Any advice for shooting jewellery? I'm an amatuer and I've been given various advice including using bounce flash and natural lighting. Which is my best bet? I'd like to keep the equipment simple. Thanks in advance!

i have had good success with natural lighting on shiny subjects by using a large window and a tripod. position the camera and sub. so that the cam. doesn't block the light and it is at a pleasing angle. i use aperature priority f stop high enough to cover sub. with depth of field. then let the camera set the exposure time. by using morning or evening sunlight you can also achieve a nice warming effect. you are at the mercy of the weather but with some timing you should be able to do it. cloudy but bright weather has given me the best results. of course you will need some macro focusing capabilities, you can try a close up filter if you don't have a macro.

NICK
" the fox fears not the man who boasts by night, but the man who rises early and goes forth"

Well, Nick just gave you natural light advice, and I will now give the bounce advice. Since you have an SB22 (I love a filled-in profile) you can bounce. Stack a couple of little tables, stolls, whatever to as tall as you can comfortably work; cover the top with a white tablecloth or similar. Use your macro lens, and shoot from the side, more or less, rather than from directly above. Have the flash on-camera, head tilted straight up. That's it--nothing to buy, no messy chemicals to mix. The closer you get to the ceiling, the more of a surround effect you get from the bounced flash. There are any number of different ways to shoot small shiny objects, but these are the two cheap and simple solutions. Oh, except one more suggestion, which may be the best of all: do you have a flatbed scanner? Place the jewelry face down on the glass, and cover the whole thing with a black cloth. The result is simply amazing, but this is a digital method.

--scott

"Less is not more. Enough is enough. Less is less."
David Vestal

--scott

"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
Pablo Picasso

Thanks Scott n Nick! Now I've got more options to choose from...will try them out and hope the results are good =)

p.s. the bit with the flatbed scanner is really new, I'll have to try it out...when I get a scanner...

and another method.......

I used the metal frame of a clothes holder set up on a kitchen table and covered with a 3mm thick layer of transulcent foam (actually it was underlay for wooden flooring). I then set up a flash light with a 60 cm soft box at about 80 degrees. This created the staurated soft light that mimics a bright overcast day.

Then, I used a slave light - still outside the tent - at various angles to act as a catch light. I also used a small torch as a sort of snoot to pick out specific highlights.

After numerous test shots I found the ideal setup and the results were very good. The major advantage with this is you don't have to wait for the light and at this time of year in the UK you can wait a very long time.

Cheers

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

thanks again, didn't realise there were so many ways to go abt it...this one sounds a bit more complicated. I'll try when I'm more confident though