Shooting Jewelery. What body and lens?

B

Butcher

Well-known member
I shoot jewelery for TV, but the client is now needing stills for print. We'd like to add this to our list of services, but I need your help getting set up.

What camera body and glass do you guys/gals use when you shoot jewelery? I currently have access to a Nikon D50 body and one of the Canon Rebel models (not sure which right now), if they're adequate. Is there a different camera body you'd suggest? Which lens? Anything else, equipment wise, you'd suggest. Jewelery is a lot of diamonds, rings, pendants, bracelets, etc... No watches (yet). Extreme close-ups and full piece shots will be needed.

For a budget, I'd say $500 - $1,000. If the D50 is adequate we'll just buy a quality lens. If we should step up to a better body with glass and it's going to cost more, we'll re-evaluate the budget. All opinions are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

Michael.
 
Well, it depends on what size you need to print at, but I would suspect either of those bodies will be more than adequate enough for any print needs you may encounter.

With that being said, it's all about the glass. I would look into some good tilt shift lenses, around the 50-60mm range. Obviously there's a bit of a learning curve if you've never used them, but it gives you a lot of creative option, especially with jewelry.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-EF-100m...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1230596566&sr=8-1

This is one of the sharpest lenses you will ever use and it wont kill your wallet like an L series. Its sharpness will allow you to print bigger then using a lens that doesn't resolve all the MPs of your camera body. Don't worry about MP though the difference between an 8MP and a 22MP camera is much smaller than you would expect. using and good lens and using the lens properly by not having motion blur and stopping down to the optimal aperture will make all the difference.


http://www.amazon.com/Canon-MP-E-65...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1230596691&sr=8-1

This lens is great if you are only doing macro work. It will allow you to shoot some extreme C/Us without using a macro filter which could degrade sharpness and optic quality in general
 
oneinfiniteloop said:
Well, it depends on what size you need to print at, but I would suspect either of those bodies will be more than adequate enough for any print needs you may encounter.

With that being said, it's all about the glass. I would look into some good tilt shift lenses, around the 50-60mm range. Obviously there's a bit of a learning curve if you've never used them, but it gives you a lot of creative option, especially with jewelry.
Click to expand...

Print size won't likely go larger than half page newspaper and some in-store signage, but the in-store signage always consists of several pieces of jewerly scaled down and photoshopped together (I won't be doing the print design). They've made do with stills of our video shoots, so anything will be an improvement.

Tilt-shift lenses, huh? I've long been fascinated by tilt-shift images (especially the fake miniature stuff). I've never used them, though, so it's likely my boss won't be ready to go with them right now, but I'm definitely putting them on my wish list. They're rather pricey, aren't they?

Thanks so much for the suggestions.

Michael.
 
egproductions said:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-EF-100m...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1230596566&sr=8-1

This is one of the sharpest lenses you will ever use and it wont kill your wallet like an L series. Its sharpness will allow you to print bigger then using a lens that doesn't resolve all the MPs of your camera body.
Click to expand...

Very affordable! Thanks for the link--it's going on my list. Our first shoot will easily cover the price of the lens, so this will be an easy sell.

egproductions said:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-MP-E-65...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1230596691&sr=8-1

This lens is great if you are only doing macro work. It will allow you to shoot some extreme C/Us without using a macro filter which could degrade sharpness and optic quality in general.
Click to expand...

Ideally, I'd like a lens that can be used beyond macro, although macro is certainly what we'll be needing in the near future.

Thanks so much.

Michael
 
Kegan Sant said:
I've used the first lens for jewelry shots (the 100mm) with a Rebel XTi and remote shutter.Its worked out quite well, but you definitely need the remote when the subject is that close. Here are a couple examples of jewelry shots that I took for you to check out:


http://www.waterandoil-productions.com/deanna/Studio/Two-Edit.jpg

http://www.waterandoil-productions.com/deanna/Studio/Uno.JPG

http://www.waterandoil-productions.com/deanna/Studio/three-edit.jpg

-Kegan
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure we'll have the remote shutter--if we don't well buy it. When you're just a few inches from your subject, every vibration wrecks havoc--I learned that the first time I shot video of jewerly zoomed all the way in with someone walking across the floor. Needless to say, that footage was crap.

Your jewerly shots are fantastic. Any tips or pointers for shooting stills of jewelry? I'm used to white infinity backdrops and slow rotating tables. The typical floating beauty shots.

Thanks again to everyone who's responded. I figured DVXUser would be a great place to post, and it looks like I was certainly right.

Michael.
 
Thanks a lot Michael. I used a small, product photo box that I picked up from a local camera shop in Toronto. It helps diffuse and control the lighting much easier. It has a couple backdrops, which I used for variety, with no particular thoughts to the colour of the jewelry - definitely something to consider though (you want it to look as prominent as possible in comparison).

I lit with two 26w lights on either side, angling until I found it suitable for each shot and played around with aperture and shutter. I took probably 400 shots before I got those three however, so be prepared to take quite a few. There will always be something a LITTLE off, whether it be the clarity of a stone or the focus of the piece or the lighting/mood of the photo in general. It sounds like you have a good grasp on it regardless and it'll take some experimentation. If you need any more advice, I'll certainly try to help you.

By the way, any tips for shooting jewelry videos? I want to try that out next.

Thanks,

Kegan
 
Depending on the size of the jewelery you would also need some extension tubes even for a macro lens. Usually with 50mm macro you can get 1:1 ratio, with 100mm macro "only" 2:1 which might not be enough.

You can either buy a white "tent" for lighting the subject, or make one from translucent paper. Black strips of paper inside the "tent" to give back some shape to the pieces.

Shaky exposures can be avoided cheaply and easliy by using flash. 2 or more normal flashguns can be remotely fired with an infrared remote.
 
I second the strobe idea. It will help with the whole "vibration" issue. It would allow you a smaller aperture and thus a larger DOF to get all of the jewelry in focus. Also, depending on focusing distance, you might be able to use your existing lenses.....esp if production stills have cut it in the past. Sounds like a pretty low res application.
 
Thanks for the responses.

Petrus: I don't expect us to need more than a 1:1 shot. I've run some tests with the kit lens on the D50 and while we could get something useable, I'd prefer to have the right tools for the job. For lighting, we already have a light tent we built last year so that's covered (pun not intended). If we're using a remote trigger for the camera, would we still need flash?

DivotDan: We're actually looking for a smaller DOF. When we shoot bracelets we lay them in a circle and only want the front half in focus. For rings, we get the top diamond and side diamonds then need it to fall off very quickly after that. On the last video shoot we had at times maybe a 1/2" DOF. Focusing sucks, but the shots look good. As far as using productions stills--we fought them on that but they had an ad that went to print in a day or two and their normal photographer wasn't available. That's one of the reasons they want us to take the stills now--we're already shooting the video, so why not kill two birds with one stone?

Kegan: Shooting video: We use the Panasonic AJ-PD900WP 2/3" camera. It's an SD camera, but no stations here accept local HD content yet so it's perfect for our needs. We set up our homemade light tent and lay a piece of white sketch paper at an angle in the back for the white infinity wall. We have a custom built variable speed turntable that goes in the middle of it all. Another piece of white sketch paper goes on that, than we use hot glue to stick the rings to a piece of white tile. The tile gives us a nice reflection and the hot glue pops right off without marking the jewelery, and it's invisible on camera. Blast it with light, set one small light near the camera to bring out the sparkle on the diamonds, and flip on the highest ND filter. I open the iris all the way up to get the shortest DOF and zoom in on the pieces. Set the rotation as slow as it goes--about 1 revolution per minute. This way the edges of the jewelry fall out of focus, but as the piece rotates the diamonds on top are sharp. I make sure I overexpose the background so the white clips, then I bring it back down to legal levels in post. We always shoot the full piece with plenty of room for price supers, then grab a few ECU to really show the diamonds and design. I love shooting jewelry, or any product shots. I think I'll like the still side of it even more.

Thanks again to everyone for the pointers. If anyone has anymore I'd love to hear them, and once we shoot some stuff I'll try to post a few samples so you can critique them.

Michael
 
If the mirror can not be locked up before the exposure you need a very heavy and steady tripod/head combo to keep the camera absolutelly still. With flash lighting the short duration of the exposure takes care of possible shake.

The problem with normal flashguns is that there is no modelling light. With a white tent this is not a huge problem, as you just aim for fairly even light and controll it with dark strips of paper. And with digital cameras you can immediatelly see what you are getting.

Connect the camera to a laptop or PC with the Canon remote controll sofware and you get instant large reviews of the shots.
 
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