my diamonds loose!

[Nate]

As some of you already know, I'm got a 1.33ct, SI1, J, H&A, AGS000 cut stone for the center and two slightly larger than 0.5ct, SI2, J, H&A, AGS000 cut stones for the sides. The bad boys are all going to go in a Vatche 3 stone truffle setting.

Thanks to Jonathan at GOG, I received the stones loose today for inspection!

I got all set up to take pics, but by then the sun was down.

So I played around with the camera a little but didn't have a whole lot of time so I just snapped a few pics of the 1.33ct. I plan on taking an enormous amount of pics, this is only the beginning!!!

Was hard to get the camera straight over the diamond to take a pic of the arrows and still get sufficient light in the stone. The sun does amazing things with the stone, this pic from indoor lighting doesn't do it justice!

I'm surprised how well this pic came out! I had the camera in the right spot and everything, I just didn't have quite enough lighting. I'm not sure how much of the specks are dirt and how much are inclusions... it sort of looks like the spec on one of the chevrons matches the location of the tiny feather that makes the stone an SI1. I'm not sure if the spec on the heart is an inclusion but I'm pretty sure the rest is just dirt. I'll have to spend more time making sure it is absolutely clean next time!

More to come tomorrow!! As long as I don't have to work late that is.

 

[Nate]

I spent hours on this, I hope everyone likes it!

Small GIF image version (773kb):

But this is where it really looks awesome:

AVI movie version (2.55mb)

The lighting isn't sunlight... I want to redo it in sunlight, it'll be 10x as amazing!

 

[AnnaMagdalena]

literally breathtaking!! Where is the eyes-popping-out-of-head smiley when you need it???

this is close enough:

 

[Nate]

I made it my avatar!

 

[Nate]

Ok, I just revamped both the GIF images and the AVI. I fixed the colors in the GIFs a bit and the AVI is now super high quality!

If you think the little GIF image is cool, check out the AVI!!!

 

[Nate]

Here are some pics of the fire. The sun still hasn't come out and looks like it won't until Monday.

I really want to get some pics in sunlight, its really more amazing than any of these pics!

Looking at some of these pics it seems like the stone was dirty, but I can assure you it wasn't! Look closely and you'll see those little spots that look like dirt are actually little rainbows!

 

[caratgirl]

Nate, very HOT photos!!! When is your ring to be completed? I am so sure that we will be treated to multiple ring position shots as well.

 

[Giangi]

OH MY GOD!

How beautiful! It's a ball of fire!

 

[Nate]

When I'm finished playing with them, I'll send the diamonds back to GOG and then they'll go off to Vatche.

The sun was out today and so I made another movie! Check it out!

Small GIF version (957kb):

Large GIF version (2.79mb)

AVI movie numero dos (1.0mb)

Also took a couple nice pics under the sun...

Look at those arrows and colors!

Blue!

 

[Rhino]

Oh my LORD! Nate what a tremendous job you've done of capturing both the fire AND the optical symmetry & contrast brilliance of those stones!!! Even the smaller side stones! Listen ... the deadline for ordering Vatche settings is this Tuesday at 12noon so if it's ok with you I'll go ahead and order the setting. Everything is cool as per what I told you in email too. If I don't order the setting now we'd have to wait until mid July before we can order it and it'd take about 2-3 weeks from then. I don't need the stones back that quick but will need em back within the next week or 2.

All the best,
Jonathan

 

[Rhino]

Oh my LORD! Nate what a tremendous job you've done of capturing both the fire AND the optical symmetry & contrast brilliance of those stones!!! Even the smaller side stones! Listen ... the deadline for ordering Vatche settings is this Tuesday at 12noon so if it's ok with you I'll go ahead and order the setting. Everything is cool as per what I told you in email too. If I don't order the setting now we'd have to wait until mid July before we can order it and it'd take about 2-3 weeks from then. I don't need the stones back that quick but will need em back within the next week or 2.

All the best,
Jonathan

 

[Mara]

Wow Nate your pictures blow me away...and your pic taking skills aren't too shabby either. Amazing shots, the diamonds surely are gorgeous and SOOO fiery!!!!!!!!!! Was the Bscope results for the larger stone more on the fire side than white brilliance? Your stone looks so sparkly, its great.

Also--I know you said the small spots that look like dirt are rainbows, could those be the inclusions esp under such high magnification? Are they that spread out? Just a thought....since these are SI2's. If you do have pix of the inclusions, would be interesting to see them!

Lovely!!! The movie is cool too.

 

[Nate]

Glad you guys like!

The camera does all the work, I just point and shoot.

Its a Kodak DX4900 4.0MP camera with 10x and 7x lenses for a total of 17x zoom. I borrowed it from a friend. Actually since I was justing thinking about the zoom, I checked it out and it has 2x optical zoom already, so I should have been getting 19x optical zoom out of it for all those pics instead of just 17x!

Playing with it real quick, the 19x optical plus 6x digital zoom I can almost make out the arrows in 0.5ct sidestones looking through the LCD on the camera! Man I wish I had found this before! Looks like more playing to do!

Sounds good Johnathan, I'll shoot you off an email in a sec.

You the man!!

Yep Mara, bscope had a little more fire (very high) versus white light (high). You can check out the actual bscope on the center stone here.

Nope, the little spots I was talking about are definitely not inclusions, atleast not for the 1.33ct stone. It's inclusion you can see under the microscope here. Supposedly it also has some inclusions off to the side, which you can see in this AGS report, but I can't find them under 10x.

One of the SI2 sidestones is eye clean. Wherever the inclusion is, I can't find it under 10x! I need to stop by a jewelry store and check them all out with a gem scope, just for kicks. Unfortunately this diamond wasn't "looking" at the camera in the pics above so I didn't get any pics of its H&A.

The other SI2 isn't as good. This was the stone that showed the nice arrows in the pics above. In fact, you can make out its inclusions there. I'll circle 'em for ya...

I can just barely make out these two inclusions with my naked eye at a certain angle. The inclusion on the left in that pic is actually further towards the edge of the stone but it is deep in the stone and so gets refracted and appears to be just on the edge of the table. The pic is taken at a slight angle, thats why it appears to be closer to the center.

This zoom revelation I just had will make taking pics of the inclusions way easier! I can't wait to try it out tomorrow!

 

[lea]

Wow! That was beautiful diamond, thanks for posting.

 

[jpdoane]

Actually, your zoom would be multiplicitave. If you really have a 10x and 7x and 2x lenses all connected together, you would have 140x (10x7x2) since each lens would magnify the already magnified image from the output of the previous lens. However it doesn't really look that magnified in the pics. You had *all* three zoom lenses connected in series?

 

[Nate]

Yep, I had the 10x, then the 7x screwed into that, then the camera lense itself has an optical zoom of 2x. But I don't think the zoom is multiplicative as it definitely wasn't 140x!

I've posted a LOT more pics of the finished ring in this thread. Sometime I'll have to make a post in Show Me the Ring of all the pics in one place.

 

[Boulder]

Wow!! Stunning photos, Nate!