF take because they are absolutely breathtaking. Is it possible?

 

[Daisi2112]

I believe you need an SLR. I could be wrong.

When I took pics of my ring with my digital camera it came out crappy, but when I used my SLR, the pics came out way way better.

 

[HornAround]

I believe it is an SLR. I guess I''m just goign to play with the settings and background until I get the pic I want. I was just wondering if somone knew the exact trick to pull off that kind of picture.

 

[thaihunt]

I am a fairly avid photographer. It looks like they place the diamond on a mirrored surface. They also use a macro lens. You can approximate this with a high resolution SLR by getting as close to the diamond as possible and still remaining in focus, and then cropping the photo on your computer. You''ll need to play with a controlled lighting source, such as a lamp and try directing it different directions (from behind, the side, directly in front, etc). You''ll want to white balance the photo either in the camera or later in a photo editing program.

Hope that helps.

 

[HornAround]

Thank you very much, I will definitely give this a shot and post pictures after I''m done.

 

[patrick835]

Jewelry is the hardest thing on earth to take pic of (beside high speed moving birds ^^)
BTW, a decent digital camera (>$300 and not an ultra portable one) like the old Canon S3is can get the job done pretty ok. As long as it has focus distance from ~3mm to infinitive (some is even 0), a good zoom lens, manual function and good image quality.
You'll need a tripod, remote trigger if possible, a background, some card board, some continuous lighting (soft box is recommended), and photoshop

For better result, put it on top of several sheets of white paper and curve them to make a background, and use daylight bulbs since light balancing does change the stone color.

It's not that easy to work with DSLR, a good macro lens (1:1 life size) like canon 100mm cost at least 400. Lot of the time i just feel like my P&S is way more convenience.

Choose macro mode, zoom in and get as close as possible on the tripod, use the white card board to reflect the light from above, high left and right (set up the lights to hide the shadows), optical finder is better if it has focus screen, use timer to avoid vibration). Photoshop will do the bottom surface reflection and the gray-to-black background (i never played with PS, my girl do it for me

)


Ps: i wish i had some diamonds to take pic of

 

[Skippy123]

Hi there

this thread has some good info https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/how-to-take-good-photos-of-your-diamonds.102989/

 

[DiamondFlame]

If you're really into jewelry photography, you need a decent camera (duh), and a little box studio. Check this out:-

http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents/jewelry_photography.htm

BUT before you splurge on that expensive DSLR or studio lights, go over to the SMTR forum and check out the photos. Many of them were taken using affordable P & S camera. Given the advancement in digital photo technology, you can seriously take fantastic shots even with a P&S.

Here's one of my faves taken with a Panasonic Lumix ZS3, without a tripod, mind you.

It's probably not as good as WF's or a professionally taken one with SLR but it's no slouch either.

 

[patrick835]

FYI, this is a decent light tent... HERE
i got one similar to this a while ago for $40 tho

 

[justinislooking]

If you want a very detailed and focused image, you need a DSLR with a nice macro lens. Even without the macro lens, must DSLRs can take nice photos up close. You can spend like $30 - $40 and get a macro filter that is basically a magnifying glass on the end of your lens. It will help you get a slightly more zoomed in picture, but doesn''t compare to the macro lens in a long run. Macro lenses are what people use to photograph insects.