Diamond vendor videos

[Matilda]

I have just been wondering if anyone knew why or how certain vendors have amazing videos of their stones compared to other vendors?

Whiteflash videos are all incredible, to the point that I struggle to really distinguish diamonds from each other. All their stones look WOW.
The videos of Blue Nile/James Allen/BrianGavin etc etc are not as amazing/memorising.

 

[missy]

Jonathan @Rhino creates awesome diamond videos. And they are also informative.
On IG he is @augustvintage

https://www.instagram.com/augustvintage/

 

[OoohShiny]

The vendor videos and how they look are all about the environment they are shot in and the lighting around it, I reckon.

The WF videos do look amazing in terms of scintillation and fire, as you note, so are presumably shot with a number of bright spotlights operating as point-source lighting, but for me... I think they are unrepresentative of how they will look in 99% of the lighting environments in the real world, so I would prefer a 'flatter' lighting environment that enabled easier analysis of inclusions and facet sizes/patterning (as you also note).

I know that @Texas Leaguer is open to feedback about such things, so I hope he does not think I/we are in any way denigrating his lovely rocks!

The JA lighting is probably the setup I am most familiar / comfortable with - it is generally 'flat' but with what appears to be one main source of light, which means there are white light reflections and fire created, but not as much as WF, so I find I am able to look at performance of the stone as well as facet structure.

The BN videos go too far towards a flat lighting environment IMO - I find them so 'flat' that there is hardly any actual facet reflections going on, so it's good for looking at facet patterns but not very useful for understanding actual performance.

I do like Rhino/GOG style of individual stone/comparison videos, though - the range of lighting environments enables some useful assessment of likely performance in 'the real world', but I do appreciate that it must be time consuming to make such videos.

Just my 2c, as they say!

 

[Matilda]

@missy thank you!!

@OoohShiny I was so concerned that others would assume I was implying that WF was being inauthentic or had bad stones! I’m glad it wasn’t read as such.

It really is just I prefer JA videos as I’m looking mainly for clarity issues, color. I find it easier to spot differences in stones. Not that I necessarily prefer JA stones!

You’re right a range of videos or photos in an ideal world is the best but obviously not easy or efficient to do for an entire inventory.

Thank you both. The answers helped my curiosity.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Wink's video sucks, but IRL CBI stones are ...

 

[Matilda]

@Dancing Fire Please don’t encourage my diamond **** addiction haha

 

[OoohShiny]

Wink's video sucks, but IRL CBI stones are ...

LOL

I think new video formats are coming!

 

[Karl_K]

Some vendors spend a lot of time and money developing video setups that give the look they want, others buy an off the shelf solution and many of them frankly stink.

 

[Matilda]

well I'm looking forward to the new ones then!

 

[Johnbt]

I remember watching endless videos earlier this year when we were diamond shopping and trying to figure out the pros and cons of various vendors and what their visual presentations actually meant. The one question I had was how did the big beautiful videos translate to real life. Would those big bright colorful flashes on the vids turn out to be itty bitty little micro sparkles?

Here a pic taken on the day we received our WF ACA . It was 6:04 p.m. on April the 10th. The sun was coming in through the dirty 25-year-old double-pane windows and wooden blinds, and then across her body to reach the ring on her left hand on the arm of the chair. We were playing with the ring before going out to work in the garden, so this is just a snapshot. I wish I'd pulled back a little to get more of her face and jeans because there was more to see, but you'll get the idea from what's shown.


There were little rainbows of color everywhere. And like that I had my answer.

 

[Matilda]

@Johnbt So nice. I think WF videos may capture its performance well in certain circumstances as proved here. Just wish I could analyze color/ clarity easier through them

 

[Texas Leaguer]

@missy thank you!!

@OoohShiny I was so concerned that others would assume I was implying that WF was being inauthentic or had bad stones! I’m glad it wasn’t read as such.

It really is just I prefer JA videos as I’m looking mainly for clarity issues, color. I find it easier to spot differences in stones. Not that I necessarily prefer JA stones!

You’re right a range of videos or photos in an ideal world is the best but obviously not easy or efficient to do for an entire inventory.

Thank you both. The answers helped my curiosity.

No offense taken @Matilda ! We appreciate the feedback we receive on this forum, and have made many, many changes over the years in response to what we have learned here. Thank you @OoohShiny for the heads up that there might be some interesting feedback on this thread.

We have intentionally selected a "fire friendly" lighting environment to capture our videos. Fire is a beauty aspect that many shoppers are keen to understand and this environment allows a reasonable comparison (between WF diamonds) of that special aspect. It does admittedly make assessment of clarity more challenging than the videos taken in fully diffused lighting (flatter light).

We believe that judging a diamond properly is a process of putting many different pieces of information together in a holistic way. Clarity is graded and plotted at the lab and an assessment of eye-clean is made by our review team. More in-depth descriptions of the nature of the clarity characteristics can always be accessed by contacting us directly, since all our diamonds are in-house (other than our Virtual category). We are also happy to perform special photo requests (to the extent practical), including capturing the video in flat light.

We do intend, eventually, to post video in both fire friendly and fully diffuse lighting, but we are not there yet in terms of our processing capabilities. We have to balance time to market with how much additional diagnotics we can provide. But where there is a demand, we intend to provide as much actionable information about our products as is possible.

This thread is from 2015 when we started posting 360 HD video to our site. I provided a little more background on our imaging philosophy at that time, which may be interesting for some to look back on.
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/rb-face-up-arrows.215284/

 

[OoohShiny]

Thank you for taking the time to respond, @Texas Leaguer, and for being open to feedback!

Your and your team's efforts in imaging stones are very much appreciated

 

[Matilda]

@Texas Leaguer that is a fantastic explanation. I’m surprised and impressed by your willingness and effort to adapt, it is admiral.

On second thought they are accurate regarding clarity as when a stone is so magnified you can see issues that in reality you may be unlikely to notice at least the majority of the time.

In any case, for the time being I will continue to enjoy the current mesmerizing videos

 

[EvaEvans]

I dislike the White Flash videos! Not informative at all! Who normally watch his diamond at that lighting environment: in total darkness under spot light? This kind of videos make difficult to detect diamond inclusions, but some inclusions could be very undesirable. In WF video is also impossible to get idea of the real diamond color! What is the purpose of such videos? In my opinion only one: to attract buyers only based on diamond cut but not to reveal information about diamond color/clarity.
Brian Gavin videos are much more informative about the diamond performance and clarity, although the black background cover the real diamond color.
I like the plain videos of Blue Nile and James Allen. These videos are taken on white background and under natural daylight and represent the diamond in simple, but truthful way.
August Vintage videos are also very good and highly informative! I also remember GOG Jonathan's presentation of diamonds under different lighting conditions, that was impressive!

 

[Lykame]

I dislike the White Flash videos! Not informative at all! Who normally watch his diamond at that lighting environment: in total darkness under spot light? This kind of videos make difficult to detect diamond inclusions, but some inclusions could be very undesirable. In WF video is also impossible to get idea of the real diamond color! What is the purpose of such videos? In my opinion only one: to attract buyers only based on diamond cut but not to reveal information about diamond color/clarity.
Brian Gavin videos are much more informative about the diamond performance and clarity, although the black background cover the real diamond color.
I like the plain videos of Blue Nile and James Allen. These videos are taken on white background and under natural daylight and represent the diamond in simple, but truthful way.
August Vintage videos are also very good and highly informative! I also remember GOG Jonathan's presentation of diamonds under different lighting conditions, that was impressive!

I think @Texas Leaguer has posted a very thorough description of all the logical and sound reasonings behind the way Whiteflash does videos. The link he suggested is also an excellent and highly informative read. Give his posts here a read and perhaps your opinion will change as to the purpose of those videos and where the other places the information you're additionally interested in are present for you. Although I agree it would be amazing if every single Whiteflash diamond got a GOG style video. I personally nominate myself to be taken there and I'll do them all myself! Such hardship! Actually it's probably very difficult, diamonds are so hard to photograph and video.

@Texas Leaguer, I do wonder whether a little disclaimer that automatically pops up under each video would be useful? Something like - this video demonstrates the diamond's fire and scintillation, for information regarding eye cleanliness and colour, see information below... ? Or something to that effect - might be helpful? I do remember when I first looked at the videos I was saddened I couldn't so easily see body colour, but you're right, cameras and monitors etc will all alter that visual slightly.

Personally I admire how open to feedback Whiteflash are and I do look forward to a time when they can offer 'flatter' videos that provide a visual alternative to some of the other information. That will at least help to 'round out' the information provided in video.

 

[EvaEvans]

Lykame,
I'm the customer, I give my money, and I write my customer perspective what I expect of a diamond video.
The seller perspective could be different.

 

[Lykame]

Lykame,
I'm the customer, I give my money, and I write my customer perspective what I expect of a diamond video.
The seller perspective could be different.

Yes that's fair. I am also a customer. I have sympathy for the vendors that doing videos that cover every aspect of a diamond is nearly impossible unless the stock they have is small and they can afford to do videos in multiple lighting conditions. They have to compromise somewhere. I get different information from different vendors videos but none of the videos give me all the information I want and I can understand why that is. I'm just saying I totally understand the reasoning behind Whiteflash's choices. Is it perfect? No.

CBI is another good example, they have started to put 'flatter' videos on their website. Lots of information - but it certainly doesn't tell you how amazing the light performance is. I think that's a shame, because consumers who know nothing about ideal cut diamonds, who've never frequented Pricescope and have never seen one with their own eyes, they are going to think the stones are bog standard diamonds just like Bluenile and James Allen from those videos (especially if they have no understanding of ASET scope information - again, the info is there for the consumer but the consumer needs to realise it and understand it, which may not always be possible). I know I've used the phrase bog standard here and I don't really think any diamond is bog standard, I just mean super ideal cut diamonds are in a league of their own and all the diamonds like ACA and HPD are in a league of their own, but a consumer may not realise that when the videos all look like the same flat diamond video. I'm also not saying that BN and JA don't have awesome amazing diamonds, because of course they do.

Wink's personal videos at least provide some decent variety of light conditions and some representation of the flashiness of the diamond. I especially like when he also turns the diamond to the side to show the body colour, even though his light box if anything exacerbates the body colour at times. They just can't win, but more importantly, they are all working hard to improve their videos, and to me that is the most important thing.

 

[Johnbt]

"I get different information from different vendors videos but none of the videos give me all the information I want"

I had that experience initially. By the end of my basic education and near the end of our search, we liked the WF vids because we were primarily interested in overall light performance and fire. I wasn't using the vids to look at color grade and inclusions because the lab reports took care of all that. Fwiw, the ring in post #10 picture is an F VVS2.

And honestly, the clear-as-glass view of one rotating diamond after another got really old, really fast.

 

[OoohShiny]

"I get different information from different vendors videos but none of the videos give me all the information I want"

I had that experience initially. By the end of my basic education and near the end of our search, we liked the WF vids because we were primarily interested in overall light performance and fire. I wasn't using the vids to look at color grade and inclusions because the lab reports took care of all that. Fwiw, the ring in post #10 picture is an F VVS2.

And honestly, the clear-as-glass view of one rotating diamond after another got really old, really fast.

One could propose that even the grading reports are unnecessary if one is buying VVS!

Personally speaking, I think the videos are vital when it comes to assessing anything VS2 or lower - VS2 should be eye-clean, but sometimes the inclusions do look rather obvious and dark in the videos...

 

[Texas Leaguer]

I think @Texas Leaguer has posted a very thorough description of all the logical and sound reasonings behind the way Whiteflash does videos. The link he suggested is also an excellent and highly informative read. Give his posts here a read and perhaps your opinion will change as to the purpose of those videos and where the other places the information you're additionally interested in are present for you. Although I agree it would be amazing if every single Whiteflash diamond got a GOG style video. I personally nominate myself to be taken there and I'll do them all myself! Such hardship! Actually it's probably very difficult, diamonds are so hard to photograph and video.

@Texas Leaguer, I do wonder whether a little disclaimer that automatically pops up under each video would be useful? Something like - this video demonstrates the diamond's fire and scintillation, for information regarding eye cleanliness and colour, see information below... ? Or something to that effect - might be helpful? I do remember when I first looked at the videos I was saddened I couldn't so easily see body colour, but you're right, cameras and monitors etc will all alter that visual slightly.

Personally I admire how open to feedback Whiteflash are and I do look forward to a time when they can offer 'flatter' videos that provide a visual alternative to some of the other information. That will at least help to 'round out' the information provided in video.

Thank you for your kind words @Lykame.

With regard to the pop up, that suggestion makes sense. It may become somewhat moot when we do start posting both the fire and the diffuse videos. (I expect that to be coming in the New Year).

It may make even more sense to somehow link ALL of our diagnostic images to our imaging page where visitors can learn about the information conveyed in each type of image and how to put it all together to fully understand the diamond. Presently that link is included under our top navigation Education link.