What is the best way to take a close up picture of jewelry?

Question

i want to take a picture of a sterling silver butterfly i have to show the details in it. but everytime i try i get a burry picture or a shiny blurry picture. i need a crisp picture where the detail is cleary visible. thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I don't know what kind of camera you have, so take what you need and leave the rest:

Jewelery Pictures

For objects photographed from a distance of 3-4 feet, absolutely any digital camera and any "digital photographer" can get a suitable image.  Don't forget that the largest picture eBay will display (unless you are hosting your own images) is 800 x 800 pixels or less than 1 megapixel.  For jewelery or other small items, you have to learn macro technique.  You can also do this with almost any digital camera, but here's an article that I wrote about jewelery in specific.  I am sure that you will find it helpful.

The best way to take photos of jewelery for a web site is with a digital SLR and a macro lens.  If you are not going to go with a DSLR, almost any point and shoot with a macro mode will serve you well.  The thing is, I feel that you need to use the flash to force the aperture to close while still having enough light for an exposure.  Many here will tell you different, but follow this advice and see what you think.

Use your macro setting and experiment. Let's say you have a point and shoot camera with macro and a flash on the camera. You might have to go to a manual mode to do this, but...

Put your item on a nice background surface. I like to just put it in a ring box or on some velour. Zoom out at least half-way so that you will be working about a foot away from the ring. Be sure that you get focus confirmation. Shoot a picture USING flash. Check the LCD for the result. If you have overexposed the item, use the EV adjustment to reduce the exposure. For small items, I often find that I need to reduce the exposure by about 1.0 EV. (That's -1.0 EV.) It is better to have the item properly exposed and the background underexposed, so just worry about the jewelery for now. Using a deliberate underexposure will cure the "too shiny" appearance of the stones and metal.

If you know how, you can use either full manual exposure or just Aperture Priority and choose a smaller aperture (larger number) to make the ring show up in better focus.

If you have a DSLR, post your question again stating the kind of camera that you have and the lens that you are using and we will give more details.

If you are doing any image processing at all, such with Photoshop or it's cousins, you can crop the image to 800 pixels by 800 pixels and use Supersize images on eBay. I always use the Picture Pack when I am selling anything of any value.

Check out http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/hear... which I did a while ago using a Nikon Coolpix 5400 exactly as described above. I do NOT think this is acceptable, but we decided not to sell the ring anyhow, so I didn't bother to do a better job. It's still better than some I've seen. I don't keep old photos of sold items around, so I don't have much to show you, but at least you know that it's possible to get an acceptable result even without spending huge dollars on your equipment.

The key things to remember are:

-Macro setting

-Zoom out to get about a foot away from your subject

-Use flash

-Try different EV settings and expect that you will end up with a negative EV setting, such as -1.0 EV.

Here are a couple of coin photos done exactly as described, but using a D200:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstei...

Here are a couple more auction photos done as described, using a 60 mm macro lens on a DSLR:

800 x 800  http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstei... (Yorkie)

800 x 800  http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstei... (light box)

800 x 800  http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstei... (light box)

800 x 800  http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04... (light box)

800 x 800  http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04...

This is a coin shot with a DSLR and a telephoto lens, which lets you use the flash without washing everything out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstei...

If you are interested in a full description of an SLR set-up, post a new question and ask specifically for that information.  I'm gathering from the nature of your question that you might be in the point and shoot market.

This question is a link to a serious site about jewelery photography:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 2

A brightly lit room with a camera on a tripod.

Answer 3

Your best bet would be to use a close up lens, like a 105mm macro lens.  This will let you get 1:1 ratio with the jewelry you are taking photos of.  You want to use an umbrella or a translucent type material to shoot the light through, this way you don't get any flashes that reflect off the silver.  

Also, with being so close up it wouldn't hurt to use a tripod to help keep you very still to get a sharp photo.

Thanks for reading!

Answer 4

I have been tying to get better pictures for months and i finally figured out a upclose setting(little flower on my camera) and now my images come out somewhat clear, but i still have to edit them in photoshop, link to my website to see, email me if you have anymoore questions and i will try to help!

Answer 5

Set your camera to 'macro' setting and use a simple background (i.e. wood, solid-colored cloth).

Even better would be a light box. There are instructions for making your own floating around the internet. Only a google search away.