How do I take a good picture with an iPhone

[Vintagedream]

I am looking at a solitaire for sale online remotely and the seller has not been able to send me any good photos yet. She is asking me to tell her what kind of pictures I want her to send. She has an iPhone. Does anybody have any very simple advice so she can get me a better picture of the stone?

i’m not going to make a decision about purchasing it based upon her photos but it will help me decide whether not I want to move forward with asking her to send it to GIA for grading.

I guess the bottom line is, trying to figure out if this stone is worth fooling with at all.

 

[Lookinagain]

does she have a macro app?

 

[Elysian]

Works best if the light source/ sun shines through the pavilion facets
1. Go to a window
2. Place the diamond on a window sill, the diamond table facing you
3. zoom to 2x
4. Hold still and snap the pic

Alternately for diffused:
1. at that window, stand away from the light source
2. Place the diamond on your hand
3. zoom to 2x
4. Hold still and snap

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

plain light coloured background - no strong lines. Use the camera in the phone not whats app or other communication photo apps. Zoom to at least 2X and make the piece take up at least half the screen width

 

[yssie]

An iPhone is more than capable of taking photos of diamonds for sale.

She sent you this photo:



There are two main problems with this photo.

1. It's uselessly low resolution. Phone photos are low-res to begin with - she needs to go easy on the size reduction for email! Email one or two photos per message, and send five messages if necessary.

2. Here's where her phone camera was focused:



How can she fix this? Easy! First, back away. The phone needs to be a few inches from the table of the stone to be able to see any faceting clearly. Second, actually look at the screen before hitting "snap" - and if the faceting of the stone is not clear, keep backing away and refocusing until it is clear.

I really can't fathom how people expect others to spend $7000 on something they can't even be bothered to figure out how take clear pictures of. If she really wanted to photograph the thing usefully she could very quickly Google it, and possibly practice for half an hour - the fact that she can't be bothered to do that for $7000 tells me a lot. Honestly, my strong inclination is that you're wasting your time and effort chasing this. There are SO many other stones out there - why are you so keen on this particular one?