DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

A few from today.

Started 6 months ago | Discussions thread
Joseph S Wisniewski Forum Pro • Posts: 35,461
I'd avoid ring lights on faceted stones
1

ASR45 wrote:

BlueRay2 wrote:

i hope you don't mind my critique but your photos are suffering from proper lighting. the fly's body is suffering from the lack of sharpness, detail, contrast and exposure. and same goes to the ring. the stone doesn't look sharp and focused. it is a pretty ring, by the way. so, to avoid all this, i would like to suggest investing in a ring macro light, and also and i'd be looking for a soft box as well. have fun.

good luck.

Thanks, you are right, sounds that a ring light is the answer.

I think it's only "the answer" to the question "how do you suck all the life out of a faceted stone?" (or an opal, or a pearl, or ammonite, or…)

Most gemstones use either dispersion or diffraction to take a ray of white light entering at one angle and send it out as a fan of spectral colors. When you add another ray of white light on a different trajectory, you get a different fan of spectral colors. A third ray of white light and you get a third fan of different colors. Then all those different rainbows superimpose on each other so one fan's red hits another fan's green and a third fan's blue and "poof", it all adds back up to white.

It's a crime against gemology to take a stone with good dispersion, expertly cut to refract light multiple times and multiply the dispersion into a fiery display of color, and then light it so that all that color goes away. That's why when jewelry or gemstones are on display, there are always plenty of point sources of light, and no soft boxes.

Your main is small, a projector lens on a strobe or a projector spot, soft fills enough to knock out annoying shadows, maybe a second point source to even out the stone.

Probably not done with a ring light

-- hide signature --

The term "mirrorless" is totally obsolete. It's time we call out EVIL for what it is. (Or, if you can't handle "Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens" then Frenchify it and call it "LIVE" for "Lens Interchangeable, Viewfinder Electronic" or "Viseur électronique").
-----
Stanley Joseph Wisniewski 1932-2019.
Dad, so much of you is in me.
-----
Christine Fleischer 1947-2014.
My soulmate. There are no other words.
-----
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.
Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.
----
Ciao! Joseph
www.swissarmyfork.com

 Joseph S Wisniewski's gear list:Joseph S Wisniewski's gear list
Nikon D90 Nikon D2X Nikon D3 Nikon D100 Nikon Z7 +48 more
Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum PPrevious NNext WNext unread UUpvote SSubscribe RReply QQuote BBookmark MMy threads
Color scheme? Blue / Yellow