Frances Gerety said, "A diamond is forever." It is a valuable stone everyone wants to attain because it can make your day and bring a smile instantly. But how do you capture a diamond's unique beauty in your camera? Read this diamond photography tutorial. I will show you how to take pictures of diamonds with 10 easy steps and impress your target audience at first glance.
How to Do Diamond Photography
Shooting diamonds can be complex but when you capture the diamond’s sparkle and cuts precisely, nothing can be more satisfactory. Let's see the process of how to take stunning shots of jewelry and make them shine.
Use Soft Lighting
Soft lighting is the best lighting for jewelry. To create a soft lighting conditions, you need a table, LED lights, diffuse lighting, paper cones, and reflectors. Set a table. Place an LED light and diffuse lighting over the diamond. To narrow down the light on the diamond, you can make a paper cone. You can easily make it with black paper so that light does not go out or reflect different colors on the diamond. Place one or two reflectors surrounding the jewelry to reduce harsh shadows and bounce the light back to the jewelry. After taking the diamond photo with equipment, you can remove the background with basic photo editing.
If you do not want to organize studio lighting equipment and want to get it all in one place, you can also buy a lightbox for diamond photography. The light box comes with stripe lights and diffuse lighting. You can change the lighting color, or reduce or increase it. Since lightboxes are large, you can easily photograph any diamond jewelry without worrying about arranging the studio lighting equipment.
Choose the Right Camera & Macro Lens
Diamond jewelry photography cameras are different from other product photography cameras. Thus, you need to choose a camera that is smooth and flexible. Here are some of the best jewelry camera suggestions for you to try- Nikon D3400, Canon EOS Rebel T5, and Nikon D5300.
As for the macro lenses, diamond photographs are taken from a close distance. So, an 85mm macro lens or a 60mm macro lens are the best choices for taking sharp, crisp, clean, and distortion-free images.
Tripod & Remote Control
I recommend using a tripod & remote control for taking diamond photographs. Because when the shutter closes, the camera shakes resulting in a shaky and distorted diamond photo. With a tripod and remote, the camera stays still and the image turns out to be stunning and clean.
You can easily purchase high-quality small tripods and remote controls from Amazon. However, ensure they are smoothly adjusted to your camera.
Set the Camera Settings
Camera settings play a huge role in taking flawless diamond photographs and saving you time in post-processing the images.
Manual Mode: Cameras usually stay in auto mode where it automatically selects the exposures. It will not do. You need to set it to manual mode so that you can set ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and other options to take stunning diamond photos.
Focus: Having a clear focus on the diamond is important. However, when you take a closer shot, the camera may lose focus on the subject. So, you need to manually lock the focus and take the diamond photo.
Raw Format: In order to capture the diamond's every detail precisely, use raw mode.
ISO: Set the ISO to 700-1000. I know it is high and the picture will come out noisy. However, it will capture more details, colors, and light. If you are worried about noise, you can easily reduce it in diamond jewelry post-production.
Aperture: Set the aperture to F/20-28. It is a balanced aperture for taking closure shots with perfection and sharpness. If you set the aperture too low like F/9-10, it will be too bright with blurry & dull edges. On the other hand, if you set it too high like F/40-50, it will be too dark to understand the diamond but the overall image will be sharp.
Shutter Speed: For photographing diamonds, use a slow shutter speed like 1/50-70 to capture a bright and more detailed image.
White Balance: Fixing white balance is a must for diamond photography. keep the camera on the diamond. Choose an accurate white balance from the camera's white balance options, matching the current lighting conditions. Ensure, the image brings out the true color of the subject.
Clean the Diamond
After organizing the equipment and camera settings, you need to clean the diamond. I recommend cleaning the diamond by wearing gloves and using microfiber clothes. The reason is diamonds are sensitive and cleaning it with normal clothes may damage the stone or even leave a scratch. However, microfiber clothes are made with high-quality materials that are environment-friendly, and smooth, and ensure the diamond is properly cleaned without damaging the piece of jewelry.
However, if you do not have gloves or micro-fiber clothes, you can clean it with a cotton bar or brush. After cleaning the diamond, do not touch it with bare hands. Place it on the photography area, covering it with a cloth so that the macro lens can find no fingerprints or dust.
Diamond Photoshoot Ideas
There was a time when e-commerce sites preferred diamond photographs on white backgrounds without any props so that viewers' attention solely stayed on the diamond. However, times and trends have changed. E-commerce companies are using various methods to stand out and capture viewers' attention.
White Background Diamond Photography: Has simple white background diamond photography gone out of trend? No. You can still take gorgeous diamond photos on a white background. Also, you can use simple jewelry photography props like mannequin hands, earring holders, busts, simple white clothes, and white tiles. Any props you use, ensure it is highlighting the diamond's sparkle.
Versatile Props for Diamond Photography: You can use colorful props to take diamond photos. For example, real or fake flowers, ribbons, plants, papers, glasses, salt, colorful clothes, duo boards, and even bricks if you see fit. Just ensure, that the props highlight the diamond's beautiful features like using flowers for a diamond engagement ring.
Take Images From All Angles
For e-commerce diamond photography, one image is not enough. You need to take at least 2 to 6 images from all angles to show the full diamond jewelry photos in detail. For example, one image focusing on the diamond, one image focusing to the right then left side, one image from the top, one image from a distance, and one image focusing on the full diamond jewelry.
It is a great way to showcase the details of diamond jewelry to your target audience, adding value to your customers, marketing of diamond jewelry in the long run, and increasing sales.
Human Model
You can use models to take diamond jewelry photos. You may think I do not have the budget to hire a model, what can I do? Become the model. To show the diamond jewelry to your customers, you do not need to show your face just the ornament on your body.
For example, photographing earrings keeping the camera focused on your ears, a diamond ring on your finger, and so on. Taking diamond photographs of models helps customers visualize how it would look on them. Use different scenarios to take the images. Post model images on your social media and stories so that your customers can engage with you better.
360° Diamond Video
If you have a rotating display to shoot a 360° diamond video, I highly recommend this photography method to capture the customer's attention. Just like all angle diamond photographs, the video will provide detailed information to your customers. They can see the diamond from all angles while it is moving 360°.
You can take 360° videos in the same studio lighting setting. Place the rotating display in front of the camera. Set the reflectors. Start the rotating display and camera’s video mode to capture a flawless video that will mesmerize your audience.
Show Diamonds Speciality with Flawless Retouching
Whether you use a white background, colorful props, a model, or a 360° video, you need to retouch the diamond photographs to provide a perfect final look. Here are the things you need to focus on while retouching a diamond photo.
Retouch Dust and Scratches: Regardless of cleaning the diamond thoroughly, the macro lens may catch dust, fingerprints, or scratches. While removing the scratch from the diamond, do not remove it completely. Just retouch it so that the image looks realistic to the real diamond.
Correct Lighting: You need to play with exposure triangles to take sharp images. As a result, the diamond photographs turn out to be too bright, dark, or dull. So, you need to fix the lighting to the real photography lighting conditions and ensure it looks natural.
Adjust White Balance: If you forgot to fix the white balance while photographing diamonds or taking raw photos, you need to fix the white balance and remove orange or yellow spots from the images. Ensure the color looks even in all places.
Correct Color Balance: Zoom in on Photoshop and check the diamond color. If it looks uneven or different in places, correct it. It will enhance the quality of the diamond photo.
Reduce Harsh Shadows: If the diamond photograph shadows look harsh, make them appear natural and soft. Also, create reflection shadows beneath the diamond to increase the image quality and make it look eye-soothing.
Remove Distracting Elements: If the props distract the audience from the diamond, remove them. You can remove the background or remove the distracting element and retouch the area. Ensure the diamond photo looks gorgeous and catches viewers' attention at once.
Crop Image: Every website and social media platforms have different image size formats. If you publish a larger or smaller image than the allocated size, it will be cropped or added, reducing the image quality. Thus, crop the image according to the platform size and publish it.
Add Watermark: Use your brand watermark on diamond jewelry photos so that people can not use your images illegally and if they share the images, the viewers can come to your site to see more of your diamond images. However, adding a fully visible watermark may reduce the image quality. Just make it appear slightly visible.
A Final Check: After retouching every flaw, zoom out to see the final image. If everything is to your liking, save it.
Wrapping Up
Diamond photography is tricky but capturing the diamond sparkle makes all the hard work worth it. If you are new to photographing diamonds, stay patient and experiment with different props and camera settings. See how the images turn out with various props and backgrounds.
With trying, you can capture amazing diamond photographs that speak your brand's specialty. However, if you want to hire a professional jewelry photographer to capture amazing jewelry images for your brand, read this article to learn how much professional jewelry photographers cost. That’s it for today, Adios!
FAQs
Is diamond photography hard?
Diamond photography is complex due to their reflective nature. Diamond reflections make the light bounce and reflect on the camera, making it hard to capture beautiful photos. However, you can take amazing diamond images with soft lighting, reflectors, and photography techniques.
How do diamonds form?
With intense heat and awaiting millions and billions of years, carbon crystalizes into valuable diamonds everyone desires.
What is the difference between diamonds and gems?
Diamonds and gemstones are produced from natural elements. The only difference is diamonds are made from a single element called carbon while gemstones are made from multiple elements.
How do you differentiate between real and fake diamonds?
Take a pen and put two dots on a white paper. Place diamond pieces on two dots. If the dots are see-through on the diamond, they are fake. Dots will never be visible or see-through on the real diamonds.
Photography
