Hello my fellow citizens of R.R!

I have a great difficulty to make exceptable quality photo of shiny object in my soft box. Like metal dragon figurine, jewellery!  I try to use less as possible light  to avoid shine, but still the final shot is too shiny and loosing details on an object.  Any advice or good idea? Help me out please! Thank You!

seeyus  Tunde!

Not absolutely sure about your shooting conditions, I assume you mean a light tent as opposed to a soft box?

You could try to diffuse the light as much as possible, move the lights further away and fire/shine them though transparent white material (two layers if spssible), and fit a polarizer to your lens

Yeah i have the same troubles since i like to photograph jewellery and perfume bottles, so i just change the position and angles of the light source and fiddling around with the exposure.

Hi Tunde - Be glad to help if I can but can you give some more detail with perhaps an example shot.

The basic principle with shiney objects is usually to have a large even light as close as possible. With jewelery a small point light is often used with this to give a sparkle to any stones. With glassware managing the reflections is key ie have a black card or roll of paper just outside the frame to arrange the reflections you want to give the glass an outline.

hth - Richard.

Ring: I am kinda happy with it except, how can I avoid a reflection of a camera in a ring. That black spot on a ring when a light background used. Not happening with dark bckgrd thou.

( White bckgrnd details: 1/15 sec, F2/8,  ISO 200, Tungsten, Ap.prior, ecp.cmp  -0.7)

( Black bckgrnd details: 1/2 sec, F2/8, ISO 200, Tungsten, Ap.prior, exp.comp -0.7 )

( Light bckgrnd details: 2.83 sec, F/8, ISO 200, Tungsten, Apeture priority, exp.comp -0.3 )

( Dark bckgrnd details: 1/3 sec, F2/8, ISO 200, Tungsten, Apeture priority -0.7 )

seeya Thnks for help

I have only ever shot models and large items agenised a white background, but I guess the same principles apply only on a larger scale.

1. The background should be metered at 2 stops over your camera settings this keeps the background pure white. (for example background f11 subject light f5.6 and camera f5.6)

2 The subject should be as far as possible away from the white background, this stops light overspill bouncing back and over exposing the subject.

3 if using a single light to light the front of subject this your camera f stop should be the same as the front light say f5.6, if using two lights to light the subject meter them independently and then together, remember the where the front lights overlap on the subject (centre) will be brightest, so you may need to reduce the front light power to say f4 which will give the brightest point of approx f5.6.

If  possible use a flash meter and take a flash reading for flash and an incident reading for hot lights.

If you havnt got a flash meter (if shooting digital) use the histogram to assess exposure)

Understanding histogram.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml

Metal jewelry is one thing and metal jewelry with stones is more difficult.  What happens is light diffused and controlled effectively for acceptable reflection in a photo will leave most gemstones dead cold.

For this, a pinpoint light might be tried on a stone..or do as advertiser photogs do...take two shots and layer the sparkly stone on the "diffused light" image.  I know, we would like to do it in one shot!

You might try experimenting with things like the black coils of paper in the diffused area and with different diffusing methods, such as even adding thin tissue(like the white kind things are packed in) here and there to see effects on light on different areas. 

Unless you have a "theme" set of some sort, to get the item only a homemade infinity curve helps in the final look.  I like white or off white for this.

Stray light from outside the "tent" or diffused area is always asking for problems. 

Best wishes!             Tom.

I have to add something more.  You have wonderful advice already and some of the technical details needed.

My thought is this, comes from taking jewelry images at work(I am a professional jeweler) but mostly taken for reference and appraisal forms.  I have very, very limited resources there. Lighting is generally flourescent with what ever diffusion I can manage, single source lighting with lots of other area lighting affecting the shots.  

As I said in the previous post, do the best you can to keep external lighting from falling onto your subject.   That external stuff is ambient light and there is not much to do to control it.  Secondly, if at all possible, use at least two light sources.  With one light  there is the dreaded "black reflection". This is where the reflection of light is not there or a dark object is reflected in the metal and the metal looks almost colorless and black. With shiny objects, this is not uncommon in photos.  Our eyes do not see the black as black since apparently the mind compensates and has a larger dynamic range than film or digital.

 There is not much to do to correct the black reflection effect and make it look right in postwork.   Look over the scene as best and as long as you can with the viewfinder and try a shot. With digital, at least you can delete and back up to rearrange the lighting.    The real effort is in setting up the shot the best you can see with your eyes,then  with the viewfinder and trying a shot or two.

White balance needs to be custom set.  Most digitals allow this option.  Otherwise, the color is very, very difficult to get right. Even shooting in RAW will not assure proper white balance with jewelry items but is much better than jpg.  At work , time and software permits only jpg an generally single light shots.  Ugh! That is a pain!  The single light is difficult to work with when reflections are the real culprit in messing with an image.    Just my 10 1/2 cent worth.       

                                                                                                                                 TomDart.

PS. re the black on the ring you call reflection of camera. Since only the bg changed, maybe it is not the camera....looks like the dreaded "black reflection".  Why would the cam show in one and not the other...hummmm..

Firstly I have to say these are are good shots of a difficult subject so well done!

Great advice given by Tom & Simon. As Tom says: time, patience and attention to detail  are often the keys to great product shots, with a fair amount of trial and error thrown in too.  I would try bracketing the exposure and getting several shots to blend together this way you can pick the best of each and mask out bits etc.

If done in aperture priority you can vary the light over the objects increasing the dynamic range of what you can shoot.  If you have PS CS2 then this is a perfect subject for HDR images.

If done in shutter priority you can vary the sharpness over different areas therefore choosing your own DOF. This is often done in product shots, just look at some adverts and labels on food you will see the DOF is not a genuine DOF but something chosen by the photographer to emphasise different parts of the image.  It can be very effective if done with subtlety.

Richard.

Thank you guys, I will try out all advises what given here! Thanks again!

seeyus  Tunde

The idea is to show reflections and getting rid of or controlling that.  Pay no attention to color or other stuff since none has been touched to make a decent shot. And, lighting is all wrong for the gemstones, no life there.

See the black reflection in the image on the left?  I took a piece of white copy paper, rolled it up a bit and moved it around to see how reflection was affected. I suppose the ring gained some light from the white paper but also the paper reflected in the ring and between the ring and the cause of the black dead area.  This is what I mean by "set-up" is 90% of the time.  It takes a while and some test shots to see if our eyes are telling us what is really seen in the camera!

A simple move of the paper and the black went away.   Now, there is reflection above that...well, no need to do this ring anymore!  I hope the pics help you understand what I am getting at.

A paper or object can act as a relfector of light, as a gobo(go-between) blocking light and casting a shadow, or can be reflected in the metal itself and be unobtrusive.   Obvioiusly if a red paper was used in this case, the ring would have shown an unnatural red area...so white was chosen to match the background.          Take care and have fun with your light tent!               Tom.

WoW Thanks Tom, I go straight away set up my light tent and try to do what You explaned here. Make a lot of sense.  

seeya Tunde