taking pictures of pearl jewellery

[GemGeek]

The more I see Smeagol, the more I am attracted to him. He's very handsome.

[lisa c]

Aha! Outed at last, Blaire has an eye for the bad boys!

[New Zealand Natural Pearl]

The more I see Smeagol, the more I am attracted to him. He's very handsome.

This look took a lot of mirrow work!
Smeagol is a siamese cat and with its 6 cat years (42 in human years) the centre of our workshop. If he doesn't sleep on the chair next to his master he sits on the jewellery displays to flirt with the female customers. He likes the feeling of pearls under his paws and watching us collecting them from the floor afterwards. Fresh fish would be very welcome as a present of his admirers he is telling me.

[GemGeek]

Well, I hope to get back to New Zealand some day. With my budget he'd better live all of his nine lives so I can scritch his chin.

Oh, and LisaC, you're dead-on!

[CLICLASP]

It is obvious that black, pink and white pearls are not to be shot with same light and settings...
Applying the very good advices given in posts above, here are for criticisms 3 photos of the same white pearl strand on a white sheet of paper with 3 different settings ; all 3 have been treated the same way, after shooting .
All opinions welcome, (setting to be disclosed after being criticized to remain impartial)

[lisa c]

Hi Anna! Please excuse my unprofessional terminology ahead of time, ok?

I think picture one, in the upper left hand corner looks the best, although the pearls have a creamy tint in them that the others don't show.
Also, in picture one the pearls have a 'complete' look, you can see a whole pearl. The other two have a whiter-white look, but they look incomplete because the light is so intense the outline of the pearls is 'blasted open'. Overexposed.

Let's see, you noted that a light box Flattens the appearance, all three exposures look 3-dimensional...are we judging for metering with a gray card? The upper right photo looks un-gray-carded, to me.

Still, why the yellowish tint in the first photo, but not in photos2 & 3?

Are we judging between automatic light metering and manual metering and "scene" options on a digital camera?

[CLICLASP]

Thank You LIsa
These photos were better than the ones I made before but I posted them, I saw how imperfect they still are.
Pursuing a white background, they are still overexposed. All shot with macro setting.
YES the first one is with white balance, I think that's the reason why they got a yellow tint, second with gray card, third with grey panel, so the last 2 look "whiter-white".
The gray system is good except I still have to improve the shooting ... first a better camera.
Thanks again

[lisa c]

Hmmmm. So the photo 2 was gray-carded. I misread that one, because the background was more gray tinted than photo 3. Since you gray-carded photos 2 & 3, what was different in how you photographed them?

I certainly enjoy your quizzes Anna! I'm not often correct, but you give a brain a valuable workout! It's a great exercise, and visually wonderful, without fail.

[lisa c]

I've noticed when I enlarge some commercial site photos of pearls that there's often a wavery area around the pearls. Perhaps the perfectly matched white backgrounds with wavering pearl borders are an indication that the photos are cropped and the pearl images are superimposed on a standard background?

[CLICLASP]

Lisa, too kind of you
I photographied 3 in the exact same way, I wanted to compare the white balance /vs gray card / vs gray panel.
Next I will be trying a non-macro setting because for strands, we loose a lot of depth of field with the macro, better for "only" one pearl.
-
White backgrounds, that was also my conclusion : superimposed on a standard background, meaning that the whole strand has to be completely cropped, OMG, what a job !
-
Here is what I consider as nice photos (also all of pearl-paradise and pearl of joy are perfect)
http://www.betteridge.com/betteridge...cklace/p/5749/

[Alex]

I'm guessing that Octavia would kinda like to meet Smeagol too !!

[lisa c]

I looked at the link, but even the good photos look a bit flattened. Still lots to work on, even for the pros.

I'm going back to the page with underwater photographs, and work fwd again.

[New Zealand Natural Pearl]

have you been trying the trick to use white fabric as background (which I am using since I heard about it in this thread)?

[CLICLASP]

Hello friends,
Here is another shot that I tried to improve, thanks for any comment.

[GemGeek]

Wow, way better!!! Beautiful and not washed out. You can see the overtones on the pearls in this one.