Ron Seher

I have a friend who wants me to photograph some of his jewelry for his store. I'm most concerned about photographing the diamonds. I want the sparkle like you see in a jeweler's case...not sure if that's possible. I figure I'll need a translucent tent with multiple back drops, roughly 18-24" cubed. I'd like to know any thoughts on "diamond" lights and tents. I've seen them advertised in many types and a wide price range based configuration. My plan is to set up my Canon R6 on a tripod and get even light with no shadows. I'll start with rings and progress from there. If you have any equipment recommendations, I would appreciate it. I'm an amatuer, 73 and retired. I like this challenge but don't want to break the bank doing it...keep it in $200 or less range. Your thoughts?

You guys are always great for good, down to earth common sense advice...thank you in advance.

Ron

Orphoto Loc: Oregon

Ron. Consider using lights that are on constantly instead of speedlights or strobes. You may be making minute adjustments to the diamond's or camera's position trying to get a sparkle in just the right place. It will be considerably easier if you can see the changes visually instead of guessing at what a change in flash might do.

Ron Seher

I agree, I do intend to use lighting that is consistent as in wattage, brand and design so as to not have any fluctuations in the light source.

jcboy3

Even light is dull light. If you want sparkle, you need highly directional light. Go to a jewelry store, look at their lighting. That is what you need.

Robertl594 Loc: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Nantucket

Consider this. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09FJHTFH2/ref=sspa_mw_detail_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9kZXRhaWwp13NParams

Even though LEDs are adjustable, Shoot Raw so you can change temp post shoot.

GLSmith Loc: Tampa, Fl

Determine the backdrop color cloth you want the rings to be photographed on, practice ahead of time the use of a steady light. Use both a hard vs soft light to determine which one will bring out the best brilliance in your scenario ( Maybe a LED light?).. Photograph the diamond rings at about a 40-50 degree angle. Seriously recommend a tripod with use of a remote trigger. An interesting idea, place small objects around the ring...i.e. small colorful flowers or colored beaded necklace

Wasabi

You might look at a book titled "Lighting for Product Photography" for some general ideas. Also pose your question in the Photographic Lighting section and see if EL Shapiro has any ideas.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

High CRI (colour rendering index) bulbs are recommended. High CRI LED bulbs are recommended for continuous displays because they're efficient and also run cool, but for photo shoots, other possibilities like high CRI halogen bulbs can be considered. Tungsten filament bulbs are also a good alternative if you still have any about.

Soft lighting on its own won't bring out the sparkle of the gems. Adding two or three high intensity un-diffused light sources will add some sparkle to them.

BurghByrd Loc: Pittsburgh

In a similar effort I found it necessary to move the light source (LED flashlight) during the exposure (long enough) to generate the sparkle. My efforts to use a speedlight never produced sparkle.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

"Diamonds are Girl's Best Friend," says the song- well unless the girl or guy is a product photograher- they can be your worst enemy. Your only weapon to conquer the enemy is the angle of incidence theory and how to apply it

So, sparkle comes fomr light being reflected for the subject back at the lens so where you place the light in relation to the came/subject axis will determine the rate of reflection and the degree of illumination and sparkles. Easy enough with s simple or flat highly polished surface but a diamond has facets. When cutters style a stone they create multi-planed surfaces that refer lig in various directions.

When a customer goes to a jewelry dealer to select a diamond ring the salesperson will show his wares under intensely concentrated light and move the ring or otere piece of jewelry around under the lig to reveal all its facets and reflective qualities sparkles! A high-quality stone is said to have "fire", a kind of ain inner glow and sparkle dead of carbon spots and perhaps a slightly colder or bluish tint. Brig gold yell diamonds are valuable as well but yellowISH regular diamonds are considered inferior and are compared to industrial diamonds.

Man ofhte Dimond images you see in high-end advertising are heavily and expertly retouched. If that kind of work is not in the budget, you need to get as much quality SOOTC.

My best results come from a simple setup using an overhead softbox and lots of small mirrors and reflectors to create a sparkle in the stone and a light fied on the setting.

I have a small advantage- My grandfather was a master watch and clock maker and jeweller. As a kid, I used to spend some time in his shop and there was a lot of conversation about diamond rings and jewelry so I understand what the jewelry clients requre. I am no expert but I learned some about gemstones and the types of cuts and settings in engagement rings, etc. So. for the OP, your jeweller friend will familiarize you with the shapes and settings and what he or she needs to show in the illustrations.

Macro lens, lots of patience and move those reflectors and lights until you see what you like.

delder Loc: Maryland

The Concept presented here of Dynamic Lighting is imaginative!

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Transparent objects are particularly difficult to shoot well.

In addition to the above suggestions...

Get some black and white "cards" to use off to the side, to reflect off certain surfaces and help "define" the shape of the object. Both the clear glass items below used "flags" in this manner:



The glass squirrel was lit from below, though a translucent panel. For the goblet, only teh background was lit.

Do some experimentation...

The following are soap products a client produces. I ended up shooting by ambient light with a tripod and longer exposures, using a Tilt-Shift lens (to keep my reflection out of the image), with a gently used circular polarizer keeping just the right amount of reflection on the plastic wrapping. Under the products through the background is a plain white plastic "seamless". I also had to use reflecting panels along with white and black flags on some of the shots, propped up off to the side with some sort of putty.



The reason I shot ambient light was the shadows needed to look realistic and with any strobe or continuous lighting that gave even illumination I was ending up with multiple shadows. Plus there were over 200 items to photograph and not a lot of time to do it! So once the lighting was figured out it was just a matter of swapping things out.

deerpark243 Loc: La Mirada, California, USA

Great shot...good to see you from Photocamel.com, which I don’t think exists anymore.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Thank you! Yes, the Camel is gone. I was a moderator on that site for a few years. When the ownership changed this went off the deep end, it carried on for a while but many of the original gang left the site and it finally closed.

The big be a few more old camels on this forum as well.

Kindest regards.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

You'll need BOTH highly specular light sources (like the jeweler uses in the store) and highly diffused light sources (light tent). The diffused source is what makes the gold look good by wrapping around curved surfaces. The specular source causes gems to sparkle. Use both source types at the same time, experimenting with angles and intensities to get the effect you want.