My name is Jim Juris and I am a photographer. I am the author of a ebook titled- Inexpensive Jewelry photography Techniques: How to use inexpensive techniques to photograph jewelry, craft, collectible, and online auction items. You may have read some of my posts on some of the about.com forums that I participate on such as the jewelry making, and photography forums just to name a few.
The reason that I wrote this ebook is because when I started making jewelry and participating on jewelry forums I discovered that many people know how to make beautiful jewelry but they don’t know how to take photographs that are good enough to allow them to sell their jewelry successfully online. I decided to help these artisans by putting my photography knowledge into an ebook. The techniques that I teach in my ebook are inexpensive and easy to understand.
I finally decided to start a blog to answer questions that artisans have about photographing jewelry and craft items because I want to reach out to as many people as possible. I want to limit this blog post to only answering questions about jewelry and craft photography. So, if you have any questions about jewelry or craft photography please ask them here and I will try my best to answer them for you. Please don’t ask questions about anything other than photographing jewelry and craft items on my blog unless I open up a new topic for discussion.
Just in case you are wondering how you can find out more information about my ebook, you can visit my web site at www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com
Please feel free to ask me your questions about jewelry and craft photography now.
Jim Juris
October 3, 2007 at 1:21 am |
What a great idea! I take pictues of my students’ work – not much time and not great light. My photos tend to come out on the blue side. Is this a camera setting issue? Thanks
October 3, 2007 at 3:13 am |
Hello Beadinggem,
You are the first person that I am replying to on my blog. Since I have never had my own blog before I hope that what I am doing to reply to your question is correct. I guess I will know shortly.
I am glad that you like my idea for this blog. It gives me a way to help artisans with their photography. I am hopeful that it will work out well for everyone.
I don’t really have enough information to give you a good answer to your question and I am not there to see what you are doing when you take your photographs so I will give you the best answer that I can.
It could be your camera settings, or the lighting or a combination of both. Here is what I recommend. Use a light box to photograph your jewelry. I also suggest that you use halogen lighting for your jewelry phtography. Try to do this away from frourescent lighting. I also suggest that you take out the camera’s owner’s manual and you read it. Keep your camera next to you as you read the owner’s manual so that you can see what the manual is referring to as you are reading the manual.
You should also use a tripod and the camera’s self timer.
Check out the free excerpts that I have on my web site or my page on the Booklocker.com site by going to http://www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com and click on the links. One of the excerpts teaches you how to build a inexpensive light box out of foam core board. There is another excerpt on my Booklockeer.com page that has to do with becoming familiar with your ditigal camera. Just in case you or anyone else is interested I also provide a excerpt on buying a digital camera on both my web site and on my Booklocker.com page. The excerpts are free on both my web site and also on Booklocker.com.
I would recommend that you check your white balance setting assuming that you have a digital camera. Play around with the settings on your camera and see what happens when you change them. That will be the best way to learn about your camera settings. Just set up a piece of jewelry in a light box and with halogen lighting and use the tripod and self timer and take the first photograph, then without moving the camera or doing anything else change the setting again. Keep doing this until you have taken a photo of your jewelry using all of the different settings. Then plug your camera into a TV and take a look at the images on the television. Maybe you will even want to take notes as you are taking the photos, and then print out the images and put the notes on the image so that you can use that as a reference in the future.
I hope that I have answered your question, and that I have given you some good ideas, if not, then please get back to me.
Thanks for being the first person to ask me a question on my blog. Now all that I have to do is hope that my reply shows up properly.
Jim Juris
October 3, 2007 at 4:14 am |
Hi Jim,
Thanks for all your help. My question is…..when using the macro setting where should I focus. Should I focus on the area closest to the camera, the middle section….?
Thanks, Carol
October 3, 2007 at 5:11 am |
Hi carol,
With just the information that you gave me I can’t give you a direct answer. I wil try to answer your question the best I can. I would say that it depends on what you are photographing and what angle you camera is at compared to the subject of the photograph.
For example, my answer could change depending on if you are photographing a pair of earrings or a bracelet which are both pretty small compared to a necklace which may be long.
The answer could also vary depending if you are shooting straight down, straight in front of you or down and at an angle.
The answer could also depend on how close your camera is to the subject. Dept of field could play an important part of where you should focus depending on how close you have the camera lens to the subject.
My suggestion is to use the manual setting on your camera and if you are shooting down on the subject place a coin in the middle of the item you are photographing and focus on the coin. Then remove the coin and take the photograph. That should work for photographing earrings, bracelets, or necklaces.
I would also suggest that you check your camera’s owner’s manual to find out the minimum distance you have to keep the front of the lens from your subject, otherwise the photo or parts of the photo could be out of focus. For example, it may be 3 inches minimum distance from the front of your lens to the closest part of the subject, so make sure that you are not any closer than 3 inches with the front of the camera lens.
You asked a great question, and I hope that I gave you a great answer. If not, please get back to me.
Jim Juris
October 4, 2007 at 6:01 pm |
Hi Jim,
I’m hoping you can advise me…I’m having two problems I’m not sure how to solve. I’ve read my camera manual cover to cover multiple times, and have tried all different settings that it recommends that sound like they should have fixed the problems–but the two issues still persist. I’m taking pics on macro, no flash, and with the white balance set to 1 or the next notch up from 1. With this setting, my pics are coming out either “over exposed” according to the histogram, or–they have a “yellow’ cast to them. It is one or the other-but not both….and I’m using the same settings each time! I’m using an EZ cube, with two of the lights that came with the cube (that have daylight bulbs) -am placing one light on either side of the cube-close to the cube fabric as their book recommends. If I drop down the white balance setting below 1–even by 1 notch-then my pics look too dark!!! I’m not sure what I need to be setting differently–or doing differently….can you pinpoint what might be causing the problems based on the current settings I’m using–and what I might need to change to get the pics to turn out correctly-and that histogram to be “balanced” as it should be? Thanks!
October 4, 2007 at 6:53 pm |
Hi Michelle,
You have been saying “white balance” but I think that you actually mean exposure value.
I would suggest that you check the white balance setting on your camera and set that first to the correct setting for the setup that you have.
Just for the heck of it, set your exposure value to 0 and play with ALL of the white balance settings and see what setting works best for your camera. That may solve the problem.
If not, try experimenting with the exposure value by going from 0 all the way positive and if that doesn’t work, then go from 0 all of the way negative.
When you are doing this testing, don’t do anything else except change the camera settings. What I mean by that is keep photographing the same jewelry item and don’t move your camera. You probably do that anyway, but I am saying that just in case you don’t.
Do you have some type of filter on your lens? I use an UV filter to protect my lens. If what I suggested above doesn’t work, try removing the filter and see what happens.
If none of my suggestions work, then I suggest is taking photographs outside on an overcast day and using a white background see what happens. If you still have a problem, then there could be something wrong with your camera, but I doubt that there is a problem with your camera.
If all of this fails then I would suggest that you contact EZ- Cube.
I hope that I have given you the solution to your problem.
Jim Juris
http://www.inexpensivejewelryphotography.com