June 2nd, 2011 | 
While working on putting together test result for an upcoming Leica X1 vs Fuji X100 article I found this one year old photoshoot which was never released before. According to pool’s result (did you vote? see it on the right), jewelry photography is the most interested topic among my blog readers, and I am sure this post will be appreciated.
Customer has such an interesting idea: DNA encoded jewelry!
Have you ever seen graphical representation of DNA test result? It can be represented graphically like this:
DNA sample test result
Translated to jewelry such information may be represented like this:
Atlanta jewelry photographer: DNA encoded golden ring
Nice? I was fascinated by the idea and its implementation. While amount of stored information is far from the real, the visual representation is quite unique and personal…
It works like this: you send samples of your DNA to a company (see the very last photo of the post: this is a specimen collector) and they do test and engrave results to a ring which will be sent to you along with the test results. More information can be found on a client’s website: Entity23.com
I did not have detailed shots of the lighting setup, but I’ve got a video from the shoot and captured few images from there. The initial setup was pretty simple: two large diffusers on both sides with spotted (10° honeycomb grids) light sources behind them. The third light was behind the scene, with slightly larger spot on it. I was using various diffusers to cover it when necessary.
jewelry photography lighting setup building stage
When shooting has started, lighting setup was squeezed closely around the shooting area: it was necessary to eliminate side reflections which may appear on a spherical ring surface. Also, 10 ° snoots were replaced with 30° or 40° ones (see the image below). Larger spots worked better to create smooth gradient reflections on a jewelry.
The actual shooting setup
Atlanta photographer: jewelry photography lighting setup
The idea to shoot these rings with the stone as a background was brilliant! It worked very well with the yellow gold, check the reflection from the stone on the ring:
Atlanta jewelry photographer golden ring on stone
BTW, we did not use focus stacking on most of the images form this set. It was only necessary for shots like the one below.
Atlanta jewelry photographer golden rings
One more example of how cool diffusers can be used to get gradient filling on a flat matte (and not only) surfaces:
Atlanta product photographer example product shot
Hope it was interesting. I have finished my tests with Leica X1 and Fuji X100, and results will be posted next week, but I already know the winner. Subscribe now if you do not want to miss the test results:-)
| Shoot Specification: |
| Camera gear: |
- Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III DSLR
- Canon 180mm F3.5 L Macro lens
- Manfrotto 454 Micrometric focusing rails
- Canon Remote Switch (you do not need to shake the camera when trigger)
Lighting, light modifiers and accessories:
- Paul C. Buff Lighting: 3×640WS
- MK Digital Direct Holding Wax used to hold rings and small object in the uprigth position.
- X-Rite ColorChecker Passport
- Adobe Lightroom 3 and Canon EOS Utility as a remote capture solution for tethered shooting
- Photoshop CS5 Extended
Exposure specification: shutter speed 1/250 sec, F18, ISO 100
Update: Jewelry e-book is out!
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DIY Solutions for Jewelry PhotographyThis e-book is about jewelry photography. Author: Alex Koloskov |
About The Author: Alex Koloskov
The lighting magician, owner of AKELstudio, Inc.
