Lighting suggestions for Jewellery shots

zing

Complete newbie to photography (the proper kind) here looking for some (probably very) basic advice..

The missus is starting a new business selling handmade jewellery and we need to take photos of the pieces for the www site. And money is very limited here so no going down the professional route -- plus I want to learn how to do it properly for further updates to the site, etc..

Pieces will all be shot against a white background using a diy lightbox (foam board variety). Any shots we've taken todate have been very poor quality and background is far from white. So I'm looking for advise on lighting options (bulb suggestions, etc..) and any other general advice you can give around this -- primarly to get the background to appear white and also to try get the pieces to sparkle, etc..

Oh and for now we're just using standard compact cameras rather than a DSLR but am considering looking to borrow one from a friend.

Not looking for the perfect photo at this stage -- as mentioned above just want to get white to be white and a bit of a sparkle to the pieces (semi precious stones/diamonds rather than gold/silver).

Thanks

PCPhoto

depends on what you are shooting the jewellery for.

if its just for yourself - put a piece of card underneath it, position the jewellery whatever way you want, try to use available light.

if its for a business.... create a setup (see light tent thread) diffuse the lighting.

ThOnda

The cheapest light tent was discovered by Borderfox - a laundry collapsible storage from M&S.
Light from the outside with continuous light (what you see in the viewfinder is what will be in the picture), don't forget to set white balance manually and EV correction due to prevailing white colour.

Produces pictures like this:

TinyExplosions

Something like this would be useful, and not hugely expensive

positivenote

best tip i got from a workshop i went on was use a liightbox like the one linked above on sale in M/S and position you camera on a tripod with its lens looking through a hole in a white sheet of paper in front of the camera. Frame it up and use a remote to shoot it. This stops you getting the reflection of you or the camera in the glass of the jewellery and also, with the light tent, you are getting rid of any potential colour-cast on the glass

smelltheglove

You can get the collapsable laundry baskets in the likes of Heatons, where I got mine or probably argos, a couple of euro 5 max Id say.

If you have a few laps and one of those and a glass table you are sorted.

You basically need to light each side of the tent (aka laundry basket), You may have to alter your white balance depending on the bulbs used, someone may correct me but I think its the halogen bulbs you need.

There you go, cant go wrong for 3 euro http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/8330143/Trail/searchtext%3ELAUNDRY.htm cut to size