What equipment is needed for high-res IS pictures?

[Adylon]

So I see people are showcasing thier beautiful diamonds and I''m really curious how do you get these pictures? I''m assuming you need either a really good macro lens and some jig of some sort to hold the camera and something to hold the diamond flat/parallel to the lens... or perhaps you take the photo with a microscope? What about the imagescope portion? Is there a filter that is used on the camera lens or between the object and the microscope? Or can you use a regular ASET or Garry''s Ideal Scope and just place it over the diamond and take your photo that way?

What I have now is:
Canon SLR camera
Canon 50mm macro lens
LED white photobooth

My microscope isn''t really designed to take pictures so I''m thinking to either buy a Canon 180mm macro lens or a new microscope. Any help on how to get these high res pics would be appreciated

Thanks.

 

[JohnQuixote]

I don't know how much camera-specific help this will be but here is a thread that had some discussion about setup and standardization.

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/standardizing-lighting-for-ideal-scope-reflector-type-photography.27251/

Edit: Our system has actually changed a bit since the time of those diagrams. The light source is closer to the diamond.

 

[Adylon]

Awesome, thanks John That thread helps a lot. I built my own photobooth with 4100K fluorescent bulbs 5 years ago when I first started photographing jewelry. I'm building a new photobooth now that is all LEDS at 5000K. The reason why I don't like the fluorescent (and why I didn't buy one of those jewelry photobooths) is you can't dim fluorescent bulbs and I want to control the lighting intensity from each panel, plus I love a challenge and I like building things

So anyways I wanted to modify this photobooth to take photos of ideal scope pics and your schematics helped a lot thanks I was really impressed with your 3/4pt full cut melee pics in that pic with the penny, astonished actually So I wanted to see if there was a way I could modify a spare macro lens I have to rig up the ideal scope to be permanently attached to it so I can quickly remove it..... then I could take pictures of the jewelry (specifically zooming in on the melee's) so that you can see the ideal cuts in the jewelry itself if that makes sense. Anyhow it's a work in progress and I appreciate your info. Thanks again

 

[kenny]

If your subject does not fill the viewfinder with that lens you can get extension tubes or bellows to increase the magnification.

 

[Adylon]

You know I have some of those but the problem with extension tubes, screw on macro lenses, etc. is that the more glass you put in front of your camera the less sharp your picture is and the more fringing you get around the edges. I'm actually thinking about buying this lens:
MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro

And getting one of those table top studio things so I have a jig I can move up and down with the camera affixed to it at a constant height, and get a MR16 halogen bulb fixture (with a MR16 LED converted 5000K bulb) to shine through a peice of white acrylic to difuse the light from the bottom. I find those bulbs work the best because you can get pure white light, you can dim them with the right power supply and dimmer so you don't overexpose your picture, and they run relatively cool so you can put it fairly close to a white acrylic panel to diffuse the light without worry about melting it.

That lens will fill a grain of rice in a full frame and you'd get the sharpest picture possible. I'll probably experiment with making a big pink dome that I can place over jewelry and get it lit up from the back to take pics to show the cuts of the smaller stones. Should be a fun project

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

i get pretty easy and good repeatable results with my Canon Ixus and the hand held

It does not have the depth of feild problems of more expensive set ups

http://ideal-scope.com/newsletters_issue008.asp
the same applies as here