What am I missing? Too good to be true?

[kenny]

Scepture, thank you for that. I completely agree with you! I also want to thank Kenny, Gypsy and all the other PS posters for their input. After examining the picture on the site over and over for the past hour trying to figure out what is going on I decided to have a new picture of the front taken. I will do more comparisons and refresh the image to the new one. It should be uploaded later today.

Mark Broumand

Thanks Mark.
No problem.

 

[yssie]

Scepture, thank you for that. I completely agree with you! I also want to thank Kenny, Gypsy and all the other PS posters for their input. After examining the picture on the site over and over for the past hour trying to figure out what is going on I decided to have a new picture of the front taken. I will do more comparisons and refresh the image to the new one. It should be uploaded later today.

Mark Broumand

Professional handling

Thanks for clearing all this up.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Everyone please calm down.

Clearly there is an easy to see inclusion in the latest photo - but something not mentioned so far is depth of field. In the photo on the website I think the point of focus is deeper into the stone.
From the side views I surmise the inclusion is very near the surface (not near the culet because it would reflect 8 to 64 times). So it is possible that the focal plane as well as a tiny angular shift is causing the effect.

That the first photo is focused deeper into the stone is also supported by an inclusion to th left of the top left star - that is not visible in Mark's second photo because he has the focal lane migher up near the table.

In the video you can also see the inclusion is not continually present.

Now it could be said that it would have been possible to photograph the stone like the first shot - but then the rest of the ring would have been out of focus.

 

[yssie]

can't delete*
cheers Garry. Interesting stuff.

 

[MarkBroumand]

Everyone please calm down.

Clearly there is an easy to see inclusion in the latest photo - but something not mentioned so far is depth of field. In the photo on the website I think the point of focus is deeper into the stone.
From the side views I surmise the inclusion is very near the surface (not near the culet because it would reflect 8 to 64 times). So it is possible that the focal plane as well as a tiny angular shift is causing the effect.

That the first photo is focused deeper into the stone is also supported by an inclusion to th left of the top left star - that is not visible in Mark's second photo because he has the focal lane migher up near the table.

In the video you can also see the inclusion is not continually present.

Now it could be said that it would have been possible to photograph the stone like the first shot - but then the rest of the ring would have been out of focus.

Hi Garry,

I didn't even take that into account. You are right. The camera auto focuses depending on the range of the field. When the picture on the site was taken it was focusing on the ring as a whole thus not giving as much depth of field to the diamond itself. In the zoomed picture I took I focused completely on the center diamond. That does explain a lot.

Also, I measured the inclusion and it is 0.16mm in size which is not that large at all. It looks a whole lot larger in the zoomed picture. Can it be that the camera is picking up the inclusion with the facets shadowing underneath?

Mark Broumand

 

[kenny]

Everyone please calm down.

Clearly there is an easy to see inclusion in the latest photo - but something not mentioned so far is depth of field. In the photo on the website I think the point of focus is deeper into the stone.
From the side views I surmise the inclusion is very near the surface (not near the culet because it would reflect 8 to 64 times). So it is possible that the focal plane as well as a tiny angular shift is causing the effect.

That the first photo is focused deeper into the stone is also supported by an inclusion to th left of the top left star - that is not visible in Mark's second photo because he has the focal lane migher up near the table.

In the video you can also see the inclusion is not continually present.

Now it could be said that it would have been possible to photograph the stone like the first shot - but then the rest of the ring would have been out of focus.

Hi Garry,

I didn't even take that into account. You are right. The camera auto focuses depending on the range of the field. When the picture on the site was taken it was focusing on the ring as a whole thus not giving as much depth of field to the diamond itself. In the zoomed picture I took I focused completely on the center diamond. That does explain a lot.

Also, I measured the inclusion and it is 0.16mm in size which is not that large at all. It looks a whole lot larger in the zoomed picture. Can it be that the camera is picking up the inclusion with the facets shadowing underneath?

Mark Broumand

Garry and Mark, I realize my posting privileges are at stake here but I must I respectfully disagree.
All my life I have gotten trouble over and over again for speaking what I see as the truth in the face of the powers that be.

The depth of field and the plane of focus cannot cause such a large black inclusion to vanish in these comparison pics of the same diamond.

Here is proof:
The depth of field was deep enough in both pics to clearly captured those four dark reflections on top of the four prongs.
Those prongs are above the diamond itself.
Also the depth of focus also went deep enough so the entire arrows are also equally in good focus in both pics.

If the focus was good enough to capture:
1. those four small dark reflections on prongs above the diamond
2. the entire length of all 8 arrow shafts
3. all 8 arrow heads
4. all of the facets all over the diamond deep and shallow . . .
then the focus would be good enough to capture that much larger black inclusion too which as the video indicates is near the table.

The entire diamond is in focus.
The inclusion is IN the diamond.

 

[MarkBroumand]

Kenny, The picture on the left from the site is not as focused on the diamond as the picture on the right or the angle that the ring was sitting in when the picture on the left was taken was not as great. You can see that by the way the facets are shadowed. I added arrows to the two pics - as you can see from the pictures the one on the right has much crisper cleaner and more shadowed in arrows compared to the one on the left.

Mark Broumand

 

[kenny]

Kenny, The picture on the left from the site is not as focused on the diamond as the picture on the right or the angle that the ring was sitting in when the picture on the left was taken was not as great. You can see that by the way the facets are shadowed. I added arrows to the two pics - as you can see from the pictures the one on the right has much crisper cleaner and more shadowed in arrows compared to the one on the left.

Mark Broumand

No Mark.
What you are pointing out does not show the left pic is out of focus.
You are showing how dark or light the arrowheads appear.
That has nothing do do with focus, only with light and environment.

Plus, 4 arrows are light, and the other 4 arrows are dark.
If that means dark ones are in focus and light ones are not you got one wonky-cut diamond.
But we can see it is a beautifully-cut diamond.

Plus as my previous post explains both pics are in focus enough to have easily recorded such a large black prominent inclusion.

 

[MarkBroumand]

Kenny,

I was actually thinking the reason why the facets are not all shadowed evenly is because the ring was slightly tilted when it was being photographed. We don't use a set holder. The ring is placed freely in a photobox when being photographed. I made sure the ring was perfectly centered when I took my zoomed picture. Otherwise the one on the site would have had the facets shadowed as perfectly as the zoomed picture I took.

In any case 1 not so great picture amongst 3000+ items can happen. Sorry. Please allow for .00001 margin of error

Mark Broumand

 

[kenny]

Kenny,

I was actually thinking the reason why the facets are not all shadowed evenly is because the ring was slightly tilted when it was being photographed. We don't use a set holder. The ring is placed freely in a photobox when being photographed. I made sure the ring was perfectly centered when I took my zoomed picture. Otherwise the one on the site would have had the facets shadowed as perfectly as the zoomed picture I took.

In any case 1 not so great picture amongst 3000+ items can happen. Sorry. Please allow for .00001 margin of error

Mark Broumand

Yeah the 8 arrows not being the same tone can be explained by that.
So I'm fine your requested .00001 margin of error.
No problem.

Frankly I'm not really concerned about uniform arrow darkness.
This discussion is about the mysteriously-missing inclusion in the pic on your website.

Mark could you please post a better copy of your webpic here?
Mine was just a 1 inch low-res screen capture.

Pricescope now lets you upload pics up to 1 MB, so save a copy that has a file size of around 950 to 990 KB for max resolution.
PNG format is preferred to JPG if your software lets you save it as PNG.
Unlike JPG, PNG does not compress the file and more detail will be retained.

 

[MarkBroumand]

Mark -


I do have a question regarding your return policy: your exchanges for customizations with no restocking fee is generous. But I see you only offer exchanges on sized items - So If I buy this ring from you (the one we are discussing) without doing my homework and I'm unhappy with the visibility of the inclusion IRL, but I had the ring sized from whatever it is now to a 4 - no other changes, would I be able to return for refund per your policy?

Yssie,

I offer a 100% no questions asked money back guarantee. When a client is unsure about their purchase I always recommend that they allow for the ring to be sent in the standard size (usually 6.5) so that they can examine the piece and make sure it is exactly to their liking. Upon approval I set up a fully insured shipment of the ring back to us for resizing which usually takes 1-2 days for delivery back to us and 1-2 days for sizing and another couple of days for the return shipment back to the client so about a week turn around once the client has initially approved the piece. This way the return policy is valid through out the purchase time frame and a client can rest assured that he will not get stuck with anything he won't love 100%

Mark Broumand

 

[scepture]

I just was looking around on the MB website when I saw this same diamond again. I don't want to cause a big dust up like happened last time (unfortunately), but you did say that you were going to change the picture and have failed to do so. I just want to make sure people know what they're getting, especially if this site lives up to its 'consumer advocate site' name.

Not meaning to call Mark or his people out, but just a friendly reminder!

 

[MarkBroumand]

Hello,

The image has been updated. You would need to hit reload/refresh to see the new image.

Mark Broumand

 

[scepture]

Thank you for that update. I did not actually use the link from this post when I noticed that it wasn't updated. I was browsing your site (and on another computer at that) when the diamond came up and it jogged my memory. In any case, thanks for the update and quick response.

 

[should i be here]

No matter what, Photoshopped/altered or not, if I were to buy the ring originally pictured on the website, I would be shocked to receive the 'real' ring with the inclusion that big smack in the center. Bottom line.