What settings for extreme close ups of jewelry?

nedcam

nedcam

Well-known member
Hi everybody,

I will be picking up a 300 and have almost no time to play with it before I start shooting extreme close ups of jewelry slowly spinning on a turntable. Literally filling the frame with a diamond ring. Do you think any native scene files are decent or should I download some new ones?

Since it is a small website window (4x3) 720, for clarity I was thinking 60, and AVCIntra. Some shots of a model wearing the jewelry will also be done.

Thanks,

Ned
 
If you're using the stock lens, you won't be able to fill the frame with a ring. If it's for web, I'd shoot 1080p, 24 or 30fps (unless they specifically host 60fps videos, web video is usually knocked down to 24 or 30fps at best, anyway) and use the extra resolution to crop the frame down to just the ring. This will have the added benefit of cropping out a lot of the vignetting of the stock lens at longer focal lengths.

As for the scene files, I highly recommend the DIGNEG file from the Panasonic site. Low noise, nice dynamic range, fairly neutral, and good skin tones for the model shots.
 
Unfortunatly the 300 has no Star-Filter... :-) I think that would be a nice effect, maybe you cant rent one to put on the lens. Just a little idea.

I like the B-STR Scene-File (No. 4), but thats just a personal flavour. Its just comfortable to work with it, because it has a nice range from dark to bright and the colours are very neutral but with Panasonic "Mojo". In the Cinema-Files (05 + 06) the Red/Magenta-Part could be too much.
Even if you have not much time to play around, please check the Master Ped in the Scene Files Menu. It could be switched to +15, then i would change this to something around 0 or below, -5 for example. And setting the gain to -3 is also not a bad idea.

Its difficult to give you the "ultimate" advice, but i hope that helps a little bit.

Bye!
 
You might be able to get it to fill the frame if you fiddle around with the backfocus, purposefully throwing the focus out. Focus the lens as close as it can get, and then see if using the backfocus will let you bring the object into focus. I don't know if this'll work, but it might be worth trying. Otherwise you're going to want a good strong close-up lens on the front of your lens to get those jewelry shots. And a star filter wouldn't hurt either.
 
If the majority of what you're going to be shooting is diamonds, I'd try to keep your lighting setup and white balance as 5000k as possible. I found that when I got deep into a tungsten balance with sources straying around 2800-3000k (specifcally flaring or throwing reflections into the lens) I'd get a violet chromatic abberation. This happened to me with a mirror at one point and I worry that you'd have the same issue with large faced diamonds/CZs depending on what they give you to shoot. It'll also ensure that your diamonds will look as white as they can! Good luck!

Justin
 
Thanks everyone! I forgot to mention that I have a Tiffen +2 Series 9 diopter, and may add a star filter if I can find one (82mm is odd). I'm also shooting watches, etc. This means I will have to turn CAC off according to my Abel Cine rep so I will watch for chromatic aberration.

This is my second time, the first was betacam. I bought something that has made this kind of work a breeze, a $120 30" product photography tent: www.ezcube.com

Thanks,

Ned
 
I'm confused.

For closeup, shouldn't you use the lens macro function or do you not have that on yours?

Curious,
Robert
 
Once I am in Macro I can not zoom. That's why I like the +2 diopter, it allows a little compositional correction.
 
The way I shoot little pretty things is back way up and zoom in, throwing everything except the item out of focus. Keep your aperture wide and use minimal lighting. I like to put one light in the background (softbox or white umbrella)and white card or foam core for fill bounce on one side with black card on the other for contrast and to help with messy reflections and highlights. Expose for the shadows (not the highlights) then close the iris a bit (maybe a stop and a half), keeping the shadows nice and dark but not crushed so much you lose detail. Basically, expose for the fill...somewhere between the highlights and the shadows.

For example:



Yeah, yeah...it's a photo (I took with a 35mm DSLR), but I'm trying to prove a point: Shadows are more interesting than light. I don't think anything (other than the context) matters more than the lighting.

Sorry it's food, though. If I had jewelry to shoot and take a still with I would.
 
profnoxin said:
I'd try to keep your lighting setup and white balance as 5000k as possible. I found that when I got deep into a tungsten balance with sources straying around 2800-3000k (specifcally flaring or throwing reflections into the lens) I'd get a violet chromatic abberation.
Click to expand...

I second that. Tungsten fill is great for warming up light-complected skin tones, but it doesn't work well on jewelry. The cooler the better. Hell, use a window with diffused sunlight.
 
ORIGINAL POSTER HERE: Thanks for the advice friends. Did the shoot, ended up with a HPX170 and I did learn the hard way you CAN NOT use close up diopters that were used perfectly in the SD world, they degrade the image so HD looks like SD. My research discovered there are no real HD close up diopters. Secondly, do not shoot with star filters, horrible chromatic abberation (green) although it can be tweaked in FCP Color. Lighting wasn't an issue, I have an EZcube.

My lesson: rent a 2/3" camera with a long lens.
 
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