Photographing Jewellery

[Hawthy]

My niece is a jeweller and has her own line of handmade, mostly silver, jewellery. Not too many gemstones. Her website is www.clarepoppi.com Most of the shots on the website are high-key.

Anyway, she is updating her website and my wife volunteered my services to take photos of her jewellery. I know that I will need to use a light tent and some reflective Perspex as a base. I am thinking that an aperture of f16 or smaller would highlight the detail.

Any tips from people who have done this before would be greatly appreciated.

[flashc]

If you didn't want to spend big on a light tent/box, you can make a pretty simple one from a large cardboard box after cutting out 3 of the sides, cover the openings with tracing paper, velum paper, tissue paper or something similar...

I have 6500K L.E.D. lights I use for lighting large and small objects. Add lights to illuminate through the openings and you have a white diffused light on the subject in the box and alter the shadows by moving the lights around, closer or further away.

LED lights are cool to the touch and so won't burn the covering material, box or the house from intense heat other light sources produce

Otherwise, if you have some basic flashes, use 2 or more linked flash guns...

A couple of links for ideas to build a box are below

With the money you save on a tent, you can spend on lights...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1bAh193Iwc

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=build+a+lightbox+on+the+cheap

[Hawthy]

Thanks Flash. Appreciate the help.