Shots of stones

Just thought I'd put up some images of shots of stones that may or may not help others instead of filing Lefty's thread. Some food for thought really. But to be honest I have no idea what I'm doing apart from fumbling through. But someone may want to play with an idea. Probably won't be a hell of a lot of posts as life comes before faceting and photography. And if I cut a really bad stone, like the one loitering on my dop now, I'm not really in a hurry to display it.

Camera in these two is an Olympus Pen EP2 with a 60mm (120mm - 35mm) macro lens. The stones were placed on this: https://www.ebay.com/p/Trumpeter-98...le-7-in-Diameter/12011369018?iid=311753283018

I stuck a make up mirror on the top to reduce the amount of scratches visible and used a glass drill to mark the center so the stone remains center to the shot.

One was done inside with the sun shining 90* through the window which really made it dance but the dust ust stood out like dogs . The other was done outside in the shade and came out OK. The music, I don't know. The stone is Peridot AKA ''The evening emerald' I cut about 15 yrs ago.

I'm not sure which looks better

[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/VfnRhOTUjnU[/video]

[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/fhc_rNkY_wI[/video]

Very nice there MM :Y:

For some reason, the music to the top video really says "gemstones!" to me

Nicely done! Photographing a gem is never easy. I firmly believe the very best way to display a stone is exactly how you have done it. Moving in a clip. Only way to see all the fire and beauty.

Lefty said:

Very nice there MM :Y:

For some reason, the music to the top video really says "gemstones!" to me

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:lol: :lol: :lol: That's exactly what I thought when I found it. Tried to find a similar clip for the second vid. No go. Don't know if you've ever listed to the clips YouTube supplies but they're very painful to work through.

Sneaky Cuttlefish said:

Nicely done! Photographing a gem is never easy. I firmly believe the very best way to display a stone is exactly how you have done it. Moving in a clip. Only way to see all the fire and beauty.

Click to expand...

Thanks :Y: . They are certainly not the easiest things to shoot. The long lens definitely helped it keep that reflection of lens/camera out of the stone. I also use the timer with the camera on a tripod to reduce any blurr on still shots.

If I bought another camera it would have to be capable to be hooked up to a monitor to take the shot and probably one with focus bracketing to make it a bit easier to get the good shot. That's all down the road.

Love the little turntable, many years ago when I was playing with lasers I stuck a Swarovski crystal on a turntable and fired a Helium Neon laser in to the rotating crystal, the room lit up with a gazillion red dots swirling around the room. Ok, back on thread now

Nice stuff MM, love the little turntable, very handy bit of kit. As for which is better, the first really shows off the sparkle, might be worth trying the same setup and add a piece of grease proof paper just to slightly soften the sun, should have the sparkle without the glare.

Following the discussion on photography on Lefty's thread, I started looking for an old lamp shade but couldn't find one laying around, planned to remove the cover and try some different light weight fabrics as a wrap leaving one section open for the camera. Your turntable would fit inside perfectly then pop it in the sun and see how it looks.

Dihusky said:

Nice stuff MM, love the little turntable, very handy bit of kit. As for which is better, the first really shows off the sparkle, might be worth trying the same setup and add a piece of grease proof paper just to slightly soften the sun, should have the sparkle without the glare.

Following the discussion on photography on Lefty's thread, I started looking for an old lamp shade but couldn't find one laying around, planned to remove the cover and try some different light weight fabrics as a wrap leaving one section open for the camera. Your turntable would fit inside perfectly then pop it in the sun and see how it looks.

Click to expand...

Thanks Dihusky. Yep. That turntable gives it some life. I tried the full sunlight to try and reduce the aperture size so the depth of field increases but the light is a bit glarey as you say. I'll give that grease proof paper a try and post the results, I think you're on the right track.

I like the lamp shade idea. I would really like to have some sort of light tent and I don't think you're going to get an awesome shot of a stone easily without one. Probably going to be my next step. I have played around with yogurt cartons and such like and sometimes I think I've got it, then next stone it doesn't happen. I need to work on it

After some googling I came across this set up https://picupmedia.com/ Yes it costs a lot but shows with the right set up you can get great results with a iphone. But I'm not in a hurry to spend that money yet. There's a few other set ups I'd like to try first that give good results. Just need the dollars.

I made a photo box out of that plastic tissue that you can get a roll of from KMart, etc. It diffuses nicely. I just cut the sides out of a shoe box and glued in the tissue and left a hole across the front for the macro lens. It did work a treat.