Tips on Photographing Your Handcrafted Sterling Silver Jewelry
Since we've been making our own sterling silver jewelry and
posting it on our website, of course, we need good pics for our
customers to view. It's one of the most important aspects of how
your product is perceived by your prospective customers. That
old saying is never truer in this case: a picture is worth a
thousand words! Clic
k here to visit my photo album!
The best way to do this is, of course, digitally. Taking good
quality pictures of jewelry for most is an unsolved mystery.
However, there are some simple techniques used by the
professional, which even amateur photographers can use to obtain
dramatic results with minimal effort. The following examples
show the basic setup that should allow anyone to achieve results
they can be proud of.
The camera that I use is a Canon A520 Digital. It's not too
expensive, and if you go to our website you'll see, it takes
great pictures. The basic setup I use includes an "Ezcube" light
tent to soften the shadows and eliminate glare, while providing
a clean and clutter free background. I also use true color
daylight balanced compact fluorescent bulbs as the main light
source and clear acrylic risers to provide reflections for an
added "professional touch".
The keys to good jewelry photography are sharpness, lighting,
and exposure.
Focus-
It is worth getting out your camera's manual to find out how to
put the camera in "spot focus" mode. The normal focus mode of
digital cameras is some sort of average focus mode. That means
that the camera will look at a wide area of a scene and base the
focus on that area. Since you want to control where the camera
is focusing, it's better for jewelry photography to put the
camera into spot focus mode, this will allow you to control more
precisely what the camera will be focusing on. However, even in
spot focus mode many digital cameras can't really "lock-in" on a
small shiny object like gemstone jewelry using auto focus. So
unfortunately, for close-up jewelry photography, you need a
camera with good manual focus capability.
Another key to a sharp image is a tripod. It is absolutely
essential to use a tripod or similar camera support when
shooting jewelry. A sturdy tripod is better than a flimsy one,
but any tripod is many times better than no tripod. Use a tripod.
Lighting-
Another key to good jewelry photography is the lighting.
Normally diffuse (soft) lighting works best for jewelry. You
have probably already discovered that an on-camera flash does
not lead to good jewelry photos. Not only is the camera's flash
too bright at such a close distance, but it is probably in the
wrong position to actually light up the jewelry properly. An on
camera flash will also create harsh and distracting shadows.
Rather than flash, I like to use continuous lighting for product
photography. Using continuous lights makes it easier to
visualize what the final image will be like. I prefer daylight
balanced compact fluorescent bulbs for lighting. These bulbs
provide nice, natural-colored light and they produce very little
heat so they can be left on for long photo sessions without over
heating the photographer and everything else in the room. Even
fluorescent light bulbs will need to be diffused and for that I,
again, use a light tent as the diffuser. A small light tent
makes it easy to reduce glare and control shadows for jewelry
photography.
Exposure-
Proper exposure is also a key to good jewelry photography. If
your background is actually white but appears grey in your image
or if everything in your image appears darker than you would
like, the image has been underexposed. It doesn't mean you need
more lights or bigger lights, it means you need to let more
light get to your camera's image sensor.
The most likely reason not enough light is getting to the
camera's image sensor is that the camera's auto exposure
mechanism has set the exposure too low. The camera's auto
exposure system doesn't expect to see a very light background.
Since it assumes the background is grey rather than white, it
exposes the image to achieve a grey background rather than a
white background. The result is that everything in the image
appears darker than it should.
The solution is quite simple. Adjust your camera's exposure
compensation setting to slightly overexpose the image. [Nearly
every digital camera has an exposure compensation setting, but
you may need to read your camera's user manual to find how to
adjust yours]. Once you locate the controls for exposure
compensation simply increase the exposure until the image looks
correct. When photographing against a white background you will
normally need to increase the exposure by about 1 to 1 1/3.
(Camera makers make this confusing by labeling the exposure
adjustment setting as EV, Exposure Value)
If you are comfortable with photography and understand how the
camera's aperture and shutter speed affect the exposure, you
will want to pay attention to how the camera adjusts the
exposure. If the camera increases the aperture it will decrease
the depth of field.
A quick review:
1) In order to ensure your images are sharp, make sure you know
how to focus your camera. Digital cameras with auto focus are
often difficult to focus precisely, especially when shooting
small objects. Read your owner's manual and be sure you
understand how your camera's auto focus operates. Most digital
cameras are designed to easily focus on large objects but have
difficulty on small subjects.
2) Use a tripod, even the slightest movement when you are taking
a picture will cause motion blur. The closer you get to an
object the more obvious the motion blur becomes. Even an
inexpensive tripod will make a big difference in the sharpness
of your images. If you are going to be shooting a lot of images,
it makes sense to invest in a good, stable tripod.
3) To get the largest area of your subject in focus put your
camera in aperture priority mode and set the aperture to the
highest number possible.
4) Use soft lighting. Your camera's built-in flash will rarely
give good results for product photography. For soft lighting
either shoot outside on an overcast day or use a light tent or
soft box.
5) Use imaging software. Even inexpensive software like
Photoshop Elements